I admire Martov's attempts to force the Bolsheviks to the table on issues like press censorship. The problem is that these are pretty theoretical topics to be considering in the midst of a civil war. Trotsky said of Martov: "The man's misfortune was that fate made him a politician in a time of revolution, without endowing him with the necessary resources of will power." I think attempting to take Bolsheviks to court instead of organizing their overthrow bears this out.
tbh there was no way to overthrow the Bolsheviks. Mensheviks were definition of spent force by end of 1917, and were largely absorbed by either White or Red organisations. They simply had nothing new to offer to people and dissapeared. They had those few months, but partly due to being, well, socialdemocrats which in itself is political nonsense; and partly due to truly difficult situation, they mismanaged the country horribly and dissapeared from floorboards of history. They simply represented a political dead end - the only people who could improve the situation were bolsheviks themselves
The right Mensheviks tried to overthrow the Bolsheviks by force in conjunction with White armies. That didn't work either. Also worth noting that April 1918 pre-dates the start of the civil war.
There's so much online history of the USSR but I've yet to come across even one other site which has such a detailed, minute-by-minute ground level approach like yours does. I 'd never heard of this incident before, but it's another excellent demonstration of the confused and conflicted patchwork that eventually stumbled into the Soviet (in name only) State. Most historians take the easy way out, shoehorning a linear structure on very loose events.I really feel you may be breaking new ground here, methodologically speaking.More please!!!
Thank you! Glad to hear you enjoyed it. I was surprised to find this topic is practically unknown, at least on RUclips, but it serves as such a fascinating case study for the state of affairs at the time. I have quite a few ideas for similar videos, coming soon...
i love when people can use a sorta small situation like this to illustrate how widely unstable and fractured all of Soviet Russia was at the time as well as the increasing distaste towards criticism directed at the bolsheviks. fantastic work!
Thank you! I agree, I was originally drawn to this topic since it's funny and unexpected, but I came to realize it says a lot about the state of affairs at the time.
yes thats what happens in a civil war where you need to mobilize all avaible resources for war as your nation is invaded by both imperialists and their collaborators.
@@justarandompersonininterne6583Yes which is perhaps why the Bolsheviks shouldn't have rejected the calls from Martov and leaders of other leftist parties for a coalition, or engaged in widespread forced requisition from the peasants or destroyed any popularly elected element of the government that didn't completely agree with them. Besides the fans of Leninism never seem to give up the "state of siege" mentality not after the civil war and not even by 1970 when the USSR was the 2nd largest economy on earth and a military superpower with enough nuclear ordinance to destroy the entire planet. At what point does "the bad people are against us" stop being an excuse for everything and anything the Bolshevik/CPSU leadership did?
As a Russian with a special love for the XX century history I have never heard about this court case before. Really love your videos, they’re always informative, rooted in context and easy to watch and process!
@@justarandompersonininterne6583 the soviets lost power when Lenin put his party commissars in charge of them in an effort to quell unrest. These were the days when the bureaucracy you complain about was established.
Woops, I think you're right. For whatever reason he seems to come up when searching for pictures of Sosnovsky, thank you for bringing that to my attention.
@@thinkinsidetheboxsquarecir3303No one really, I was just a nickname given to Stalin by his very close associates, like Kirov, Molotov and some few bodyguards he was close with. An example of this is in Berias journal, he says: "After reading about the red army struggle at stalingrad, i saw tears in the eyes of the Koba for the first time in my life".
What I also find interesting is that Lavrentiy Beria was reportedly supposed to be executed by the Bolsheviks during the Civil War - could be interesting to imagine what could’ve happened had Beria not become Stalin’s right-hand man during the purges or been overthrown after Stalin’s death…
even more interesting, as far as Beria goes, supposedly it came out, after Stalin died, that he, "deep down", actually was considerably "divergent" with Stalin's views on many 'key' things, which one wouldn't quite expect from a secret police leader as "hardline" as him. For example, it seems that, after Stalin's death, Beria presided over *actual* investigations of the doctors accused by Stalin in the "Doctor's Plot" and... *had them freed*. Huh... Not only that, but he supposedly *admitted* that the plot was fabricated, *and* the secret policemen who directly had a hand in it were arrested! :o interesting FWIW, Kruschchev, supposedly, also "claims" that Beria, during the final days of Stalin's life, "secretly cursed" his name, so to speak, whenever Stalin lost consciousness. lol Not to mention this tidbit: "Shortly after Stalin's death, Beria announced triumphantly to the Politburo that he had "done [Stalin] in" and "saved [us] all", according to Molotov's memoirs" Hard to know what to make of all of said post-Stalin revelations regarding Beria. Was he just a "shrewd and conniving" Soviet leader who "knew how to get and keep power for a while", esp. to keep himself from 'being done in' by things like the Purge, while having "secretly anti-Stalinist views along" (while also, to some degree, probably being a psychopath) Or... after first joining the NKVD, for example, did he "have a big change of heart" on a lot of major issues by 1953?? Hmmm... we may never know, sadly.
@@Whoo711Beria also apparently asked Kruschev, after Stalin's death, "why don't we just take the Marshall Plan money the Americans are offering and ditch the whole Marxism thing?"
Lmao, Stalin being a tyrant narcissist since the civil war, lmao, I can see why Lenin eventually realised the danger he posed to freedom, socialist democracy and the cause.
Would really love a full series on the "narrowing" of political speech/opposition throughout 1918, would be interesting to learn how Soviet Russia went from a "multi"-party state to a single party one
The next few videos in the Election Series (as well as the "How the Bolsheviks Destroyed the Soviets" video if you haven't seen it already) will cover this in more detail. After that, I'd be happy to make some more videos going into detail about specific events, similar to this video.
Once again Stalin went at it with a knife to the back. He was very crafty when he came to make his plays. He manipulated Lenin as Rag doll after his stroke. He planned several ways to end Trosky. He held family members as hostages to control people. The only 2 people he thought as equals was Beria and Zukov. Beria was a perverted sociopath who killed and raped with a zeal only comperable to his Master. Zukov was a war hero who had nothing but a string of victories without Stalin's manipulating him..
This channel is truly underrated. Nice audio quality, not too impressive but good looking editing and of course very high quality content always informative, presented in an interesting way and historically as accurate as one can get in this field. Your videos are all gems in a sea of garbage history content, please continue releasing them. You can’t get better bite sized info on very niche topics anywhere else. Much love.
you've heard it a lot in this comment box already but thank you for your work man, as a russian i can tell you that there are no videos on the subject of revolutionary Russia in russian which were as good and informative as yours are. is the next video gonna be about the 4th soviet congress?
Thank you for the support! I'm glad to hear you find these videos informative. Yes, I am currently working on the 4th Soviet Congress video, which I think will be released soon.
in a revolution, one must be like either a dog, or a wolf. the dog follows blindly the promise of a treat, believing his leader’s promise is true and just. the wolf, however, does not blindly trust his leader, but seeks out his own meal. this is the lesson we learn from the suit filed by stalin against mertov.
Another gem! I’ve been trying to find a good English book on the power struggle following Lenin’s death that isn’t specifically a Stalin biography. Do you know of any such book? I know James Harris has one in the works. Thanks!
