History was really boring in school. Nothing but tired old farts filling black boards with reams of notes. Then in my 4th year at college, we had a history prof who was fascinated by the subject. He exuded an enthusiasm that was positively contagious. His was one of the rare classes that nobody skipped, nor fell asleep in. I always looked forward to his lectures, learned a lot, and have been fascinated by history ever since. Simon is like this prof.
History is fascinating and important to understand. It's our garbage educational system and lousy teachers it's turned out that have ruined history education for generations. And created a nation of people totally unaware and uncaring about the history of the U.S. and the world.
@@harrietharlow9929 they know but they are sympathizers and downplay death tolls. I was called an anti communist troll for merely stating his evil actions on a hitler video
Technically the Soviet Union was the most equal place, everyone was equally poor and starving and terrified the secret police would make them disappear
Not really. The Nomenkultura and party leadership lived quite well. Of course, they were under constant observation and the threat of the state security forces knocking at their door in the middle of the night was much higher and that of the average Soviet subject. That was even before the purges.
Russian here. This is a gross overstatement, especially if you consider the second half of the 20th century. I'm 32 years old and not even my grandparents were "poor and starving", let alone "terrified of the secret police", although they weren't a part of the government elite in any shape or form. In fact, ABSOLUTELY NO ONE was homeless, jobless or starving. Also the government elite didn't have nearly as much of an advantage in terms of material wealth as western people tend to believe. My grandfather was a low-ranking army officer and his neighbor next door was a director of a large concrete factory, a fairly influential figure in town. Their lives were roughly the same. The other guy could buy a color tv a bit sooner, but that's about it. Now, speaking of being terrified, the present day US prison population dwarfs that of the USSR. Also, speaking of rights and freedoms, I dare you to say publicly that black lives don't matter and see how your whole life crumbles.
Red terror happened in Finland too, just after independence. It overflowed from Russia. We had a civil war as well, but in our case the whites actually won. Otherwise it would've been goodbye independence and Finland would've been made a part of Soviet Union.
Was about to post this, although in Finland's case the white terror ended up being far more deadly, with casualties somewhere around 7000 for the white terror and 1500ish for the red terror, not counting deaths in battle or the infamous prison camps. Source: sotasurmat-database
The White Guards went around raping and killing women for wearing pants. They also killed thousands in prison camps. Not exactly bloodless, the Left-wing Finns referred to Mannerheim as the Butcher for a reason after the war.
I really enjoy the darker content on this channel and thank you for the length of your videos. I'd be super irritated if you talked about these interesting topics or events in roughly 10 minutes or less. Keep up the good work.
Excellent video in explaining the red terror and the Russian "decent into Hell" Please do more videos like this, covering the Stasi in East Germany and the Securitate in Romania.
My paternal grandfather helped hundreds flee the Red Terror, he ended up being put on one of those lists the day after he himself fled. But before you go thinking he was a saint we are not sure if he took his wife or his mistress when he fled.
@@ANNAKKi it is. Apparently at his funeral there was a huge turn up from the people that they saved and their children. I wish I could have met him... He is an enigma to me: a man who saved soo many people but yet was cruel and horrible to his own family.
@Cancer McAids i don't think so. Remember that the only reason why we see russia like we do today, is because of the Events of the Revolution, ww2 and the cold war. Before that the Russians were as much part of western society as the rest of europe. Especially the cruelty that russians are hated for comes from these Events too and would propably never have happened without it.
And yet, you still cheer to the collapse of USSR that brought even more death, conflict and misery upon the same lands because you were told that USSR is an evil empire that deserved it. How it is different from revolution? How can you ignore the architects of this collapse?
@@RejectedInch Exaggerated but not false enough. There's an unhealthy rise of Socialism, and many do present that as a more acceptable stepping stone for more radical iterations. For example, there's the Project Veritas video of a Bernie staffer talking about his personal (him not Bernie) reverence for outright Communism and "joking" about putting the right wingers in camps. Plus you see a decent amount of Hammer and Sickles in left wing protests.
Damn! fact boi...I swear every single one of your 256458 channels seem to be doing extremely well, both subs and views! Congrats. You have this way of making ANY topic captivating and interesting to listen to, I especially enjoy your crime content 👌🏼
Thank you for this show, Simon. This channel explains these dark topics in a thoughtful and interesting way. I’d love to have it available as a podcast too.
