Stalin: After Dark

Good person? Uh, alleged good person exactly. Yeah. Well, today Brandy and I are going to be talking about Joseph Stalin, Joey Joe stall Yeah, yeah, Uncle Joe, the big man in the Dictator. Maybe the most successful dictator of all time. Um, he's in the running. Yeah, no, he probably is. Actually, yeah, yeah, he's in the running. One of the more prolific mustaches in the Dictator, very famous mustache, right up there with

the hitler Um, although some people still rock the Staalin. Okay, so everybody in its kind of the cliffs notes of Joseph Stalin's career. He uh took over the Soviet Union after Lennon died in four He purged a bunch of people. He starved several million more from nineteen two to thirty three. During his time and power, he's estimated to have killed at least six to nine million people, give or take

a few millions. Six to nine millions. Yeah, yeah, Like he's right under Hitler in the in the murdering his own people death toll um. He went up against Hitler in one in World War Two. He might have heard of that. Uh, and then he died and had a movie made about that by the dude who created veep Um. So that's a stalling everybody knows. That's the Stallin we're not going to talk about today. Today is the story is about the Stalin that you don't know. This is

Joseph Stalin after dark. Oh, this is a sultry Stalin. Okay, Well, we're gonna start with some of j Stall's youth and then we're gonna go into we're gonna talk about everything but Stalin at work. So we're gonna talk about Stalin at play, Stalin at dinner, Stalin on vacation, like a weekend sta. Yeah, weekend Stalin. You know this, Stalin, Stalin's movies. Yeah, all the stuff staling like you so, um, we're going

to kick this off with some backstory. Joseph Stalin was born Joseph de Jugasville, which is a Georgian last name, which is you know where he was born, uh, and Georgia. At this point you might look at it as like to the mainstream Czarist Russia, it would be like the middle of nowhere Oklahoma. And in fact, it was commented on his whole life that he had like a really thick accent. Okay, yeah, gotcha, that's interesting. He was like a kind of down home cowboy ish, that kind of drawl. Yeah.

If you were going to represent the politboro by accents, most of them would have like East Coast or West coast, like slick, you know, cosmopolitan accents. And Joseph Stalin be talking like they is like a deep set, like like a like a sharp out of bail Oklahoma. Act sing. Yeah, he's like actually from Georgia. Yeah yeah, yeah, no, actually that's that. I shouldn't used that Oklahoma. Yeah, that's funny. Wow. He was the son of a shoe cobbler in the Georgia in town of Gory. His father was a drunk

and beat the ship out of him. His mother Kiki or k k K is how it's usually spelled kept the peace, but not all that well because she also beat the ship out of her. Um. Yeah, this is a really dark version of that Adam Sandler movie about being a shoe cobbler. Yeah, yeah, exactly. It's it's actually less dark because Sandler movie is devoid of soul. And I'm just gonna pretend that Joseph Stalin's parents are Adam Sandler and Jack and Jill. In my head, those are

his parents. Actually, just some deep Sandler cuts pulling out here. Although when I start talking about Joseph Stalin, my mind immediately goes to Adam Sandler. Sure, sure, shut out. That's what he did every time he would sign an order for execution forman exactly had a stroke at the end, right, And that's actually what it sounded like, a lot of strokes. Yeah, But people just assumed that he was okay because he was such a Sandler fan, but he was actually just

having strokes. Since thank you, well, I'm not allegedly good person. Um. Stalin's mom justified beating her son by saying she had to quote govern her unruly treasure, which is like some Norman Bates ship unruly treasures. It almost sends like how you talk about trimming your pupid caret Absolutely have to govern my unruly treasure, govern my unrulee Like she's always looking at a giant bruch or a ring of some

kind when she's saying it her son off in the distance. Yeah, that's definitely a sentence that you expect from a bruch wear. She wore a cape every day. It's what that sentence says to me as an adult. She told him the beatings had done him no harm. Stalin insisted he had a terrible childhood where he wept constantly, which is probably true, probably something Stalin wasn't lying about. Um, it's a lot of pressure being an unruly treasure. It's really a lot.

I just want to be a boy. So Joseph's dad was out of the picture pretty quick, but he popped in from time to time to insist that his son take up the family trade of making shoes. Stalin did not want to make shoes. He liked books like Sadam Hussein. Um Kk realized that her boy was special and decided that he should become a priest. Um because back then, if you liked books, that was the default. Yeah. Hey, nerds. Yeah, nobody was like, you should go to Hollywood. They were

like a priest. That's the gig for you. Go read the book, the one book we allow. Yeah. Um. So as a little kid, Stalin was successful in sort of the low level children's gang warfare that was common in his village. But when he hit yep, just classic children's gang warfare, just good old late eighteen hundreds Russia. Um. He had had a lessons though, and he stopped being so successful because he was very short and suddenly was less imposing. Other kids made fun of him because of

his small pox scars and his fucked up arm. His left arm was two inches shorter than his right because he'd been run over by a horse and buggy, which is the most eighteen hundreds injury you can have. I like that he's just like a like a Harold Lloyd movie for the first eighteen years of his life. Basically, that's amazing. Yeah, he's he's starting out rough. How do

you get rid of over by a horse and buggy? Yeah? You, And I also would figure that you would specify either the horse or the buggy hit you, but maybe he got hit by both. Maybe, like all like four legs and then four wheels. Yeah, so how does that make your arm shorter? Is it just like it just guess I just got like broken and it didn't grow right something like that. Yeah. So I'm picturing that his parents are Adam Sandler and Jack and Jill, and then he

is Chris Elliott from Scary Movie Too. You should really get started on this screenplay perfect Like, it's a very deep cut reference for five people that are listening. That's who we do this podcast for. Um so. At age nine, Stalin or Joseph at this point enrolled in a theological school. He was devouted first and never missed a mass. Since this was a religious school, most books were forbidden obviously uh, and the teachers encouraged kids to write out their peers

for reading band literature. Stalin later admitted to writing out a whole bunch of kids. So of course he loves to snitch. Yeah, seeing seeds here, Joseph snitch Stalin okay uh. At age thirteen, Joseph read a copy of Darwin's The Origin of Species. He stayed up all night and told KK his mom, I love the book so much, Mummy, that I couldn't stop reading it Joseph decided that God didn't exist, because if he did the world would be more just. He dropped out of Jesus School at fourteen,

which horrified his mother. Fourteen, man, that's a man back then. Yeah, that's true, Like most of you don't make it to fourteen. Fourteen year old then has lived through most ship than like a sixty year old today. Yeah, exactly, the haggard staring off in the middle distance, thinking about all the lives you've seen in all the horse and buggies have been run over by Yeah. Um so now young and unemployed, which is the thing fourteen year olds could be back then. Uh.