I'll be covering this in a few videos from now, but here's a few books to start with. I know you said a non-Stalin biography, but Stephen Kotkin's "Stalin" (volume one) in my opinion goes far beyond just Stalin, and covers that period of history is great detail. Moshe Lewin's "Lenin's Last Struggle" is pretty much one of the classics on this question, if a bit old (focusing more so on the period just before Lenin's death, but it carries over). Robert V. Daniels has also written a lot on this topic; "Conscience of the Revolution" for example is a great overview of all the various power struggles during the first decade after the revolution.
If I may chime in here, if memory serves, there was also very-interesting book I came across a while ago- supposedly part of a 7-part series. I think the author's name was Vadim Rakov or Rygov or something like that. I know his first name was Vadim. Anyway.. the book is called "Was There An Alternative?" I'm not sure how 'in-depth' it goes regarding the power struggles post-Lenin, but, nonetheless, it does do a pretty-good job of being quite informative, nonetheless. supposedly the author had pretty-good access to archives, for one The author is, admittedly, a Trotskyist, and the book's subtitle- now that I've re-checked, for memory's sake- is largely about "Trotskyism" as a 'potential alternative' (though Vadim also discusses the Left Opposition, fwiw) but, nonetheless, he probably does cover a lot of ground (esp. given how many parts there are).
@@Whoo711 Yes that's right, "Was There An Alternative?" by Vadim Rogovin. I haven't read his entire series, only the standalone English version, but from what I remember I would say it's fairly informative. It was also influential in disspelling many misconceptions in regards to Trotsky in the post-Soviet period. However, you also have to keep in mind that it is coming from a Trotskyist perspective, which colors some of the conclusions about Trotsky as a "more correct" alternative.
Dmitri Volkogonov's biographies of Lenin, Stalin, and Trotsky are excellent because he used secret documents from KGB and other "soviet" archives to write them.
Nice to see someone on RUclips who is reading Vladimir Brovkin's work. Alexander Rabinowitch did a good paper on how Trotsky organized the first "soviet" show trial against Alexey Schastny which is ironic given how such trials were later used against Trotsky and his alleged supporters.
Yes, for example Rech' (the main Kadet newspaper) was closed down just after the October Revolution. The Kadet Party itself was actually suppressed in its entirety by this time.
It's truly insane to me that the revolutionaries actually managed to make institutions and a long lasting government out of the chaos of the Russian Revolution
Thank you for being able to resarch and debunk myths of the bolshievks has being unquestioned and uncontested popular revoultionaries. your videos bring a needed complexity to truly understanding the climate of revoutlionary russian that i have yet to see anywhere else.
Looks like it's going to be a fruitful May that year, and this year! Looking forward to alternated Soviet History for once with Cody, and an entire series of Soviet History with Noj Rants!
Hello Noj Rants, I have very much enjoyed your videos regarding the USSR and I have just one question. It's regarding the chairman of the revolutionary tribunal. From what I found is that his name was Pechak (surname) but I am having trouble finding other information about him and the photo you used for the judge. He might have been sympathetic or in league with Stalin. If you can provide a source link from where you got that photo and information regarding Pechak it would be much appreciated. Thank you for attention. Edit: From what I have found his name is К.Я. Печак and was latvian but I found no info on the picture and biography.
To my knowledge, there isn't a picture of Pechak available online, so for the visual I just used a generic picture of a Bolshevik tribunal chairman. I haven't come across anything saying he was in league with Stalin necessarily, nor was that the angle of attack the Mensheviks seem to have took, but considering the Bolsheviks set up and operated such tribunals, it's probably safe to say he was at least sympathetic to Stalin. In partially siding with Martov in the end though, he seems to demonstrate he was by no means sycophantic to Stalin specifically.
@@nojrants Thank you very much for your answer. I neither myself looking through CPSS archives found any more information about Pechak or pictures of him. The chairman you used looks like a Tsarist general.
Fascinating! Were such cases mainly just talked about and reported on in the press and among various folks involved (not to mention the parties themselves), or were, in fact, special 'revolutionary tribunal records/archives' also kept that scholars have, from time to time, consulted for "confirmation" of this or that? Or did Bolshevik leaders simply that think that, because theirs was a "special system", keeping such official judicial records wasn't quite "essential" or "necessary"? Interestingly enough, if memory serves, I think that I heard that, for one reason or another, official 'records'/archives of Cheka operations have never been 'made public', and it's rumored, if not confirmed, that they were likely "destroyed" or "lost" shortly thereafter? Though, funny enough, I recently found out that one of the former leaders behind glasnost and perestroika, Alexander Yakovlev, actually wrote a book supposedly "chronicling" a 'shitload' of folks killed by the Soviet regime (esp. under Stalin), though I'm not sure if it goes as "far back" as the Cheka era (though, if memory serves, I think I actually heard about Yakovlev's book, funny enough, *on* a Wiki page about the Red Terror?)
Yes, we actually have the transcript of the case preserved in the Russian archives. So not only can we compare the Menshevik version of the story from Vpered and the Bolshevik version from Izvestiia, we can compare both to the transcript (which has become available in the last few decades). So for example we can see that Izvestiia left out any mention of Martov's witnesses, since that would be problematic for Stalin, but the transcript confirms they were named during the trial after all. In general, stenographic reports were taken for all such cases, but they wouldn't necessarily be published verbatim. Individuals would still report what happened in newspapers and could be reasonably trusted as accurate, which is part of the reason why the trials were quietly shelved. The version published in Vpered pretty much follows the transcript in terms of the events. Perhaps I will make a video on this in the future, but in general the Soviet archives began to open in the 1980s and 90s, leading to a renaissance of scholarship, but in the past 20 years that openness has been quietly reversed. Certain records, especially those having to do with the secret police, were either never fully explored in the first place or have since become closed. With recent events in Russia, access to archives (especially uncovering new documents) has become a lot more challenging.
All the music is stuff I improvise for the videos myself, although toward the end here I went into something sort of like the song "At Dawn" by the Soviet band Alliance.
So are you going to suspend the Elections series a bit and go over some civil war era stuff? Knowing more about the various White Governments would be nice
I'm still working on the election series, but I plan to make one-off videos like this along the way, maybe in an alternating pattern roughly. The next video will be the 4th Soviet Congress, which should be coming soon. And I agree, a video on the White Movement is needed.
All the books mentioned in the description I definitely recommend. Kotkin's two (soon to be three) books on Stalin are all very detailed, and talk a lot about the surrounding history, not just the man himself. Brovkin's book is great, although it's more focused on the Menshevik perspective. There's a chapter there regarding this event if you want to read in more detail. Depending on what you are interested in I can give a more specific book recommendation.
@@nojrants thank you so much, I know its later than youve discussed, but I am very interested in the Stalin/Bukharin power struggle & the overall fight around New Economic Policy. lmk if you have any other recs, imma definitely check out Kotkin's biography.
@@nojrants thanks i just seen the bib good looks; Its a little later than what youve covered so far, but I am v interested in the Stalin/ Bukharin power struggle, and the political struggle for New Economic Policy overall. I just got Kotkin's first two volumes (i loved magnetic mountain), any other specific recs on that?