People often ask, why Russians are so skeptical about liberal ideas. Well, we once had a group that wanted to give power to the people, wanted democracy in its very definition. They wanted to shake up the stale system, to tear down corrupt hierarchy of rich and uncaring, to break the yoke of opression. This video gives a good glance at how they went about it.
Turns out HOW you do things is just as important as why. Sucks that most people don't really see or care about the minutia of how to properly do something - they just kind of rubber-band between silly ideas as they forget how bad one was before going to the other bad one.
Another fantastic and fascinating video.. well done Simon! I did my senior project in college on the Romanoff family, rise and fall and it was absolutely fascinating and horrifying how the bolsheviks came to power.
I strongly disagree that the dying in Russia "all began in 1918". Staying alive was very difficult in Russia throughout the 20th century, dying was almost a habit, an addiction. 2,700,000 died from 1914-1918 in the fields of WW1, the most of any combatant nation. The carnage was breathtaking, and the Russian leadership just didn't care.
@@templarw20 they were worse, but that is propably, because soviet leadership lacked both education in leadership in warfare. The only thing they didn't lack was manpower.
There were multiple factions in 1918, not just the Bolsheviks and the government; the Bolsheviks were neither the biggest nor the only Left-Wing one- the Social Revolutionaries (SR) and the Mensheviks were obvious competitors. Kerensky was actually more worried about the extreme right (who had also tried to overthrow the government before) than he was about Lenin despite warnings and pretty much everyone except the Left SR (which split from the SR) were angry with the Bolsheviks for taking over, especially since they did so a mere week before a democratic revolution (which Lenin reluctantly allowed to take place then promptly ignored once the Bolsheviks failed to win). And the storming of the Winter Palace wasn't really in protest of their policies, although that was the excuse- Lenin was VERY PUBLICLY "smuggled" into Russia by the Germans with the express intent of overthrowing the government in return for peace with Germany (though Lenin hoped that his revolution would inspire an anti-Kaiser German one). It was an open secret that Lenin was in the country to take power and he was regularly accused of being little more than a German spy, which was exacerbated when he was forced to sign the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk which turned everyone across the political spectrum against them, and anti-Bolshevik and pro-Bolshevik violence was breaking out months before the "official" start of the Red Terror including the assassination of the German ambassador by the Left SR
@@HyprHotshot Basically the right wing also wanted to overthrow the government in 1917, not only Lenin. And Lenin didn't have most of the communists on his side either.
Mark Twain disagreed - A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court. You should read it if you get the chance. It's about serfdom, peasants, royalty and revolution.
Though Communist USSR was a nightmare Russian Empire was no paradise either with Serfdom only abolished in 1867 and bloody ending of peasant rebellion such as the Pugachev Rebellion with nearly 20,000 killed
I don't think anyone argues the Tzar Regime was by any means some utopia. But I would bet more people were killed for making a joke about Stalin than in that rebellion.
@@calexander7495 Agreed, when we really look at facts and figures Russia bled and suffered more under the less then century long stranglehold the Marxists/Communists had on Russia then they ever did in over the 3 centuries of Romanov rule. It truly is a cruel irony that Russian people traded a less then satisfactory deal for a total rip-off.
I guarantee that the Bolsheviks were hypocrites, as people expected brutality of the Romanovs, but the Bolsheviks escalated violence...all for the supposed Greater Good.
I'm kind of amazed, and lost count of just how many were killed in the Soviet Union from 1900 or so for the next 50 odd years. I only caught the different amounts and a rough estimate was about 60 million+, right?
Admittedly this is more of history than social studies. They're different, although history is definitely used as a reference in social studies when they have statistics for things.
@@monsieurdorgat6864 Simon has about 10 channels or more that focus on a lot of things that are history and hell a variety of subjects. All snapshots of history. What is social studies by definition? Various aspects or branches of the study of human society, considered as an educational discipline. Yet the history he shows us does not devolve from these snap shots to fit this definition you say? History- ‘the study of past events, particularly in human affairs’ Social studies “study of human society” History “study of past human affairs” This is social studies. Class dismissed.
@@5777Whatup I've known plenty of social studies experts who'd disagree. I guess if you really want me to throw you a bone, history is a major body of evidence that social scientists use. Social science is, after all, technically a broad category? I guess it could include economics by your definition, but it usually doesn't in practice. Typically, history in University is taught through the field of anthropology, which is less concerned about statistical conclusions and more about record keeping and conceptual analysis.