He wandered into a meeting for his local Bolshevik party. Uh, so he started being a Bolsheviks seemed to like that. He got a job at an observatory in eighteen nine. It was part time, so he was able to keep up his revolutionary ways. He spent a lot of time reading Napoleon's memoirs, and he told his friends that he planned to learn from Napoleon's mistakes, which is a normal thing for a like sixteen year old to tell his friends.

I mean, what an intense kid, can you imagine? Just like oh, I stayed up all night reading Darwin and I love Napoleon God. Okay, Stalin, this is I think the most I'm actually of a person that you could be at sixteen. If he was alive today, the first sentence out of his mouth and any given conversation would be that he didn't own a TV. Would be that guy. Oh boy. Um, he would have the same mustache though,

Oh yeah, definitely a lot more flannel. Yeah, so much flannel. Um. Stalin or Joseph got a job working at an oil refinery storehouse. Working conditions there were exactly what you'd expect of bizarist oil refinery. So that's what you're saying, up to code, and that code was not a thing. Um. So Stalin was pissed that the workers were suffering and toiling to make in his meat while the wealthy lived in mansions and got to go to parties all the time,

which is totally understandable. I'm on board at this point. I like that he organized protests. The protesters clashed violently with police, and suddenly Stalin had to go on the run. Um. He was arrested in nineteen o two and sent to Siberia, which sounds like the worst thing that could happen to you. Yeah.

From I'm listening to another thing about rashputiness from Siberia and everything they say about the area, I'm like, it apparently wasn't that bad, Okay, because it wasn't He wasn't sent to you getting to get sent to a prison in Siberia. Just just got sent to a little town in the middle of nowhere. And they gave you money every month. That was what when they when they exiled you, That's what they did, is they were just like, go live in the middle of nowhere. Here's some money, so

you don't starve. Can I get excited? Yeah? I kind of feel like that's a sweet gig. That sounds pretty Can I just piss off the president enough that I get to live somewhere else? Send me somewhere else and give me I don't care if it's cold, it's getting really hot, and though global warming is real, because it'll be like a nice seventy by that time I get there, exactly. Um So yeah, for the rest of his life, this is like one of, if not the very best periods

of time in Stalin's whole life. He would talk about it for the rest of his days. He would constantly tell people a story about skiing into the Tiger, shooting a dozen partridges, and then almost freezing to death on his trip back. Stalin would brag about the time he shot twelve birds and nearly died, even after he'd beat Nazi Germany and conquered a fifth of the world, which is weird. Wow, now he's really that that middle lot to him? Yeah, yeah, I really had other things to

brag about by that point. Yeah, I mean well yeah. Uh. Fast forward seven, Joseph was twenty nine and had grown an influence among the Bolshevik party. Lenin came to see him as the kind of guy who could all caps get ship done. At this point, the bolshep X, We're still fighting to overthrow the czar and it was not going well. They were broke and they needed money for more bombs to throw at the Zar's. Uh. Stalin was like,

I can get you some fucking money. His preferred method of achieving this goal was a good old fashioned bank heist. Stalin sat down with his boy Camo, which is what you'd expect from the name of a guy you robbed banks with, to figure out a plan. Uh. Stalin made contact with the pro Bolshevik worker at a bank in Tifflis, where he lived, who told him that a bunch of money was due to arrive on June. So Stalin, Camo and their fellow desperadoes all showed up at Yerevan Square

downtown to wait for the stage coach. It arrived at ten thirty am, and they just started throwing grenades and bombs all over the place like that was there, that was their just throw bombs at everyone. So they made off with the money, which was about three or four million in modern dollars, and they killed forty or fifty people. Yeah, well, yeah, it won't be the last time. No, no, this actually counts as charity by the rest of Stalin's record, Yeah, exactly.

So it turned out that most of the stolen bills were in like gigantic five thousand ruble notes that had never been used before, and those as government had records of all of the serial numbers on those bills. So most of the money that Stalin had killed like fifty people for, wound up being useless. Kom bolsheviks um. But he'd still prove that he could, you know, get shipped done. It wasn't entirely a wash, but it was a bummer. In nineteen o seven was also a bummer because it

was the year that Stalin's wife died. She passed in December from some illness or another. Knowing nineteen o seven, it might have been like a stubbed toe that exactly went bear shaped, and assuming she was fourteen, and she said I've seen enough. Yeah, I've lived too long already, even five children. It's time for me to leave. Stalin claimed that quote with her died, my last feelings for humanity,

you can read that is super prophetic. But he wound up falling madly in love again and remarrying, So he's probably just being dramatic. I think he's just a very dramatic person because he was told that he was a ungovernable treasure. What was the quote was unruly treasure and unruly treasure. Yes, an unruly treasure. And he's just like that's the line that he used as a young twenty something on women. And he'd be like, look, honey, I'm

just I'm just an unruly treasure. I could see it working, No, especially with that mustache. No, and he's he we should pull Okay, you've seen the young. He was a good looking guy, Yes he was. He was a little Viti guy, but he was a good looking guy. Exactly. No, he had the charm, which believe, which is like, here's the thing, I don't trust people that have always been attractive, and this is the most exactly what percent of the time they turned out to be stalid Exactly. I've seen that

guy at so many overpriced bars. You know, he's got like a kefia on and like, yeah, he's just he's sitting in the back of the coffee house. Maybe he's got a guitar. Just always oh, what's see this, We'll see this, just the effects of French accent, even though he was born in Milwaukee. Exactly. Yeah, we all know Stalin of a person Barret per Okay. So Stalin's career kept lurching forward. He charmed Lennon, He wrote a bunch

of articles for Pravda. In May of nineteen twelve, Joseph Jugos Feely became the editor at Pravda, which is, you know, big old Bolshevik magazine. The next year he started to use a noum revolution instead of Jugos Filly. He called himself Stalin. We're steel so Joseph Steele. Yeah, I'm Joe Steele. Is there a modern porn star whose name is Joseph Steele? Because it feels like somebody is like, if it's not untapped market, Yeah, untapped market to be tapped by Joseph

Steele's tapper. Come on, somebody tap that. Yeah, we're given out a name here. While Stalin was so World War One came in nineteen fourteen, had a big deal, didn't go well for Zars to Russia didn't did not. Yeah, you know the rest of the story. The Zar gets overthrow in the nineteen seventeen there's a big st civil war and the Bolsheviks wind up in charge. Lennen rules for a while, then he dies, and then through a combination of cunning and murder, Stalin's in charge by uh

he shared power with a group of magnates. He wasn't an absolute ruler at this point. The magnates were powerful political leaders who ruled over various aspects of the Soviet state. These are the guys that the death of Stalin. The movie focuses around, guys like Malinkov and and Khrushchev cabinet. For lack of a better yeah, yeah, that's a good term for them. Um, these guys were mostly young at this point in their thirties and mostly self educated. They

all lived together in the same buildings in Moscow. They worked and feasted and partied together. And friends, Yeah, they were all. They were mostly friends. They all like had had like sometimes a couple of like wives and girlfriends in common. Um, they would all hang out all the time. You know, Stalin would just drop by to like talk to people about things. Stalin is the Phoebe of this group. I was going to say, Rachel, Well yeah, probably actually Rachel.