@@jamontiqueq8763 In that case, another good book to check out might be Robert V. Daniels' "Conscience of the Revolution". It focuses on all the various oppositions within the Communist Party, including in regards to the debate surrounding the NEP.
I liked this video. I don't have questions or complaints but I do have a suggestion: This story of Stalin's trial has the potential to be a part of a longer video series looking at how this early period in the post-revolutionary USSR developed and evolved from democratic norms towards - and culminating in - dictatorship, oppression, and ultimately the terror of Stalin. You should develop this theme further in future videos.
Thank you! I agree, there's a lot of potential to continue this theme throughout the rest of Soviet history, and I definitely plan to continue in similar videos.
@@katyn_was_based14 Well, I will admit it wasn't funny for those who had to live under it; it was just a kind of tragic-comedy for the historians who have studied the difference between reality and what is written on a piece of paper.
To me, the voice is so reminiscent of a particular radio ad for Geico insurance from some years back. In response to his weeping girlfriend (mistress?) who has just told him, 'So long as you're with Jessica, there can be nothing between us,' we hear the guy, in this voice, say: 'Cass, there's no need for you to cry. And besides, I've got some really great news.' 'You're leaving Jessica?' [she says, hopefully] 'No. I just saved a ton on money on car insurance by switching to Geico!'
Was it a democracy though? I am no expert on the topic but the videos on this channel depict the bolsheviks as a thuggish political force which only tolerates any democratic action when it doesn't contradict the bolsheviks themselves. Every time the Soviets or non-bolshevik socialists or disillusioned bolsheviks try to oppose Lenin's party, they get crushed without mercy. Therefore, the transformation which actually seems to appear, is that a de facto one-party state, which doesn't yet have the resources to smother all opposition and so tactically "tolerates" them, morphs into a one party state which is strong enough to prevent any opposition from gaining any power.
For this topic, the books in the description are a good place to start. But was there something in particular you were curious about? If so I can give you more specific book recommendations.
1:52 didn’t you just say that they were involved in a robbery where several bystanders were killed ? Politically motivated gangster killers would surely lose their heads under a oppressive regime
Yes, the perpetrators would have normally faced the death penalty. But in regards to the people shown, they were all arrested outside Russia and managed to escape execution. Kamo was arrested in Germany and actually feigned insanity for a long period of time (which is a funny story in of itself). Any prospect of a death sentence was delayed until he "mentally recovered", but he ended up escaping from the asylum before then. Litvinov wasn't a participant in the robbery, but rather one of the people meant to fence the stolen bills. He was caught in France with marked banknotes and was deported; the Russian government clamored for extradition, but this was rejected. Most of the Bolsheviks who were caught were similarly people trying to use the bills in continental Europe. Stalin was arrested in March 1908, but it appears they could not pin the Tiflis robbery on him at the time, so he was exiled instead. There are also unsubstantiated rumors that Stalin may have informed on people to reduce his sentence, which if true would help explain his survival during this period.
@@nojrants 'Vperyod' would be the more phonetic transliteration. Just pretend you're saying 'peer-YOD,' while sticking a 'v' sound at the very beginning (or an 'f' sound if that's easier -- but not an 's').
Misleading headline for this video. '...was brought to court' makes it sound as though Stalin was the defendant in the case, rather than the plaintiff.
There is no line in how far one should go to criticize Stalin. Criticism, constructive OR destructive, is the basis for all political communication. Without criticism, progress in ANY direction is impossible, let alone deciding what direction to progress in, LET ALONE actually MAKING any progress. The diversity of opinions naturally tends towards working itself out, no matter how disparate and antithetical- IF everyone can agree to let speech that is not inherently dangerous- (like, if you're at a football game and you start shouting "BOMB THERE'S A BOMB" so everyone panics- people literally can and probably will die in the ensuing chaotic stampede; this is the quintessential example of limits on free speech in the US, often referred to as shouting "FIRE!" in a movie theater- but honestly movie theaters aren't that big, they all have emergency fire exits at the back end, there's the front entrance, and much more advanced fire suppression systems than existed when that case was adjudicated, so I think the bomb example is a better one for the present day, even though it's not a case that's been tried- it's inherently MUCH worse of an example than fire in a Movie theater. Another example is direct threats of violence, such as that Indian lady who told Republican senators "we will come to your house and kill you"- that's ABSOLUTELY unacceptable. She did it in public, to their faces, too. That's literally what the officer-of-the-law is there for. I mean, he's also there to shoot terrorists and stuff, but usually no one just walks up to a Senator and goes "I'M GONNA FUCKING KILL YOU", so she got arrested, she'll stand trial, and will do serious prison time, because it's illegal to do that to ANYONE- it's just WAY easier to prove when she did it at a public forum, in front of a police officer, in front of an audience and the Senators themselves, at a forum that was literally being live streamed, MUCH easier to get a conviction (read: "literally as close to guaranteed as any criminal case can ever be in America") than if she confronted her neighbor in the alley and did the same, because in the latter case, it would be a "he-said-she-said", and there ARE ways of working out who's telling the truth, but it's just a lot more work than if someone is stupid enough to literally tell a senator they're going to kill them in front of a police officer. THESE are the kinds of limits that exist on Freedom of Speech. Fairly narrow, aside from slander, defamation, and libel laws, which, due to abuse by people like Donald Trump, who use frivolous litigation to silenc- sorry, USED to use frivolous litigation to silence anyone that he doesn't like(he can't afford it anymore lol) have ubiquitously become narrower and narrower over time since their passing. That's why it's SUCH a big deal when someone is found guilty, like Trump was, of Defamation- because there are REALLY, REALLY FUCKING HIGH standards of what it takes for that kind of judgement. [Sidebar: Anti-BDS laws are COMPLETELY unconstitutional; that is almost literally the definition of an unconstitutional law limiting freedom of speech, expression, and choice.]) be spoken, and all parties involved can agree to disagree, AND all parties involved both choose not to do violence because of speech, and, when they get angry (because politics almost ALWAYS makes SOMEBODY angry- it's literally so fucking important it'd be weirder if you DIDN'T get angry about it sometimes) restrain themselves from making bad choices, you get to a place where you begin to understand why Churchill said: "Democracy is the worst form of government, except for every other kind of government". Because governing is never easy. It's so unimaginably complex at the highest levels that the average person LITERALLY cannot understand what's going on, even if the leader just says it all straight-up, there's ALWAYS missing context, ALWAYS room for backroom manipulations, and most importantly- even when speaking the same dialect of the same language with someone you've known your entire life, with whom you agree on basically everything- there is ALWAYS room for misunderstanding and misinterpretation.
We don't live in a democracy, we live in a liberal democracy. That means you can only vote for a liberal party. If a non liberal party ever threatens the rule of the liberals the liberals stop playing "fair".
Kotkin openly rejects Western data on industrialisation and drought conditions because of "Soviet statistical distortion" which apparently could affect unrelated foreign agencies... He is a rabid anticommunist.