@@monsieurdorgat6864 that’s not “ my” definition. That’s what is in the dictionary… social studies includes mostly history. Social studies here *was history class* 😂 The same with my university. There’s history classes for history majors, the rest of us take social studies because it encompasses errthang in it. 😎 Lol
@@5777Whatup Yeah... there's a lot wrong with this. Saying you learned all of history from a social studies class is... bold. It's sort of like how me, being a chemist, know everything about biology because it's all derived from chemistry. Then following that logic, I should entirely understand psychology, then sociology, etc. Spoilers, me being a chemist doesn't make me an expert in sociology. I only get to have friends and acquaintances in the field. That's where my perspective comes from. That one blurb and your intro-level "social studies class" (never heard it called that in university, only in high school...) is not a definitive understanding of the subject, and I really don't think it's a bad thing that you wouldn't get the specifics of the subject given that you aren't and don't know any experts. The stupid thing you're doing is existing in the Dunning-Kreuger minimum - you don't really know much about it, but you're insisting you know enough to dismiss any uncertainty or nuance presented to you.
My grandmother and Great Grandparents were victims of this. My grandma stood in front of soldiers who came to kill my great-grandparents and said to kill her instead, instead they left without carying out the deed. I was nearly never born because of this.
I'm glad that this earlier period of terror is getting some attention, it's always overshadowed by what came later. This was a very good look on the origins of terror in Russia, starting with Czarist repression. The Romanovs pioneered all the tactics the soviets are famous for, from internal exile to ceaseless government surveillance.
While watching this video today, the words Ukraine and Kyiv jump out. Taking everything into to account, you can see why Ukraine wants nothing to do with Russia, except fot what I image are pre negotiated trade deals.
Did anyone lose relatives to Stalin's terror? When Stalin invaded Poland in 1939, he sought revenge for his embarrassing defeats during the Soviet Polish war of 1921. My paternal grandfather's first cousin was among those who were simply summarily shot. My maternal grandfather and his three surviving brothers fled the Nazis to the relative safety of the Soviet Union. He was relative, because they had joined a larger group of Polish Jews, and one of them disparaged Soviet boots. Over a dozen men were sent to different gulags. Of these, only my grandfather and his older brother survived the gulags and military penal battalions, which were still essentially death sentences.
Possible suggestion for future video in this series would be the battle of the somme? The bloodiest single day in the history of the British Army. Would be a really interesting video
And now it feels like the stage is set in the very much the same manner like it was so those long gone (???) days. Even the smallest details seem frighteningly look a like. The history on the other hand tends to prank us by repeating itself.. What I mean is: Hope that Russians and the humanity as a whole grew wiser for 100 yrs. P.S. It's necessary for the sake of so many lives, to ad here, that after 1945 not one of the new Soviet "satellites" was spared of that horror once more. Luv & Respect from Bulgaria.
Great video! ...But...Where's your blazin' gamin' channel? Feel free to use the name lol this brought back hilarious flashbacks to your playing of,papers please 🤣
Lavrentiy Beria: [hands an execution warrant to an NKVD officer] Shoot her before him, but make sure he sees it. [hands a second warrant to another officer] Lavrentiy Beria: Oh, and this one, kill him, take him to his church and dump him in the pulpit. [hands the remaining warrants to a third officer] Lavrentiy Beria: The rest I leave up to you
A family argument caused my kulak Great Grandfather to leave Grodno about 1912. He enlisted in the U.S. 4th Cavalry or 26th Field Artillery to fast track citizenship. A few brothers & sisters got out about 1920, the rest were murdered. He was not drafted in 1917, as he'd recently discharged of the Army. He was hit by a car in Philly in 1945.
It's amazing how just a few charismatic people affected world history so profoundly. Mao, Lenin, Churchill, Hitler and FDR to name but a few who changed the world.
Как классно смотреть на то как иностранцы судят Сталина и СССР, даже не живя в СНГ и не зная историю России и СССР в целом. Особенно весело смотреть как Сталина считают хуже Гитлера. Таким даже объяснять бессмысленно.
I don’t know if it’s the fact that I have a headache or that I’m super tired but I didn’t recognize Simon’s voice for the first few seconds. Despite the fact that his channels make up at least of half the videos I watch on UA-cam.