I just feel like Stalin would run like an idiot. And also like, if Stalin had ended up with a Paul Rudd, the world would have been a better place. Yeah, yeah, that's that's unquestionable. Sure, exactly, really weird movies, but probably Paul Rud would have taken like a turn for the art house cinema. But yeah, yeah, exactly, yeah, okay. Um, So Stalin got married to his second wife, Nadia Alujeva in nineteen nineteen. She bore him a son, Vassili, and

a daughter's Lana. Stalin seemed to love his wife, but they were both busy, career focused people. He wrote her sweet love letters, saying he was quote lonely as a horned owl without her, and uh, signing them my kisses your Joseph. Yeah, he's a sweet guy at this point. He's a sweet guy at this point. He's killed a lot more people by this Yes, they're starving peasants, by by the hundreds of thousands, right, yes, you're correct, well, by the thirties. Yeah, um, but he's a sweet guy

to his friends. Uh exactly. Stalin had also turned into a sex symbol at this point, though, by the time he's in charge, and that did not help his marriage. The Wonderful Book in the Court of the Red Zar describes one of the letters he got from a female admirer, a teacher. Dear Comrade Stalin, I saw you in my dreams. I have hopes of an audience. I enclosed my photograph. Damn girl, Stalin replied, comrade unfamiliar. I ask you to trust that I have no wish to disappoint you, and

I'm ready to respect your letter. But I have to say I have no appointment, no time to satisfy your wish. I wish you all the best. Jay Stalin ps your letter and photograph returned. Wow. I mean that's the most proper way of it's actually he let somebody down. He's handled, actually, Joseph Stalin, and this is handled being hit on by a young woman better than most modern American politicians. Absolutely. This is also like the first Tinder is what just happened?

He swiped right? Yeah, exactly, no, thank you, and he did swipe left on a number of ladies. It's not absolutely confirmed, but there's a lot of circumstantial evidence and that and that Ada his wife was very angry about some of that, you know, and maybe it wasn't true, but she just suspected it. But either way, she thought he was fooling around and she was pissed. When you got that kind of ego, I assume you probably are messing around. One woman isn't going to do it for you. No, no,

when not when you're the dictator of all Russia. Now, when we get back, we're going to talk about the dinner party that led to the end of Joseph Stalin's marriage, Yes, and then we're going to get into Joseph Stalin's growing madness, his wacky everything is is. We're just going to talk more Stalin and coming up. We also have a whole lot of drinking, a whole lot of partying, a whole lot of vomiting, and what I'm just going to describe as Joe stall pulling a chainey oh, all right, and more.

After sweet Lady Capitalism sings you her lilting lullaby welcome back, we are talking about Joseph Stalin and his troubled marriage to not Yet. At this point, Joseph Stalin is the sexy leader of the New Soviet Union. Uh not yet and he are very much in love, except she thinks he's cheating on her, and things come to a head at one banquet in nineteen thirty two. Oh she was also angry at him for starving hundreds of thousands of

peasants to death, which is a fair fair Stalin. You you know, we've all been there with a partner where like you think they might be cheating on you and they're starving the Ukraine. Well, it's like when you make that pros and cons list of like trying to really break down of this relationship, has you know, has the legs to stand forever, and you're like, okay, I mean really he bought me flowers but he's starved a lot of starved three and a half to four million peasants. Yeah,

it's rough. It's rough. So that's where their relationship is. Uh. There at this big party, everybody's drinking heavily, and Stalin had not noticed that Nadia had dressed up for the event. She wasn't a girly girl and she didn't dress up often, so it was a big deal that he didn't notice it. Stalin did eventually notice that Nadia wasn't drinking. I'm going to quote here from in the Court of the Red Czar.

Why aren't you drinking? He called over, truculently, aware that she and Bukaran shared a disapproval of his starvation of the peasantry, She ignored him. To get her attention, Stalin tossed an orange peel and flicked cigarettes at her. But this outraged her, which of course it did, which she became angrier and angrier. He called over, Hey, you have a drink. My name isn't hey? She read toward it furiously.

Rising from the table, she stormed out, it was probably now that, but Yanni, which is one of these magnates, heard her shout at Stalin shut up. Shut up. Stalin shook his head in the ensuing silence. What a fool, he muttered. Wow. Yeah, so she shot herself later that night. Oh yeah, Yeah, nobody really knows why. Yeah, it's a bummer. It's a really sad story. Man, that's a girl I would like wanted to hear her, like getting her groove back movie. It's like the movie that's that's the one

we deserve. No, we do not get that movie. Um, we we don't get anything like that movie. Nobody knows why she did it. There's a bunch of theories, but it broke stolid. There's no evidence of it. Yeah. Um. He threatened to kill himself a bunch of times. When Nadia's mother showed up, like while the body was still in the house, one of the doctors offered her some Valerian drops, which you're supposed to like calm you down and like help you not freak out when the worst

thing ever is happening. She said she couldn't drink them, and so Stalin grabbed the bottle and chugged them all down himself. Um. He insisted his wife's suicide had crippled him, and he did change after that. Prior to her suicide. The Soviet Union, like I said, had been starving a lot of people. But life in Moscow among the magnates and their families had been wonderful in many ways. Nadya

suicide started the terror that followed. Where he's just killing all these people who were close to him because he kills most of her family. Oh yeah, yeah, over over a course of years. But he butchers most of her family. He butchers most of his first wife's family. I mean, not really how the you should keep the memories? Not really know. Most grief counselors recommend against massacring the families of your dead spouse. I mean, no mother in law's can be at pain in the ass, But I wish

I could do that. Yeah, um so uh. Stalin's friend Nikita Krushchev, who took over after him, said that Stalin was a different man at different times. I knew no less than five or six Stalin's. At one point, Joseph Stalin got angry at his son Vassily for using the name Stalin. He said, but I'm a Stalin too, and Stalin said, no, you're not. You're not Stalin, and I'm not Stalin. Stalin is Soviet power. Stalin is what he is in the newspapers and the portraits, not you know,

not even me. Wow. Yeah, he's like very self aware of the thing that he's created. He would have been great at marketing. He would have been terrifying at market yea. He would have been Don Draper times a thousand. Yeah, exactly, just as a trap, like just as attractive. Yeah, a very similar character. Actually who I like, had a wife, cheated on her, a whole bunch, drank a bunch, like, doesn't go by his real name. All right. Yeah, it's

actually kind of weird how close those guys backstories are. Um. Stalin was also described as very charming. He could be graceful and sensitive. People love to be around him. He was good with kids, and he could really read a room. Uh. There's one story about a court singer who was performing in the Kremlin. Stalin's colleagues each started demanding he's singing different songs, and Stalin said, but I'm saying what he wants, and then added, I think he wants to sing Lindsay's