Yes, Stalin was elected to the Constituent Assembly as a deputy for the Petrograd City district, and was also a delegate to every Soviet Congress until his death.
Not sure if you're making an Elder Scrolls joke or not, but the Red Guards were the name of the Soviet (para)military volunteer forces, which among other things guarded government buildings. In our account of the trial, it says that the chairman called in the Red Guards to clear the spectators.
Your single source of truth seems to be Brovkin ? All your videos are almost exclusively based on Brovkin's work (which is not brillant, judging by his videos on youtube). Btw your framing of the whole scene is very partial and hardly related to a judicial case. OK we got this is a pro-Martov and anti-Stalinist video. You don't need to pretend any half-baked objectivity.
Do you have a substantive example of how the video is biased or unobjective? On what grounds are you calling the framing wrong? Or are you just assuming that it's wrong because it's not positive for Stalin?
@@JB4489-nu2qs Well judging not only by this video, but many of the videos the same author already posted. It is always the same basic framing. Bolsheviks are bad and we do not even see criticisms on everyone else. I guess all Mensheviks, SRs, Anarchists, or even Kadets were flawless dudes. All accusations enjoy the benefit of doubt but in favour of those accusing the Bolsheviks. I already commented on ohter videos that fact that most of the newspapers quoted here are from émigrés and they were not even based in Russia. Hard to believe they had all the details they claimed to have. Another use said that the papers are indeed Russian, I asked for evidence that suggests that, but I am still waiting for his reply.
@@JB4489-nu2qs I believe you are ignoring the basic framing of not only this, but all his videos as a whole. The Bolshevik framing is essentially negative and the other forces are practically not mentioned or framed as not so bad when compared to the Bolsheviks. But well, each one is entitled to have his own opinion on those videos. For me it is clear that the intent is to portray the Whites as a better "what if" alternative to the Reds.
That was how things broke down at the 1903 RSDLP conference in London where the split first occurred -- with the Bolsheviks as the larger faction. But it didn't necessarily stay that way (even though the names stuck) over the years that followed.
@@ronmackinnon9374 not really. Lenin got majority only because same mansevik live room during voting and nobody told them there is voting that day. Manseviks ask new voting but Lenin refused. That's how socialist party split. And manseviks have majority all the way to october revolution.
@@parallax9084you want to give your arguments backed with academic sources like this video or am I supposed to take the angry internet Stalinist’s word?
I admire Martov's attempts to force the Bolsheviks to the table on issues like press censorship. The problem is that these are pretty theoretical topics to be considering in the midst of a civil war. Trotsky said of Martov: "The man's misfortune was that fate made him a politician in a time of revolution, without endowing him with the necessary resources of will power." I think attempting to take Bolsheviks to court instead of organizing their overthrow bears this out.
The Mensheviks were weak and lacked willpower. The Bolsheviks did not. Therefore the Bolsheviks won out.
tbh there was no way to overthrow the Bolsheviks. Mensheviks were definition of spent force by end of 1917, and were largely absorbed by either White or Red organisations. They simply had nothing new to offer to people and dissapeared. They had those few months, but partly due to being, well, socialdemocrats which in itself is political nonsense; and partly due to truly difficult situation, they mismanaged the country horribly and dissapeared from floorboards of history. They simply represented a political dead end - the only people who could improve the situation were bolsheviks themselves
The Bolsheviks saved Russia from a pack of greedy Europeans and Anglo-Saxons, just like Putin does today..
Noted. So Mensheviks are a danger to the revolution?
The right Mensheviks tried to overthrow the Bolsheviks by force in conjunction with White armies. That didn't work either.
Also worth noting that April 1918 pre-dates the start of the civil war.
There's so much online history of the USSR but I've yet to come across even one other site which has such a detailed, minute-by-minute ground level approach like yours does. I 'd never heard of this incident before, but it's another excellent demonstration of the confused and conflicted patchwork that eventually stumbled into the Soviet (in name only) State. Most historians take the easy way out, shoehorning a linear structure on very loose events.I really feel you may be breaking new ground here, methodologically speaking.More please!!!
Thank you! Glad to hear you enjoyed it. I was surprised to find this topic is practically unknown, at least on RUclips, but it serves as such a fascinating case study for the state of affairs at the time. I have quite a few ideas for similar videos, coming soon...
Their literature is also amazing. Among the best of the best in the whole world.
i love when people can use a sorta small situation like this to illustrate how widely unstable and fractured all of Soviet Russia was at the time as well as the increasing distaste towards criticism directed at the bolsheviks. fantastic work!
Thank you! I agree, I was originally drawn to this topic since it's funny and unexpected, but I came to realize it says a lot about the state of affairs at the time.
yes thats what happens in a civil war where you need to mobilize all avaible resources for war as your nation is invaded by both imperialists and their collaborators.
@@justarandompersonininterne6583Yes which is perhaps why the Bolsheviks shouldn't have rejected the calls from Martov and leaders of other leftist parties for a coalition, or engaged in widespread forced requisition from the peasants or destroyed any popularly elected element of the government that didn't completely agree with them. Besides the fans of Leninism never seem to give up the "state of siege" mentality not after the civil war and not even by 1970 when the USSR was the 2nd largest economy on earth and a military superpower with enough nuclear ordinance to destroy the entire planet. At what point does "the bad people are against us" stop being an excuse for everything and anything the Bolshevik/CPSU leadership did?
@@justarandompersonininterne6583 ofcourse you tankie would defend this.
@@NeoEvanA.R.T im a communist,problem?
As a Russian with a special love for the XX century history I have never heard about this court case before. Really love your videos, they’re always informative, rooted in context and easy to watch and process!
Thank you! Glad to hear you enjoyed it
@@nojrantsis the voice AI text-to-speech or yours? And if it's yours, may I ask where you're from?
@@AlphaChinoz Yes that is me. I don't know why I talk like this, I was raised in New Jersey haha
@@nojrants did he really steal a ship? Stalin is a pirate?
@@kitkat47chrysalis95 Unfortunately no, it was only a robbery on the ship, not of the ship itself
sounds like Martov was still expecting the promised democracy to be real
Just like Kennedy...
yes,soviet democracy was very real whether you like to know it or not.
@@justarandompersonininterne6583 just not for very long.
@@novelseeker4410 i agree,soviets lost their power in 70s due to massive bureucracy utilizing its power to strip away power from them.
@@justarandompersonininterne6583 the soviets lost power when Lenin put his party commissars in charge of them in an effort to quell unrest. These were the days when the bureaucracy you complain about was established.
I had to do a double take at 7:55, that's not Lev Sovnovksy but Lev Vygotsky, a Soviet psychologist
Woops, I think you're right. For whatever reason he seems to come up when searching for pictures of Sosnovsky, thank you for bringing that to my attention.
I also saw that! As someone working in education it was a bit of a fright seeing all-too-familiar Vygotsky come up on a history video
Lev, Lev, -sky, -sky, they’re all the same (JK).
This is currently my absolute favourite history RUclips channel, please never stop
Thank you!
"We do a little terrorism"
-Ioseb "Koba" Dzhugashvili, probably
Stalin is a much better party name.