How you leave each time is a bit abrupt. Perhaps a more somber version of your normal outtros? "Thank you for watching" with a fade to black silent cut off may be more in line with the Whistler brand
My high school was lucky enough to have a Russian history class! But that's pretty rare - most Americans are too self-aggrandizing and McCarthyist to learn about Russian history.
May I suggest you learn from someone who isn’t a self confessed Conservative/Republican. His bias towards capitalism/the right smears the truth of history. Historians should try too be as neutral as possible. Mr Whistler as yet to cover the horrors the Romanov family put people through. After all people do not revolt for nothing. Check historical videos/books/documentaries at least 3 times with other sources. One person’s view like Mr Whistlers might be merely propaganda Also I’m not a communist I just like factual history Peace and happiness from Dublin Ireland
@@CashelOConnolly I get where you're coming from, but the tough pill to swallow is that there is no such thing as "neutral coverage" just more nuanced. History isn't "neutral", it's just complicated. I'm absolutely a socialist, but I enjoyed this video. The video has a roughly set length, and it's about the Red Terror. Talking about the crimes of the Russian aristocracy leading up to it would be another subject and not one you could casually tack onto this one. Also, I'm pretty sure Simon is English, so if he was conservative - he'd be a Tory? Not a Republican?
@@monsieurdorgat6864 A Tory in Britain is a member or someone who votes for the Conservative party. Boris Johnson 🤡 is the leader of the Tory/Conservative and Unionist party. They are mid to far right. The British have no far right members of parliament. In Ireland where I’m from I vote for Sinn Fein a left wing party I don’t expect the whole time span of the mid 19th to early 20th century history of Russia to be included into one video but Whistler whilst covering many time spans under Russian communist rule in video’s has never done a single one on the Romanov’s reign of brutally subjecting the poor, You’re correct he sees history through his conservative/Tory eyes as I see history through my socialist eyes. It’s impossible to be totally neutral but I don’t own multiple UA-cam channels where people take Whistlers word as gospel (read any of the comments sections) I believe he has a duty to scatter in some videos on political history he may not agree with,simply for balance. It’d kill me if I had to do a balanced video on Trump or Johnson but I’d do it.Sadly some people (it seems to be teenagers) believe everything he says. I’m 22 and just starting my M.A in politics and social poverty in the 19th and 20th history at Trinity college Dublin (I got a full scholarship as my family are piss poor so I’m not a champagne Socialist) not that it matters because if you see poverty,inequality and unfairness in my opinion I don’t see how you can’t be a Socialist Peace and happiness from Dublin Ireland 🇮🇪 ✌🏻✌🏻✌🏻✌🏻 P.S you can tell I’m a socialist by the way I ramble on 😂
@@monsieurdorgat6864 sorry you said Republican I should have replied with the fact I said Republican for any Americans who don’t know what a Tory/Conservative is. Their Republican Party is the closest thing to the Conservative party
Simon is getting more theatrical now with his walking quietly away at the end of the video. He has obviously been splashing out on getting tuition from someone!
Stalin's purges after WW2 were horrific and made the numbers killed before the war pale in comparison. Everybody talks about how terrible the 6.5 million killed by the Nazis were (and not without reason) but Stalin decided to show them how it should be done and surpassed what the Nazis had done and then some. The really scary part is it could happen all over again.
Yeah. Marxist countries - Russia/China are athiest because they fear religion’s power to change people, against their hold on power (Xi & Putin have been in office way to long). They WILL invade ukraine, china will follow and invade taiwan and we (usa) and our allies will severe economic ties - KILLING the entire worlds economy because of globalization. This will lead to TOTAL WAR, which our Intelligence Angencies are WELL aware we cant do because in the 1940s we were 75% blue collar (actually producing thing) 25% white collar. That has now flip flopped and we cant manufacture fast enough for total war and we will use nuclear. China and russia KNOW we will do this (we are the only countries to ever use nuclear weapons in war), so they have made their HGVs as a novel form of nuclear delivery, which cannot be countered by anti ballistic missile defenses. We are on the last pope, and there is a prophecy that the last pope would help end communism, and Pope Francis is about to be the first pope to visit Moscow in 100 years. Everything is lining up - the end is coming. If u r fearful, but a good person (someone who has an open mind and genuine concern for others) look up contemplative prayer and use it. You will realize peace and know the Spirit is the the truth behind the veil of life - if u need scientific proof of the existence of Spirit/Nature/God/Collective Consciousness look up Quantum Entanglement, proven in 29 experiments and Einstein wrote a book on it - it PROVES Time & Distance do NOT exist…
Stalin sympathizers and larpers love him and downplay any of his acts and try and pass the blame of the millions of deaths he was ultimately responsible for.