Aria from on again. Everybody laughed. Although it's not really a request. Stalin I was going to do Red Red wine first said okay um. Stalin seemed to have a genuine joy for manipulating people. In nineteen thirteen, while hiding out in Vienna, he gave the daughter of the woman hosting him a bag of candy every day. After a while, he asked the kid's mother who she thought the child

would run to if they both called her. They both tried it, and the girl ran to Stalin, Oh yeah, which is like, that's a messed up power move from the lady who's yeah exactly, And also just like why just to be a dick? Yeah, why do you want this? Okay? Cool? Great, cool? Now this kid likes you better than it's mom, and you're gonna leave, And then his daughters like, where's my candy? Man? He's just he's a bad dude. This is crossing my line. That is crossing a line. Uh. He could be really

funny and pithy. He was also incredibly foul mouthed when his friend Voroshilov gave a speech that Staln liked. Staln sent Vos a note that said, a world leader, fuck his mother. I've read your report. You criticized everyone, fuck their mother, Joseph Stalin. Everybody def jam Stalin just drop an FT bombs all over. I'd love to hear his version of the aristocrats. His whole time in power was his version of the aristocrat. That was those were his

last words, absolutely aristocrats. That's how that jokes started. Like this is the darkest jokes. He really mean it went far, but no, no, no, Stalin died and Bob Saget in America just like feels something stands up and just starts with slow applause. Just like that was game respects game um as I said, Stalin was great with kids. He would entertain them by throwing orange peels and wine corks into their ice cream and dis guts into their teeth.

He loves throwing orange peels. I mean, I guess like probably oranges are like a sign of wealth because like everyone in Russia, I assume probably has scurvy at this pain or he's killed them. So it's just like, oh yeah, I'm just throwing the peels around cares. I do feel that that's like the happiest Stalin ever is is just throwing orange peels at people. Exactly. He just needed more orange peels. Just keep oranges around him, please, He's gonna throw him at you. It's fine not signing death list

when he's throwing orange peels. Seriously, just let him do it. He just wanted to be a juggle are really bad lace. He always had like round fruit around him at all time, but he was his hands were too hard from all the hard work and the in the oil rigs. He would break the oranges and bruise them and that's why he would throw them at people. We really really thought this out. Yeah, you know. He was said to have

perfect pitch, a rare and sweet voice. Some of his friends said that if he hadn't become a dictator, he could have been a career singer. Well, but here's the thing, Uh, if that wasn't true, you wouldn't say it. Well, I think that some of this came out by people who knew him after he was dead, and people are starting to say, like, it's one of those things that I

don't think is just people blown up. He was just really good at Like Miles um one of the many things that our friend Miles Gray from the Daily Zeitgeist as in common with Justin Stalin um cool. He's also an unruly treasure. So from my point of view, Stalin's real talent, though came as a captioneer. I have some base is to judge this, since it used to be my job to write all the article captions on the

Little Pictures and Cracked articles. Stalin did basically the same thing, but to artworks that would be submitted to him for approval. And we're going to look at some of those. Hell yeah, he's like he invented tinder and memes, is what you're telling me? Kinda yeah, it wouldn't be unfair to say Stalin was a meme pioneer. This is from an article called Stalin's Vulgar Sense of Humor on smart History blog.

The actual origin of these pictures is from a Telegraph article, I think, but this blog actually put them out the best. So I'm gonna hand you this, and I want you to go through each picture and describe the picture, and then read the caption. If you guys want to follow along with the pictures, the links and stuff are on the website. The first one here, I'll describe it. It looks like it's a naked man with his butts just

out the shadow of a ball underneath. He's got his hand up over his head and he's like leaning against the wall as if he just like bombed at audition. I live in Los Angeles, and the the caption said, as you need to work, not wank. Time for re education. Jayceonlin science like he's science because if yeah exactly, Yeah yeah, man, we get it. Your handwriting is everywhere because you're the supreme leader. You need to work not wank. I think

he actually maybe didn't. That means that he mented like the cat posters in an office, like the hanging there. This is like a very vulgar version of that. I was going to say the New Yorker, Yeah, yeah, that's here. Oh that's great. Okay, the next one, man, he's got a lot of naked These are all pictures of naked men for some reasons. Okay, great, Yeah, this next one is like it's a These are all like black and white sketches. This next one is like a naked man.

He's facing front this time. Um, he's got like a beard and hair and a mustache, and he's like got his hands up as if he is playing baseball, but it looks like a piece of bread or something. He's probably holding onto a rat because Stalin has um, you know, starved everybody, and then the caption is, why are you so thin? Mikhail Ivanovich? Do some work on is um is no work? Trimarxism, Jay Stalinism, of course is masturbation. I get it. I mean he's not unfunny. No, he's not. No,

like these aren't These aren't bad, Joe. It's not like a Mike Huckabee tweets. These are solid getting not the most original, but solid. I like that he wrote. He he with an exclamation point. That's adorable. That's that's kind of cute. Like do you think they didn't think about him just like in his office, just like, oh my god, one, they're gonna love this. Where were these published or were

these just like these just in the Soviet archives? The Soviet archives got opened up like a twenty years ago or something, and historians are still pouring through them, and this is just something they found. So it's like pictures of like Hitler's dead body. And then like all of these,

Stalin captioned perfect, all right. This next one is a naked couple and the woman is like on the ground and the guy is standing above her with his hand behind his head and scratching it as if what's going on and the caption is idiot, you've completely forgotten what to do. I mean, it's hilarious. That's great. He didn't sign this one. He was just like, well, this one's obvious. Nobody's gonna think anybody but Jay stall would write this exactly. Oh man, okay. The next one is another naked man

looking forward. Where did you get all these photos? And it's just like from he has to approve these. So these are art that Soviets have made that they want to be able to publish, Like these are like paintings and stuff. Oh, I see, I got it. They can't go anywhere unless Stalin says yes, because he's the absolute ruler.