Why would anyone called themselves that? The quote is questionable lol
@@ryanreedgibson no one dares mess with the Man O' Steel
@@thinkinsidetheboxsquarecir3303No one really, I was just a nickname given to Stalin by his very close associates, like Kirov, Molotov and some few bodyguards he was close with.
An example of this is in Berias journal, he says: "After reading about the red army struggle at stalingrad, i saw tears in the eyes of the Koba for the first time in my life".
@@thinkinsidetheboxsquarecir3303it’s from a Georgian novel.
Splendid video as always, I love your intonation
Thank you! The recording (and re-recording) process is something I spend a lot of time on, so I'm glad to hear people find it enjoyable
> jooOO-seph Stalin, leader of the Soviet Union
killer opening
@@tnmrvc maybe intonation is the wrong word, English isn't my primary language, I just like the way he speaks in his videos
Another great one and nice use of a relatively small incident to depict the political context
This was really interesting. Thanks.
Thank you!
Wow it's Stalin himself
What I also find interesting is that Lavrentiy Beria was reportedly supposed to be executed by the Bolsheviks during the Civil War - could be interesting to imagine what could’ve happened had Beria not become Stalin’s right-hand man during the purges or been overthrown after Stalin’s death…
even more interesting, as far as Beria goes, supposedly it came out, after Stalin died, that he, "deep down", actually was considerably "divergent" with Stalin's views on many 'key' things, which one wouldn't quite expect from a secret police leader as "hardline" as him.
For example, it seems that, after Stalin's death, Beria presided over *actual* investigations of the doctors accused by Stalin in the "Doctor's Plot" and... *had them freed*. Huh... Not only that, but he supposedly *admitted* that the plot was fabricated, *and* the secret policemen who directly had a hand in it were arrested! :o
interesting
FWIW, Kruschchev, supposedly, also "claims" that Beria, during the final days of Stalin's life, "secretly cursed" his name, so to speak, whenever Stalin lost consciousness. lol
Not to mention this tidbit:
"Shortly after Stalin's death, Beria announced triumphantly to the Politburo that he had "done [Stalin] in" and "saved [us] all", according to Molotov's memoirs"
Hard to know what to make of all of said post-Stalin revelations regarding Beria. Was he just a "shrewd and conniving" Soviet leader who "knew how to get and keep power for a while", esp. to keep himself from 'being done in' by things like the Purge, while having "secretly anti-Stalinist views along" (while also, to some degree, probably being a psychopath)
Or... after first joining the NKVD, for example, did he "have a big change of heart" on a lot of major issues by 1953??
Hmmm...
we may never know, sadly.
@@Whoo711Beria also apparently asked Kruschev, after Stalin's death, "why don't we just take the Marshall Plan money the Americans are offering and ditch the whole Marxism thing?"
Someone else does purges but with less child rape I guess
The amount of effort in these video's is honestly staggering, always overjoyed to see whenever a new video comes out!
Thank you! I appreciate the support
Wonderful video! I have been studying the Stalin Era on and off for many years, and still so many stories to know!
Thank you!
In Soviet Russia Stallin put Court on trial.
new video, im hyped to learn something new!
Lmao, Stalin being a tyrant narcissist since the civil war, lmao, I can see why Lenin eventually realised the danger he posed to freedom, socialist democracy and the cause.
Would really love a full series on the "narrowing" of political speech/opposition throughout 1918, would be interesting to learn how Soviet Russia went from a "multi"-party state to a single party one
The next few videos in the Election Series (as well as the "How the Bolsheviks Destroyed the Soviets" video if you haven't seen it already) will cover this in more detail. After that, I'd be happy to make some more videos going into detail about specific events, similar to this video.
@@nojrants many thanks! keep up the good work, your content is so unique!
Once again Stalin went at it with a knife to the back. He was very crafty when he came to make his plays. He manipulated Lenin as Rag doll after his stroke. He planned several ways to end Trosky. He held family members as hostages to control people. The only 2 people he thought as equals was Beria and Zukov. Beria was a perverted sociopath who killed and raped with a zeal only comperable to his Master. Zukov was a war hero who had nothing but a string of victories without Stalin's manipulating him..
Great video, I had never heard about this before
Thank you! Glad to hear I was able to shine a light on this for people.
This channel is truly underrated. Nice audio quality, not too impressive but good looking editing and of course very high quality content always informative, presented in an interesting way and historically as accurate as one can get in this field. Your videos are all gems in a sea of garbage history content, please continue releasing them. You can’t get better bite sized info on very niche topics anywhere else. Much love.
Thank you! Glad to hear people enjoy the videos
you've heard it a lot in this comment box already but thank you for your work man, as a russian i can tell you that there are no videos on the subject of revolutionary Russia in russian which were as good and informative as yours are.
is the next video gonna be about the 4th soviet congress?
Thank you for the support! I'm glad to hear you find these videos informative. Yes, I am currently working on the 4th Soviet Congress video, which I think will be released soon.
Now tis is a little bit of history that doesn't ever get mentioned.
Excellent video. Your channel focuses on a period that few people know about and that few people discuss. Thanks for making this.
Glad to hear you enjoyed it!
That's a picture of psychologist Lev Vygotsky on 7:55, not Lev Sosnovsky
Commenting for the algorithm. But I hope your channel keeps growing, Russian history interwar is soooo overlooked. ❤
I meant history abt Russia that isn't just centered around wars*
Thank you! I agree, it seems like most Soviet/Russian content on RUclips is centered around WW2, but there's so much more to talk about.
in a revolution, one must be like either a dog, or a wolf. the dog follows blindly the promise of a treat, believing his leader’s promise is true and just. the wolf, however, does not blindly trust his leader, but seeks out his own meal. this is the lesson we learn from the suit filed by stalin against mertov.
Extremely underrated video
Thank you!
Another gem! I’ve been trying to find a good English book on the power struggle following Lenin’s death that isn’t specifically a Stalin biography. Do you know of any such book? I know James Harris has one in the works. Thanks!
I'll be covering this in a few videos from now, but here's a few books to start with. I know you said a non-Stalin biography, but Stephen Kotkin's "Stalin" (volume one) in my opinion goes far beyond just Stalin, and covers that period of history is great detail. Moshe Lewin's "Lenin's Last Struggle" is pretty much one of the classics on this question, if a bit old (focusing more so on the period just before Lenin's death, but it carries over). Robert V. Daniels has also written a lot on this topic; "Conscience of the Revolution" for example is a great overview of all the various power struggles during the first decade after the revolution.
If I may chime in here, if memory serves, there was also very-interesting book I came across a while ago- supposedly part of a 7-part series. I think the author's name was Vadim Rakov or Rygov or something like that. I know his first name was Vadim.
Anyway.. the book is called "Was There An Alternative?" I'm not sure how 'in-depth' it goes regarding the power struggles post-Lenin, but, nonetheless, it does do a pretty-good job of being quite informative, nonetheless. supposedly the author had pretty-good access to archives, for one
The author is, admittedly, a Trotskyist, and the book's subtitle- now that I've re-checked, for memory's sake- is largely about "Trotskyism" as a 'potential alternative' (though Vadim also discusses the Left Opposition, fwiw) but, nonetheless, he probably does cover a lot of ground (esp. given how many parts there are).