Living is Moscow or Petrovgrad in 19th and beginning of 20th century was more or less bearable. Living everywhere else was, to put it mildly, constant suffering, hunger, and death. So, no, it wasn't all roses. FAR FROM THAT!
It baffles me that Nazism and Hitler are (rightly) completely rejected and any supporters considered evil, but somehow, Lenin and Stalin and Marxism aren't nearly as repulsive and even enjoy support today. I would contend that Marxism and communism has caused far more evil in the world than Nazism and fascism was ever allowed to. As a society I feel we should fight just as much against Marxism as we do Nazism.
Stalin was objectively terrible. Lenin you can argue was terrible, but its more in alignment with LBJ's terribleness. Marx and Marxism is more a look at class antagonism or critique; the former more today since Marx was no where near as educated as he thought. If you see someone say they are a Marxist-Leninist you can assume they are actually a Stalinist/Maoist/Pol Potter(?) trying to hide what they are; they are on the level of Neo Nazis pretending they are going to peacefully send Black People back to Africa.
It's because the people that support that stupid shit are nothing but rich kids who think its "cool" to support stupid shit they know nothing about. They are all on Xanax and heroin ffs, that explains some of their thinking.
0:13 this signing of the dissolution of the USSR happened 30 years ago yesterday! 8th December 1991 I guess that is where they got the idea for today's video?
There was a poster from the time of the Bolshevik revolution that said "beat the whites with the red wedge". It looked like an expressionist painting of a body on the ground pouring blood from the face. Fun fact, this was later repurposed as the symbol of the Peacekeepers on Farscape.
Seems there is a slight mistake there at 18:20-21: That looks very much like the Voksgerichtshof in Berlin. To the right there is Roland Freisler and in the back you can see the "Tschako"-hats of German policemen of the time.
How about a comparison between the former USSR and Russia today? Basically to try and see if anything has truly changed for the better in any way at all. Does the leader still surround himself with "Yes" men? Are the people lied to all the time? Does the government blindly support the man at the top, even in the face of evidence that he is slowly destroying the country? And so on and so forth. That would be a very, very fascinating video, and one that I believe only you and your team could truly do justice to.
IDK what you did but youtube just spammed my recommendations with this video, i literally had to scroll down just to see anything else, there were so fucking many. I was using the bathroom and it just kept sending new notifications telling me to look at this.
History was really boring in school. Nothing but tired old farts filling black boards with reams of notes. Then in my 4th year at college, we had a history prof who was fascinated by the subject. He exuded an enthusiasm that was positively contagious. His was one of the rare classes that nobody skipped, nor fell asleep in. I always looked forward to his lectures, learned a lot, and have been fascinated by history ever since. Simon is like this prof.
History is fascinating and important to understand. It's our garbage educational system and lousy teachers it's turned out that have ruined history education for generations. And created a nation of people totally unaware and uncaring about the history of the U.S. and the world.
Which version of Simon
:)
@@jimhyman8544 as an American, fucking agreed. I find history videos fascinating, far better then school.
@@jimhyman8544 It's hard for some teachers to have enthusiasm when they are not compensated properly, though.
This is why I have very little patience for those who try to argue “Stalin wasn’t so bad.”
The man was a monster. And he was even worse than Hitler
He was an evil psychopath!!!
Anyone who thinks that has no knowledge of Soviet history.
@@harrietharlow9929 they know but they are sympathizers and downplay death tolls. I was called an anti communist troll for merely stating his evil actions on a hitler video
I agree with you wholeheartedly, but the Red Terror was during Lenin's reign, not Stalin's.
Technically the Soviet Union was the most equal place, everyone was equally poor and starving and terrified the secret police would make them disappear
Statistically correct, but that small, powerful and wealthy minority still existed, and cannot be discounted or ignored.
Except for the ruling class, which makes it a very dark irony.