So this guy is just chilling on some boxes naked, staring down at the ground and says, don't sit on stones with your naked ass, go join comes some all and rab fact workers university isn't quote, someone give this guy underpan, Jay Stalin. I do imagine that as like a little George Bush left. Yeah, he for sure. They all have that same little laugh. Yeah. I think they're so damn clever just because they're part of the illuminati. These are so silly. Yeah, they're just ridiculous. Um, that's

probably good on those. Yeah, the underscrolling. Now, now the podcast consists of me scrolling and looking at pictures of naked men while you tell me about Stalin, So you know, I mean, that's just for the listeners this podcast. That was always the vision. Um. So the Soviets were great

record keepers, which is why we have all this stuff. Um. Often the notes that we would have from like their meetings of the Pullet Burero would include doodles, and sometimes Stalin would take out a crand to write on the doodle of like a colleague as well. Uh. And so there's apparently one drawing of the countries of the USSRS finance minister at the time, hanging from a rope by

his genitals in the margins. Stalin wrote to all members of the pullet Buro for his pres sends the name of the guy who's the finance minister should be hung by his balls. If they hold up, he should be considered not guilty, as if in a court of law. If they give way, he should be drowned in a river. This guy, this guy. Yeah, boy, Well it's also funny because it's like the feminist response to um burning witches. It's a finance minister test. That is also a bullshit

We'll kill you either way? Sure, why not? Yeah? Yeah, it's a whimsical, fun way to kill people. It is. He was all about whimsy. Um. He also had an explosive temper. Surprise. I'm quoting here from a fun book called A Brotherhood of Tyrants, Manic depression, and Absolute Power. Stalin became known for violence when he was a young revolutionary,

which yeah, goes hand in hand. Yeah. Generally he would lose control during arguments with party members, cursing them and throwing objects such as stools, which Steve Balmer, the former CEO of Microsoft, love to do. Quote. When he was married to his first wife, Kato, Stalin's brutality was witnessed by a man with whom they were living. Um, that's what he is. Kato was pregnant then, and he used to curse her in the most disgusting way and kick her in the belly. Yeah. Yeah, did you go from Yeah?

Did he have any kids with the first with the first wife one? Okay, yeah, you never hear about that one? Yeah you never? I mean that one. That one wound up dying in a Nazi concentration camp. Oh that's that's why. Yes, yeah, um so Uh. During a second marriage to Nadya, Stalin was known to throw food out the window if he was bored with it. He'd slam his phone against the wall if it gave him a busy signal. Stalin's rage

was often bafflingly mundane. Uh. Quote when he found a large mirror in his new Kremlin apartment, he said, what's a mirror here for? And kicked it to pieces. Oh my god, what a baby, What a stupid tantrum baby, change your diaper, Stalin. Jesus. Yeah, Stalin could go from being your best buddy to wanting you dead in a moment's notice. Yeah, there's another quote from a relative tyrant's uh, No amount of friendship and loyalty was enough to win

the dictator's trust. Um. The book here is quoting his daughter's fet Lana, who said the past ceased to exist for him. Years of friendship and fighting side by side and a common cause might as well have never been difficult as it is to understand. He could wipe it all out with one stroke. So you've betrayed me, some inter demon would whisper, I don't even know you anymore. So that's his daughter describing daddy. That's a that's some daddy issues to deal with. Yeah. Yeah, it's one of

those things that makes me discount. I always just assume Staling was like a cold heartless sociopath. Um, and I don't think that anymore because it seems like like his murdering his wife's families, like it's he's just he can't deal with emotion. So he thinks about his wife and gets sad, and then he like sees someone who was related to her and he's like, well, what if I

just get rid of him? Yeah, he hulk smashes everything. Yeah, he and it's like fits of peakue that he does all this in with time, sometimes he would regret doing terrible things to people. It wasn't uncommon for him to calm down and come to regret a purge. I'm gonna quote here from in the quarter of the Red Czar Uh. Once he wandered up to one of his marshals who had been arrested and released. I heard you were recent lee in confinement. Yes, comrade Stalin, I was, but they

figured out my case and released me. But how many good and remarkable people perished there. Yes, mus Stalin thoughtfully, we've lost a lot of good and remarkable people. Then he walked out of the room and into the garden. The quarters turned to the Marshal. What did you say to comrade Stalin, demanded Malenkov, who always behaved like the school prefect. Why Then Stalin reappeared holding a bouquet of roses, which he presented to the Marshal as a weird sort

of apology. Man, just he's just an emotional toddler. Sorry, I killed your friends and sent you to be tortured. Here's some roses, there's some flowers. Yeah, I feel like we're cool. I didn't take the thorns off because I am still Stalin. He just is a is an unformed person who wound up in charge of a whole country, which is a thing that has never happened before since could let something like that? What a bunch of idiots these people were letting that kind of a guy, boy,

Um Stalin wasn't consistently an asshole. Is the story of an old woman who crashed into his car in World War Two because the roads were strewn with ruined German tanks and equipment. She was terrified obviously, but he was like, no, no, it's not your fault. It's the war. Everything sucks. Like, just go get your car repaired. Everything's fine. Can you imagine getting out of the car you're ending being like, oh god, I knew I should have been looking at

my phone. We gotta do some ads. I'm gonna go read some ads, uh and sell you guys some things and capitalize on your attention in a way that Stalin would have hated. So if you hate Stalin by these products. Alright, So we're back and we're talking about Joseph Stalin after dark, and we are telling a tale right now of Stalin on a visit to the front lines during World War two. Um, mostly a pr thing, you know, getting pictured near the fronts.

People see that they're glorious. Leader is is, you know, taking the fight to the Germans installed dub dubb dose World War two? Uh? Okay, so um. During this visit of the front lines, one of the nights they wind up chilling at a peasant's house. Stalin like sleeps in one of her spare bedrooms. It's mostly like a pr thing, Like, look, he's so humble. Hitler's got all these bunkers. Stalin just crashed into the ladies house. At the end of the visit.

He insisted on paying her for his stay, but he couldn't figure out how much to pay her because he hadn't handled money in decades and he had no cash, and because all of the people with him were good Bolsheviks, none of them had cash either, so nobody had any money to pay thee there's some oranges. During the same visit, as he was driving home in his armored car, Stalin and his whole motor kaid stopped because quote, he needed

to defecate. Uh. He got out of the car and asked if the bushes had any land mines or unexploded ordinance in them, and nobody knew, and they couldn't guarantee it, and since it's Stalin, nobody was willing to say that. So anyway, the Premier and Commander in chief of the Red Army dropped trout, squatted in the road, and took a ship in front of all of his men. Fun little part of World War two to have gotten to see.

That's just great. Can you imagine that the army is just like working back and be like, oh, it's the boss pooping in the road. Okay, glorious leader, this is what we're doing now. Um. He was a guy with weird priorities. At the height of the war, when he had dozens of armies assembled to launch a massive assault against the German lines, he decided that that was also a good time to launch a massive nationwide song contest to see who could create the new national anthem. I

mean there are Simon Cowell tendencies to this man. Yeah, for sure, cowl ish figure, he could say, for sure. Also a little guy. Also a little guy I've seen. I've seen Simon Cowe. He wears real big heels. Why just except that you're not tall. It's fine, it's fine. It's more people should be little. It's fine. It's it's better. It means you take up less resources, you're more ethical. I'm horribly unethical. Uh okay. So the song contest led to the Soviet national anthem we all know and love today.

It's objectively one of the coolest sounding anthems of all time, regardless of your feelings on socialism. It's just it's intense. Uh. Stalin was very happy about it. He threw a gigantic party all of the magnates dressed up in ridiculous costumes with gold braids and daggers and other nonsense. One foreigner present said the Russians were as happy with their new clothes as a little boy all dressed up in his new Christmas present fireman suit. Um, he's more toddlers. Just yeah,

they're just a bunch of big kids who have a country. Now. Like if you did the Muppet Baby's version of Stalin's USSR, it would just be the exact same plot, but with them in diapers. It's just emotional toddlers. So everybody got outrageously drunk. The British ambassador quote fell flat on his face onto a table covered with bottles and wine glasses and cut himself. Uh. These quotes are all from in the Court of the Red Czar, which is a wonderful book.