@@Whoo711 Yes that's right, "Was There An Alternative?" by Vadim Rogovin. I haven't read his entire series, only the standalone English version, but from what I remember I would say it's fairly informative. It was also influential in disspelling many misconceptions in regards to Trotsky in the post-Soviet period. However, you also have to keep in mind that it is coming from a Trotskyist perspective, which colors some of the conclusions about Trotsky as a "more correct" alternative.
Dmitri Volkogonov's biographies of Lenin, Stalin, and Trotsky are excellent because he used secret documents from KGB and other "soviet" archives to write them.
1:01 "Back in 1908, Stalin was irrate!" Excellent rhyme!
Woops that wasn't even intentional haha
This is incredibly interesting I never would have guessed that this kind of thing would happen
Surely those Mansheviks and Martov would have a happy trip after they criticized Stalin.
0:00 He looks so frightening and so funny at the same time , like a sort of angry super Mario😅
At 7:52 you have a photo of Vygotsky instead of Sosnovsky
Nice to see someone on RUclips who is reading Vladimir Brovkin's work. Alexander Rabinowitch did a good paper on how Trotsky organized the first "soviet" show trial against Alexey Schastny which is ironic given how such trials were later used against Trotsky and his alleged supporters.
What an incredible story and wonderful video❤❤
Thank you! I appreciate it
Question.
Where kadet news papers banned before this?
Yes, for example Rech' (the main Kadet newspaper) was closed down just after the October Revolution. The Kadet Party itself was actually suppressed in its entirety by this time.
Nice videos, really like your chanel. I will follow for more in future
awesome video. you never hear anybody talking about this even though its such and intriguing event in early soviet history.
Thank you! I agree, this is a very obscure part of the history but also quite fascinating.
Very interesting topic, I have never heard of this before.
Martovs logic is convincing and he seems to be a brave man.
great stuff
Thank you!
It's truly insane to me that the revolutionaries actually managed to make institutions and a long lasting government out of the chaos of the Russian Revolution
And then win the biggest war in human history and go to space, truly insane
those were people with determination and a goal
Thank you for being able to resarch and debunk myths of the bolshievks has being unquestioned and uncontested popular revoultionaries. your videos bring a needed complexity to truly understanding the climate of revoutlionary russian that i have yet to see anywhere else.
Seems like you're mispronouncing Vpered as "Spiryot", "Fpiryot" is moreso the target.
Stalin's "Not a bad idea..." thought bubble made me chuckle.
As a Russian native speaker: “Fpir’yot” is actual the most accurate way to pronounce it.
Thank you, I'll keep that in mind! I'm still working on my pronounciation haha (English included half the time)
Looks like it's going to be a fruitful May that year, and this year!
Looking forward to alternated Soviet History for once with Cody, and an entire series of Soviet History with Noj Rants!
Hello Noj Rants, I have very much enjoyed your videos regarding the USSR and I have just one question. It's regarding the chairman of the revolutionary tribunal. From what I found is that his name was Pechak (surname) but I am having trouble finding other information about him and the photo you used for the judge. He might have been sympathetic or in league with Stalin. If you can provide a source link from where you got that photo and information regarding Pechak it would be much appreciated. Thank you for attention. Edit: From what I have found his name is К.Я. Печак and was latvian but I found no info on the picture and biography.
To my knowledge, there isn't a picture of Pechak available online, so for the visual I just used a generic picture of a Bolshevik tribunal chairman. I haven't come across anything saying he was in league with Stalin necessarily, nor was that the angle of attack the Mensheviks seem to have took, but considering the Bolsheviks set up and operated such tribunals, it's probably safe to say he was at least sympathetic to Stalin. In partially siding with Martov in the end though, he seems to demonstrate he was by no means sycophantic to Stalin specifically.
@@nojrants Thank you very much for your answer. I neither myself looking through CPSS archives found any more information about Pechak or pictures of him. The chairman you used looks like a Tsarist general.
Could you make a video on the history of the Russian Orthodox Church since the beginning of 20th century until today?
cool video your voice reminds me of burger king foot lettuce but with a deeper voice
a menacing burger king foot lettuce
Cody from alternate history hub??
here we go
7:05 This is outrageous! It's unfair!
Lore of When Stalin was Brought to Court in Soviet Russia momentum 100
I LOVE COURT CASES I’M OVER HERE SETTING PRECEDENT I GOT LAW UNDER MY GAVEL I’M SETTIN PRECEDENT
Fascinating!
Were such cases mainly just talked about and reported on in the press and among various folks involved (not to mention the parties themselves), or were, in fact, special 'revolutionary tribunal records/archives' also kept that scholars have, from time to time, consulted for "confirmation" of this or that?
Or did Bolshevik leaders simply that think that, because theirs was a "special system", keeping such official judicial records wasn't quite "essential" or "necessary"?
Interestingly enough, if memory serves, I think that I heard that, for one reason or another, official 'records'/archives of Cheka operations have never been 'made public', and it's rumored, if not confirmed, that they were likely "destroyed" or "lost" shortly thereafter?
Though, funny enough, I recently found out that one of the former leaders behind glasnost and perestroika, Alexander Yakovlev, actually wrote a book supposedly "chronicling" a 'shitload' of folks killed by the Soviet regime (esp. under Stalin), though I'm not sure if it goes as "far back" as the Cheka era (though, if memory serves, I think I actually heard about Yakovlev's book, funny enough, *on* a Wiki page about the Red Terror?)
Yes, we actually have the transcript of the case preserved in the Russian archives. So not only can we compare the Menshevik version of the story from Vpered and the Bolshevik version from Izvestiia, we can compare both to the transcript (which has become available in the last few decades). So for example we can see that Izvestiia left out any mention of Martov's witnesses, since that would be problematic for Stalin, but the transcript confirms they were named during the trial after all.
In general, stenographic reports were taken for all such cases, but they wouldn't necessarily be published verbatim. Individuals would still report what happened in newspapers and could be reasonably trusted as accurate, which is part of the reason why the trials were quietly shelved. The version published in Vpered pretty much follows the transcript in terms of the events.
Perhaps I will make a video on this in the future, but in general the Soviet archives began to open in the 1980s and 90s, leading to a renaissance of scholarship, but in the past 20 years that openness has been quietly reversed. Certain records, especially those having to do with the secret police, were either never fully explored in the first place or have since become closed. With recent events in Russia, access to archives (especially uncovering new documents) has become a lot more challenging.
Song? It's got those Escape From New York vibes
its original
All the music is stuff I improvise for the videos myself, although toward the end here I went into something sort of like the song "At Dawn" by the Soviet band Alliance.
So are you going to suspend the Elections series a bit and go over some civil war era stuff?
Knowing more about the various White Governments would be nice
I'm still working on the election series, but I plan to make one-off videos like this along the way, maybe in an alternating pattern roughly. The next video will be the 4th Soviet Congress, which should be coming soon. And I agree, a video on the White Movement is needed.
Also the green armys and the black armys, and independent Ukraine and independent Belarus.
any book recommendations w this level of detail for non russian speakers?