An American general, sadly and name showed up at the party with two prostitutes. Uh. Stalin kept relatively sober um, but after this this party was sort of like the breaking point for that, and he started to drink more once the risk of defeat was limited. You know, during the early stages of World War Two, at most he might put a little brandy in his tea after a major victory like the victory at stalin Grad, and he kept sober because like the whole world was at stake.

Yeah for sure. Well, and he probably you know, saw what the the way that the Czar and z Arena handled themselves during World War One, and was like, Okay, well, I really gotta get this one right. I've learned a couple of writing on this whole World War thing exactly. So he starts drinking again after in like forty three, and uh, it becomes very clear that he is off

the wagon. In a December nineteen forty three visit by Charles de Gal to Moscow is sort of the exiled leader of France at this point, Uh, Stalin and Degal had a disagreement over French recognition of the Polish government in an exile. The negotiations stalled out, and Stalin decided to get RiPP shit drunk. Uh. He got hammered and then complained that Degal was awkward and clumsy and everyone

needed to drink more wine so that everything could straighten out. Um, just having a drink, we'll just talk about we'll figure this out. That's not how wine works. That's not how geopolitics works, the fate of tens of millions. Uh So, Stalin chugged champagne and took over the job of toasting from Molotov, who was the actual diplomat. H He cheered Roosevelt and Churchill, who weren't in attendance, and ignored Degall, which is great diplomacy. Molotov cocktail name bet for that guy.

Yeah yeah, because of the Finnish Russian War, I think, um and uh yeah. He was also the guy who made the big pact with Hitler that split Poland up. He's he's important, dude. Um Stalin saluted several of his own men who were present, and during the salutes he would joke about the fact that he was probably going to have them killed in the near future in front of them. Just a lot of like high pitched like side I laughing, happening in the forties, and nothing but

side I laughed. De gall was horrified by all this, of course, uh Stalin noticed, so he leaned over to the Frenchman and said, people call me a monster, but as you see I make a joke of it, maybe I'm not horrible at all. Oh my god, which you're not convincing anyone you're not the worst. So just because you're genocide has a punchline doesn't mean it wasn't a genocide. So Molotov starts actually doing the work of diplomacy with

a French diplomat over the treaty. And while they're working the reason this whole meeting is happening, Stalin shouts out, bring the machine guns out, let's liquidate the diplomats. Oh my god. Then he took his guests out for coffee and movies. He hugged the frenchman at random, and staggered around drunkenly. Uh. This marks the opening of the last great stage in Joseph Stalin's life, which I call his drunk as Fuck period because it was Kara derives by

nightmarish drinking sessions and a tremendous growth in practical jokes. Uh. Stalin loved practical jokes, just a cloy example, during the celebration of victory in World War Two, one of the other magnates pulled the ceremonial knife out of a Russian diplomat's uniform and replaced it with a pickle. Stalin laughed about it the entire day. That is the funniest thing he'd ever seen. He would have loved Kara top I feel like Gallagher would have rocked Stalin's world, even America. Yeah.

He became more erratic after the war, possibly as the result of several mini strokes in his increased drinking. Uh. He purged more and more of his inner circle and complained to Marshall Zukov, who was the Russian general who won World War Two pretty much quote, I am a most unfortunate person. I'm afraid of my own shadow. It's almost like killing millions of people will catch up to

you sooner or later. Yeah. And Stalin apparently couldn't be left alone, did not ever want to be alone for any long period of time if you could avoid it. And so every single night he would ask if all of the magnates were free for dinner, and they would come over to his house uh, and they would start to eat, and these dinners would generally last six hours

or longer. Um. And that's just the dinner portion. As I go through this, remember this is every day for the men that are around Stalin, Like, how long is your work day? And then you've got dinner after the whole work day. This is the only work day. They start eating and they start drinking mildly with bottles of wine, weak liqueurs and sometimes champagne. Then as the evening war on, they would switch to toasts of vodka, something called pepper

vodka which sounds like the worst, and brandy. Uh. They would always proceed past tipsy and sauce into a state of blind stinking drunkitude. Stalin would generally water down his own drinks with mineral water on his doctor's advice, but that just meant it took him younger to get wrecked than everyone else, and so everyone else had to drink more and longer. This is a quote from in the Court of the Red CSAR. Forcing his tough comrades to lose control of themselves became his sport and a measure

of dominance. The drinking started with Stalin, not Barrier. He quote forced us to drink to loosen our tongues, wrote McCoy in. Stalin liked the old drinking game of guessing the temperature, which is literally that classic drinking game. He would say to someone, Hey, Barrier, guess the temperature, and Barry would say, I don't know, fifteen And if it

was eighteen, Barry would drink three shots of vodka. No oh no, it's like one guy at the table that's always like nine every time that guy would have died of alcohol poison because they used selfius. Um. No one but Stalin enjoyed these drinking vengeines. For the rest of these guys, this is just a nightmare, an endless nightmare. Every single day their their drink king not just excess, but to nightmarish excess. I mean, he's just acting like the worst divorce, like a frat boy divorce. Like it's

this weird mix of like frat leader and sad divorce. Yeah, and it's and it's like your friends are like, hey man, we're gonna go out, like we're gonna get you over her. Don't worry about it, Like we're going to do this. But like it's like he's not moving at all, doing this forever. Yeah. It was very common for various magnates to stagger out of the room mid meal, vomit, soiled themselves, and then have to come back in to do more. Uh. Sometimes they got too drunk to do even that and

they have to be carried home by their guards. But people were puking like vomiting into their like. Know, the dictator of Yugoslavia apparently once had to vomit down his shirt sleeve in order to like keep going at this party because they were just drinking so much. Um Molotov and Khrushchev were the best drinkers in the group. Even so, the spinges were so intense that Kruschev sometimes wet his bed at night while passed out. Several magnates became desperate

to find a way to avoid drinking with Stalin. This is a quote from a Brotherhood of Tyrants. At Stalin's dinners, Krushchev states quote, there were often serious drinking bouts. I remember Barria, Malenkov and mccoyon had to ask the waitress to pour them colored water instead of wine because they couldn't keep up with Stalin's drinking. He added that when Stalin realized he had been deceived, he fumed with anger

and raised a terrible uproar. These guys are like pouring colored water color wife, just trying not to die, trying to yeah, we all have gout, dude. And again every single day they would they would drink all night and then go home, and by the time they woke up Stalin to be calling them again saying, you guys want to come from over for dinner. They have wives and kids, doesn't matter. Stalin does not give a shit about that.

And also he jailed a lot of their wives. Yea, the wives probably were like, fine, yeah, that's fine, cleaning up my husband's piss, Yes, exactly. He cleared his own vomit and see everything that I do for him. At one point, Stalin found out that one of his friends had been sneaking secret naps when he went to the bathroom in order to sober up just a little bit, and Stalin said, quote, want to be smarter than the rest, don't you see you don't regret it later. Oh yeah,

he's just trying to like they Oh man, I hate him. Yeah, he's the worst. The stakes on these drinking bitches were incredibly high because if you said the wrong thing, he'd kill you. And that was part of why he did it, so that people would be honest, so that he could like know if somebody was plotting against him. I figured, if everybody's blackout drunk, nobody's hiding anything from me. Um,

what a paranoid, crazy person. Yeah. Yeah, everyone was way too wasted to perform the peak ability and these are very competent people. Uh So, in order to try to stay alive, the magnates turned to crude, practical jokes to keep Stalin occupied. They were not funny. One favorite joke was just to shove people into the pond near Stalin's house. I'm not gonna lie. That would make me laugh over

and over again for days. And it became such a problem that Stalin's bodyguards had to drain the pond because they were like one of these guys kind of fucking drowned there too, drunk to swim, and they're not gonna

be able to help each other out. Like, if we don't drain this pond, one of the leaders of the Soviet Union is going to drown drunk and Stalin his poor Like, we take a moment for Stalin's poor staff, the people that had to like clean up after all of this and make the food and get the booze and like watch them at all. They're just like, oh my god, and they all have to live a nocturnal schedule to yeah, oh no, one night. Barry A drunkenly suggested that they loose some caged quails and shoot them,

which was obviously a great idea. Great guns and blackout drunk, Yeah, that always goes well. Stalin, equally drunk, grabbed a gun and wandered out into the garden. He fired his gun into the ground first, barely missing one of his friends, and then he fired it into the air and hit two of his bodyguards with birch shot. This is what I meant when I said he pulled a change, pulled a double cheney somewhere on an oxygen tank in Wyoming right now, just like, why don't I get people to

come over? Just make them all drink. Stalin had a mean sense of humor. H yeah, oh, we got it. A Brotherhood of tyrants relates this story that Kruschev told uh for some reason. This is Kruschev talking for some reason. He found the humiliation of others very amusing. I remember once Stalin maybe dance the gopak before some top party officials. I had to squat down on my haunches and kick out my heels, which frankly wasn't very easy for me, but I did it, and I tried to keep a

pleasant expression on my face. Stalin was quite capable of humiliating even his daughter once she had left childhood after World War Two. At a dinner given for twelve Soviet Marshall, Stalin said in his daughter's presence, Well, my friends, I bet you don't know who's sucking her now because he's the worst. Oh, he is the worst. He's the worst. What is it about, like leaders having inappropriate relationships with their daughters? It's crazy? Yeah, I would have that never

happened again. Yeah. Uh Kruschief said. Stalin sometimes got so drunk that he took liberties, which means sexual assault today. But back then method Stalin drunkenly throw tomatoes at his friends. This became a trope among the drunken magnates. Marius started sneaking tomatoes into mccoyan's suits and would then shove him into a wall so the tomato would burst in his pants. I'm not gonna lie. That's actually kind of funny. For years, mccoyan would have to bring spare pants to dinner just

to deal with the inevitable tomato in the pants. Old spare pants. Mccoya over here. Stal loved this. He loved it when someone would sit on a tomato. He loved it when his his friends would fill someone else's vodka with salt so they'd vomit after drinking. He's just the frat boy of all frat just like when was the whoope cushion invented? Because I feel like he would have lost goddamn mine with a safet on a tomatoes, Give

me a rubber chicken. It's hilarious. So these all night drunken dinners are where the vast majority of Russian state business was settled. So all of the ussr is political decisions were done while these guys were just getting hammered. Peopleould come in Stong would sign things, he was ordering executions, he was he was making national policy for the Cold War, and all these guys were while they were just not just drunk, but I'm gonna say probably the drunkest any

human beings have ever been. I love the idea of who's Who's president at this point. I think Truman for a big part of this, Yeah, is that the idea of like a split screen of of how they both conducted their business and how the Cold War is ramping up on both sides. That's what's amazing. From forty five to fifty three, one of the world's two superpowers and

a nuclear power. For most of that was managed by a bunch of wasted old men in between smashing tomatoes into each other, and we didn't have a nuclear war. That's inspiring it really like that does give me a little bit of hope. Well, al right, okay, uh, just keep a lot of tomatoes around. Apparently as the move. So everything we've described so far is generally going up

to about two am in the morning. At two am ish, Stalin would usually suggest that everyone come watch a movie with him, so they're all the drunkest anyone's ever been covered in tomato, and Stalin says, you, guys, want to watch a movie? Oh boy, what's he? What's he pulling out? His favorite movies were detective films, westerns, and gangster films like The m p A. He loved fight scenes and was disgusted by any hint of sexuality. H here's a quote from In the Court of the Redsar when Boschakov,

who Bolshakov was his movie guy. I'll get in him a little later, once showed him a slightly risque a scene involving a naked girl. He banged the table and said, are you making a bravo here Boschekov, and then he walked out, followed by the pullet burrow, leaving poor Bolschikov awaiting arrest. From then on, he cut even the slightest glimpse of nudity. Oh boy, I like that. Stalin, on

top of everything else, is like a big prude of everything. Yeah. Man, He's like, no, no, I can't get the boobs out of here. Put some tomatoes in pockets instead, blow something up. Boschakov was Stalin's film curator, and he had maybe the worst job of anyone who likes movies has ever had. Uh. He had to pick the movies for the night, which

was a tremendously dangerous job. That's so scary. Yeah, yeah, because you don't want to give Stalin pick a movie for Stalin that he doesn't want to see all those poor actors movies too, can you imagine, being like most of them are American movies. He loved American movies. Um. Boschakov's two predecessors had both been executed. Uh. Stalin would

make Boschakov translate the foreign films that they watched. Boschakov was not good at it, but that was okay because Stalin mostly wanted to laugh at him sucking at the job. I mean, okay, like, here's the thing, Like he's a bad man, but his shades of gray every thing. You're like, you know what, that sounds fun? Yeah yeah, I don't

just like that. Yeah No, that's the tricky thing about Stalin. Um. Although when he watched his favorite movies, he'd get up and perform his favorite scenes before they happen in the movie. Guy that watch this, watch this, watch us, wait, wait, watch this, watch this. It's coming. If he had seen Borat, that would have been the only thing he ever said for the rest of his life, was just quoting lines from fucking Boy Like he's that guy. He's absolutely that guy.

Can you imagine my wife, my wife forever? But if you don't laugh, he kills your family. You just have to laugh. My wife for forever your life. It's it's a nightmare. Um yeah. Many of the movies that Stalin picked came with horrifying undertones. First colleagues, one film that he watched repeatedly was about a pirate who stole a bunch of gold and then murdered all of his co pirates so he could keep it for himself. Stalin would always shout, what a fellow, look at how he did it?