All the books mentioned in the description I definitely recommend. Kotkin's two (soon to be three) books on Stalin are all very detailed, and talk a lot about the surrounding history, not just the man himself. Brovkin's book is great, although it's more focused on the Menshevik perspective. There's a chapter there regarding this event if you want to read in more detail. Depending on what you are interested in I can give a more specific book recommendation.
@@nojrants thank you so much, I know its later than youve discussed, but I am very interested in the Stalin/Bukharin power struggle & the overall fight around New Economic Policy. lmk if you have any other recs, imma definitely check out Kotkin's biography.
@@nojrants thanks i just seen the bib good looks; Its a little later than what youve covered so far, but I am v interested in the Stalin/ Bukharin power struggle, and the political struggle for New Economic Policy overall. I just got Kotkin's first two volumes (i loved magnetic mountain), any other specific recs on that?
@@jamontiqueq8763 In that case, another good book to check out might be Robert V. Daniels' "Conscience of the Revolution". It focuses on all the various oppositions within the Communist Party, including in regards to the debate surrounding the NEP.
Me playing with my toys:
Imagine if the case was stronger and Lenin had decided to cut bait.
This is great . . . I knew some of this . . .knew about the steamship heist but not these court proceedings . . .
Also... did one of the Soviet papers *actually* refer to Stalin as "Bolshevik Crybaby"??🤣😂
nice
No haha, that was just me distilling all the various articles down into a headline that would capture the spirit of them.
@@nojrants you cheeky bugger ;)
I liked this video. I don't have questions or complaints but I do have a suggestion:
This story of Stalin's trial has the potential to be a part of a longer video series looking at how this early period in the post-revolutionary USSR developed and evolved from democratic norms towards - and culminating in - dictatorship, oppression, and ultimately the terror of Stalin.
You should develop this theme further in future videos.
Thank you! I agree, there's a lot of potential to continue this theme throughout the rest of Soviet history, and I definitely plan to continue in similar videos.
soviet union was a democracy. you can both go check soviet constituton and cia on how it operated. It was that way until 80s.
@@justarandompersonininterne6583 There are good jokes - and there is the Soviet Constitution. 😂
@simianessense and so is ur life.
@@katyn_was_based14 Well, I will admit it wasn't funny for those who had to live under it; it was just a kind of tragic-comedy for the historians who have studied the difference between reality and what is written on a piece of paper.
He may have been a criminal and a mass murderer, but he had great hair.
Excuse me but i can't help but comment that your voice is soo similar to Althistoryhub's. Great and informative video as always!
Thank you! I've never noticed that before, but not that you mention it I can kind of hear it haha
To me, the voice is so reminiscent of a particular radio ad for Geico insurance from some years back. In response to his weeping girlfriend (mistress?) who has just told him, 'So long as you're with Jessica, there can be nothing between us,' we hear the guy, in this voice, say:
'Cass, there's no need for you to cry. And besides, I've got some really great news.'
'You're leaving Jessica?' [she says, hopefully]
'No. I just saved a ton on money on car insurance by switching to Geico!'
I'd be insulted if anybody compared me to that hack.
That hopeful time period where the soviet union was still mostly a delegatory multi-party democracy and hadn't fully transformed into a dictatorship.
Was it a democracy though? I am no expert on the topic but the videos on this channel depict the bolsheviks as a thuggish political force which only tolerates any democratic action when it doesn't contradict the bolsheviks themselves. Every time the Soviets or non-bolshevik socialists or disillusioned bolsheviks try to oppose Lenin's party, they get crushed without mercy.
Therefore, the transformation which actually seems to appear, is that a de facto one-party state, which doesn't yet have the resources to smother all opposition and so tactically "tolerates" them, morphs into a one party state which is strong enough to prevent any opposition from gaining any power.
That hopeful period being post regime war time chaos lol
Gimme your bibliography.
For this topic, the books in the description are a good place to start. But was there something in particular you were curious about? If so I can give you more specific book recommendations.
1:52 didn’t you just say that they were involved in a robbery where several bystanders were killed ?
Politically motivated gangster killers would surely lose their heads under a oppressive regime
Yes, the perpetrators would have normally faced the death penalty. But in regards to the people shown, they were all arrested outside Russia and managed to escape execution.
Kamo was arrested in Germany and actually feigned insanity for a long period of time (which is a funny story in of itself). Any prospect of a death sentence was delayed until he "mentally recovered", but he ended up escaping from the asylum before then.
Litvinov wasn't a participant in the robbery, but rather one of the people meant to fence the stolen bills. He was caught in France with marked banknotes and was deported; the Russian government clamored for extradition, but this was rejected. Most of the Bolsheviks who were caught were similarly people trying to use the bills in continental Europe.
Stalin was arrested in March 1908, but it appears they could not pin the Tiflis robbery on him at the time, so he was exiled instead. There are also unsubstantiated rumors that Stalin may have informed on people to reduce his sentence, which if true would help explain his survival during this period.
What's that about 'spiriot' at 0:33? The newspaper was called 'Vpered' ('forward').
Yes the name of the newspaper is spelled "Vpered", which is pronounced like that (at least as best as I can say it).
@@nojrants 'Vperyod' would be the more phonetic transliteration. Just pretend you're saying 'peer-YOD,' while sticking a 'v' sound at the very beginning (or an 'f' sound if that's easier -- but not an 's').
@@nojrants why would V be pronounced as an S though, you don't have to be Russian to realize it doesn't make sense lol
Love it
Misleading headline for this video. '...was brought to court' makes it sound as though Stalin was the defendant in the case, rather than the plaintiff.
you're my fav martovite ❤
I swear I'm not a Martovite haha, but he does seem to come up a lot
@@nojrants in your next video with martov can you refer to him as lenins ex husband
That's nice, but where's the sources?
They appear visually on screen throughout the video in the form of footnotes, and also are listed in the bibliography in the description.
"Mensheviks are lame" lol
There is no line in how far one should go to criticize Stalin.