Oh my god. Christcheff said this was depressing and reminded all of the other magnates that they were temporary people, which would depress you. As his rain war on, Stalin's obsession with cinema seemed to warp his view of reality. At one point, he insisted on taxing the USSRS peasantry

in the middle of a horrific famine. The rest of the politbrio told him this was a terrible idea, but Stalin insisted that peasants could afford it because in the parropaganda movies he'd seen, the peasants were all fat and happy and had plenty of food. Hey man, do you know what propaganda is? Let me explain. You literally ordered this? Yeah, yeah, let me show you the B side of what we

got here. He was an early bene watcher. He'd usually suggest a second movie after the first, which would have elicited groans from his friends if groaning in his presence wasn't a death sentence. Movie time generally finished like around four or five something like that am, at which point he would say, let's go grab a bite to eat. If you have the time. Knowing no one could say no to him. Late in the night, whilst wasted, Stalin would insist on djaying for his hammered colleagues. Oh no,

isn't the j on top of everything else. He calls to a DJ and he prefers comedic records, including one with the warbling of a singer accompanied by the yowling and barking of dogs, which always made him laugh with mirth. So he's like a noise DJ. He's a drunken noise DJ. Like five in the morning, after like eleven hours of drinking and music, he's putting on noise music. Joseph Stalin just needed Netflix and Coachella, and he would have been fine, would have been the whole world would have been so

much better. It would have been Oh god, this is the idea of being like having one headphone on his head, just like you don't check this out out. That's what's happening. That's what's happening. Um this The whole thing generally started sometime in the late afternoon and would end well after dawn, at which point Stalin would dismiss his drunken associates, lay down to read and usually drink a little bit more

before pat sing out. Then, of course he would wake up the next day sometime in the afternoon, call his friends, and start the whole process over again. On February nineteen fifty three, after a night of reckless drinking in Cowboy Movies, Joseph Stalin had a stroke. He died five days later. Peace Stalin Stalin after dark. Oh, man, if Joseph Stalin pisses himself, do you acknowledge it? He did when he had his stroke and they found him that he the

whole floor was covered and piss. This is like right before he died. So he spent like two days soaked in his own urine while everyone was too scared to change him. Yeah, gotcha. I saw a death of Stalin. And it's interesting because like they like nobody wanted to go in the room because they're like, you want him to do about this? And there's a lot of this controversial. Just the death of Stalin is a fun movie. It's not very accurate, but but that part, like the fact

that he was soaked in urine is very true. Yeah. I mean, like of the Dictator deaths, I mean, you know, he died in his sleep, of a stroke. He was very successful. He died the way you want to die, as the absolute ruler of a nightmare regime, which is not being murdered by your subjects. Yeah, what why didn't they murder? Well, I mean because it seems like I know his propaganda. He's really great at marketing, so it seems like he was really beloved. He was beloved by

the common people in the USSR. It was very popular with some circles of the country. And anytime he got a hint that someone didn't like him anymore, just kill you, just kill him, which is why they all tried to be his friend. Like these and these guys, you have to think his inner circle would be the ones who would be plotting any coup. And they're not going to be able there they wasted all the time, like their life is one perpetual hangover. They're not going to be

successfully plotting you just hanging on their fingernails. What a way to make sure that your comrades don't kill you. It's just like throw a frat party for the last three years of your life or whatever. Yeah, I mean eight, Yeah, isn't every night Because they went on vacation. He could have some days where he worked and stuff, but like a lot of nights, hundreds of nights like that, he's just made of gout. It's like what it seems like

just God, all of them. That just sounds so it does like like Christjeff Berry, the Molotov, these are not like historically good people, but you can't not feel sorry for them. Yeah, it's a nightmare. No, for sure, that sounds awful. For like the better part of a decade. You're just getting like college wasted. You're in your sixties, Like nobody's in the shape as a human to be Like maybe if they were twenty one, they could have handled that kind of drinking for a couple of years exactly,

but no, it's just the worst man. That's just like uh, father the Bride drunk for eight years straight, straight man. Yeah, it's kind of shocking. Uh, the Cold War didn't go worse time that this. This actually does give me a lot out of faith just in general with like the way the world is now to be. Like oh, okay, well, I mean I don't these guys were idiots and drunk animals. Okay, well he's were drunk monsters and we didn't have a

nuclear war. So yeah, so I mean, you guys happening happening at I don't think they had a button, Like I know, eventually they wound up with their own version of the button, which they still have. I don't think they had that quite yet. Like, I don't think their arsenal was that advanced. So maybe if there had been a button that Stale could have drunkenly pressed, he would have he would have been checked out. He'd always have

his hand over it. He would have a fake button and he'd be like, oh, they just pressed the button, and they'd be like, what did you do? And he's like, it's the fake buttons just pulling out of the ground in the distance exactly. He like sets off a nuke, but it's like made of tomatoes. He's just like, check this out. But throwing tomatoes at Truman her eyes an hour exactly missen to bomb full of orange peels to Washington. Do see, that's what I want to do. Let's just

see what happens. Just throw the peels at eyes and now or he'll know what it's about. Appeal that son of a b up good exactly. Well alright, uh, brandy, posey you want to tell the Internet where they can find you, and you yeah, it's it's it's funny, like giving where to find me after talking about Stalin for an hour because it's like, oh, he knew where to find everybody, but falls the record. Um. You can find me on Twitter and Instagram at brand Dazzle uh. And

then my website is Brandy Posey dot com. I have all my tour dates up on there. I'm a comedian and I tore the country quite a bit. Um small over the place, Come see me live. I'm very fun. Um. I have an album called Opinion Cave that's available on Spotify and iTunes and everywhere you buy albums or stream them. Uh. And then I have a podcast as well called Lady to Lady that is myself and two other female comics.

And then we just kind of like goof around and hang out and do really dumb stuff like we take French Stort to Sizzler and get him white wine. We basically stalind French Stort at a Sizzler for a two episode, So we do that kind of stuff. It's pretty fun.

Um And uh, yeah I do. I just have all all over the place in l A. Have a monthly show called Picture This that's comedians paired up with animators and they light animate your jokes during your set, and then it's really really fun and we get some huge names. And that's at the Virgil once a month here in Los Angeles, and it's free and it's super fun and all infasive. Brandy Posey dot com. I am intimidated and impressed by the things you're doing. I'm Robert Evans. I

have a book. You can find it on Amazon. It's called A Brief History of Vice. It's me experimenting with weird ancient drugs. If you can find me on Twitter at at I right, okay uh And while you're online looking us both up, you should swing on over to the Behind the Bastard's website Behind the Bastards dot com, or you can find us on Instagram and Twitter at at Bastard's pod. Thanks a lot, See you next time, and remember to subscribe to this podcast so you can

hear all about the worst people in history. Bye bye,