Criticism, constructive OR destructive, is the basis for all political communication. Without criticism, progress in ANY direction is impossible, let alone deciding what direction to progress in, LET ALONE actually MAKING any progress. The diversity of opinions naturally tends towards working itself out, no matter how disparate and antithetical- IF everyone can agree to let speech that is not inherently dangerous-
(like, if you're at a football game and you start shouting "BOMB THERE'S A BOMB" so everyone panics- people literally can and probably will die in the ensuing chaotic stampede; this is the quintessential example of limits on free speech in the US, often referred to as shouting "FIRE!" in a movie theater- but honestly movie theaters aren't that big, they all have emergency fire exits at the back end, there's the front entrance, and much more advanced fire suppression systems than existed when that case was adjudicated, so I think the bomb example is a better one for the present day, even though it's not a case that's been tried- it's inherently MUCH worse of an example than fire in a Movie theater. Another example is direct threats of violence, such as that Indian lady who told Republican senators "we will come to your house and kill you"- that's ABSOLUTELY unacceptable. She did it in public, to their faces, too. That's literally what the officer-of-the-law is there for. I mean, he's also there to shoot terrorists and stuff, but usually no one just walks up to a Senator and goes "I'M GONNA FUCKING KILL YOU", so she got arrested, she'll stand trial, and will do serious prison time, because it's illegal to do that to ANYONE- it's just WAY easier to prove when she did it at a public forum, in front of a police officer, in front of an audience and the Senators themselves, at a forum that was literally being live streamed, MUCH easier to get a conviction (read: "literally as close to guaranteed as any criminal case can ever be in America") than if she confronted her neighbor in the alley and did the same, because in the latter case, it would be a "he-said-she-said", and there ARE ways of working out who's telling the truth, but it's just a lot more work than if someone is stupid enough to literally tell a senator they're going to kill them in front of a police officer. THESE are the kinds of limits that exist on Freedom of Speech. Fairly narrow, aside from slander, defamation, and libel laws, which, due to abuse by people like Donald Trump, who use frivolous litigation to silenc- sorry, USED to use frivolous litigation to silence anyone that he doesn't like(he can't afford it anymore lol) have ubiquitously become narrower and narrower over time since their passing. That's why it's SUCH a big deal when someone is found guilty, like Trump was, of Defamation- because there are REALLY, REALLY FUCKING HIGH standards of what it takes for that kind of judgement. [Sidebar: Anti-BDS laws are COMPLETELY unconstitutional; that is almost literally the definition of an unconstitutional law limiting freedom of speech, expression, and choice.])
be spoken, and all parties involved can agree to disagree, AND all parties involved both choose not to do violence because of speech, and, when they get angry (because politics almost ALWAYS makes SOMEBODY angry- it's literally so fucking important it'd be weirder if you DIDN'T get angry about it sometimes) restrain themselves from making bad choices, you get to a place where you begin to understand why Churchill said:
"Democracy is the worst form of government, except for every other kind of government".
Because governing is never easy. It's so unimaginably complex at the highest levels that the average person LITERALLY cannot understand what's going on, even if the leader just says it all straight-up, there's ALWAYS missing context, ALWAYS room for backroom manipulations, and most importantly- even when speaking the same dialect of the same language with someone you've known your entire life, with whom you agree on basically everything- there is ALWAYS room for misunderstanding and misinterpretation.
We don't live in a democracy, we live in a liberal democracy. That means you can only vote for a liberal party. If a non liberal party ever threatens the rule of the liberals the liberals stop playing "fair".
Unironically using Kotkin as a real source!
what's wrong about that?
@@waluigipiestudios369you need Getty, not kotkin
@@ajaysidhu471 ..well, why?
@@waluigipiestudios369 because kotkin doesn't know what he's talking about most of the time
Kotkin openly rejects Western data on industrialisation and drought conditions because of "Soviet statistical distortion" which apparently could affect unrelated foreign agencies... He is a rabid anticommunist.
Did Stalin ever take part in any election?
Yes, Stalin was elected to the Constituent Assembly as a deputy for the Petrograd City district, and was also a delegate to every Soviet Congress until his death.
Well that was interesting. I suppose Kotkin can be trusted to be factual on anything that puts Stalin in a bad light.
the weird pauses mark this as bot trash
Are you talking about the audio? I can assure you that's me talking, not any sort of bot.
“Menshiviks are lame”
They had no idea what Stalin would do to the menshiviks later
0:08 he even has a terrorist scarf
I dont see a logo of Lehi on it
9:41 / 9:41
Brest Litovsk one of the greatest shames in russian history.
what would you have done instead?
What do redguards have to do with this
Not sure if you're making an Elder Scrolls joke or not, but the Red Guards were the name of the Soviet (para)military volunteer forces, which among other things guarded government buildings. In our account of the trial, it says that the chairman called in the Red Guards to clear the spectators.
W Stalin as always
W big mab
Stalin was a Saint. To say he did anything bad is pure slander!
Thanks for the visit to Bizarro World!
What? Corruption in communism?
Your single source of truth seems to be Brovkin ? All your videos are almost exclusively based on Brovkin's work (which is not brillant, judging by his videos on youtube).
Btw your framing of the whole scene is very partial and hardly related to a judicial case. OK we got this is a pro-Martov and anti-Stalinist video. You don't need to pretend any half-baked objectivity.
Do you have a substantive example of how the video is biased or unobjective? On what grounds are you calling the framing wrong? Or are you just assuming that it's wrong because it's not positive for Stalin?
@@JB4489-nu2qs Well judging not only by this video, but many of the videos the same author already posted. It is always the same basic framing. Bolsheviks are bad and we do not even see criticisms on everyone else. I guess all Mensheviks, SRs, Anarchists, or even Kadets were flawless dudes. All accusations enjoy the benefit of doubt but in favour of those accusing the Bolsheviks. I already commented on ohter videos that fact that most of the newspapers quoted here are from émigrés and they were not even based in Russia. Hard to believe they had all the details they claimed to have. Another use said that the papers are indeed Russian, I asked for evidence that suggests that, but I am still waiting for his reply.
@@MK-jc6us What about in the very first episode where he pointed out the right-wing massacred thousands of people?
@@MK-jc6usIs Pravda anti-communist?
@@JB4489-nu2qs I believe you are ignoring the basic framing of not only this, but all his videos as a whole. The Bolshevik framing is essentially negative and the other forces are practically not mentioned or framed as not so bad when compared to the Bolsheviks. But well, each one is entitled to have his own opinion on those videos. For me it is clear that the intent is to portray the Whites as a better "what if" alternative to the Reds.
Stalin was the biggest crime lord. Period.
Bolshevik translates to majority
Menshevic translates to minority
But the bolsheviks were a minority and the Mensheviks comprised the majority and were far more popular before the civil war.
go read Lenin's One Step Forward Two Step Back. Even he explains it differently than you.
@@Smerpyderpdoesn't matter how people voted. Only matters how votes are counting.
J. Stalin
That was how things broke down at the 1903 RSDLP conference in London where the split first occurred -- with the Bolsheviks as the larger faction. But it didn't necessarily stay that way (even though the names stuck) over the years that followed.
@@ronmackinnon9374 not really. Lenin got majority only because same mansevik live room during voting and nobody told them there is voting that day. Manseviks ask new voting but Lenin refused. That's how socialist party split. And manseviks have majority all the way to october revolution.
Womp Womp
Pole
Swede
Dane
He was never tanken to court
Two parties slandering each other sounds just like the Republicans and Democrats
The background music made this a torture to go through. Very annoying
Birds of a feather couldnt use a comb...oh my
And goofy socialists were adrift in a sea of adjectives...lo
W
Irrelevant!
This is like if trump wins the election.
Bullshit
Uh Oh time for another propaganda video
Do you leave a comment on every video this guy posts? Like bro, log off and talk with a blue color worker while you are at it.
@@mr.oliverlaw8863 i am blue collar. And I dont see what logging off has to do with his disinformative videos
@@parallax9084Which disinformation
@@parallax9084you want to give your arguments backed with academic sources like this video or am I supposed to take the angry internet Stalinist’s word?
@@mr.oliverlaw8863 These videos are anti-Leninist, they have nothing to do with Stalin or Stalinism which dosent exist.
This is a terrible voice for a documentart!