Not really. The Nomenkultura and party leadership lived quite well. Of course, they were under constant observation and the threat of the state security forces knocking at their door in the middle of the night was much higher and that of the average Soviet subject. That was even before the purges.
Russian here. This is a gross overstatement, especially if you consider the second half of the 20th century. I'm 32 years old and not even my grandparents were "poor and starving", let alone "terrified of the secret police", although they weren't a part of the government elite in any shape or form. In fact, ABSOLUTELY NO ONE was homeless, jobless or starving. Also the government elite didn't have nearly as much of an advantage in terms of material wealth as western people tend to believe. My grandfather was a low-ranking army officer and his neighbor next door was a director of a large concrete factory, a fairly influential figure in town. Their lives were roughly the same. The other guy could buy a color tv a bit sooner, but that's about it. Now, speaking of being terrified, the present day US prison population dwarfs that of the USSR. Also, speaking of rights and freedoms, I dare you to say publicly that black lives don't matter and see how your whole life crumbles.
Everyone except Stalin and Government Officals.
Red terror happened in Finland too, just after independence. It overflowed from Russia. We had a civil war as well, but in our case the whites actually won. Otherwise it would've been goodbye independence and Finland would've been made a part of Soviet Union.
the scale was smaller but the brutality was little if any less.
I did not know that!
Was about to post this, although in Finland's case the white terror ended up being far more deadly, with casualties somewhere around 7000 for the white terror and 1500ish for the red terror, not counting deaths in battle or the infamous prison camps.
Source: sotasurmat-database
The White Guards went around raping and killing women for wearing pants. They also killed thousands in prison camps. Not exactly bloodless, the Left-wing Finns referred to Mannerheim as the Butcher for a reason after the war.
Finland rocks more than I knew, apparently.
I really enjoy the darker content on this channel and thank you for the length of your videos. I'd be super irritated if you talked about these interesting topics or events in roughly 10 minutes or less. Keep up the good work.
Thanks!
WWI, 2 revolutions, a civil war, the red terror, and the white terror. And then Stalin came in. I'm happy I didn't live there.
And now Putin. Some countries just can't catch a break.
stalin and aid from the USA is why the Russians stopped Germany. so stalin didn't come in after ww2
And ww2
@@ashman8891 the 80s and 90s were worse
My days off and payday are on the same days that Into the shadows often uploads.
Thank you for making the fun days even more fun, Fact Bro
Fact bro sounds like his role in a porno 🤣🤣
Excellent video in explaining the red terror and the Russian "decent into Hell" Please do more videos like this, covering the Stasi in East Germany and the Securitate in Romania.
Born in Soviet Union in 1980! Experienced 12 years of it.
Lmao that's not something to be proud of
@@andrewmedanich2844 doesn't seem like he is bragging to me? Just making a statement.
@@andrewmedanich2844 surviving 12 years under the Soviet regime sounds like something to be proud of.
@@BAC-bm8em that's not the tone they took they didnt say they suffered 12 years of it.
Rate your experience
My paternal grandfather helped hundreds flee the Red Terror, he ended up being put on one of those lists the day after he himself fled. But before you go thinking he was a saint we are not sure if he took his wife or his mistress when he fled.
In the face of all that horror to survive is something of a feat worthy of recognition though.
@@ANNAKKi it is. Apparently at his funeral there was a huge turn up from the people that they saved and their children.
I wish I could have met him... He is an enigma to me: a man who saved soo many people but yet was cruel and horrible to his own family.
One doesn't have to be perfect to be a saint -- that comes afterward.
@@LuckyAnole that is not that uncommon. Family issues effect people differently
@@LuckyAnole just sounds like he was human. It's the duality of our nature, we are both the best and the worst.
Imagine how large Russia’a population would be right now if it weren’t for WWI, WWII, revolutions, terror and famine.
Yes.The extra 100 million people would have thrown up some brilliant people who would have perhaps solved some of their worst problems.
An estimation I heard for a none soviet russia was around 400 million.
Honestly likely lower due to the pendulum of baby booms that come as a result .
@@RandomGuy-jo8ky russias Baby boomers didn't really have a big impact, because the death toll was so massive.
@Cancer McAids i don't think so. Remember that the only reason why we see russia like we do today, is because of the Events of the Revolution, ww2 and the cold war. Before that the Russians were as much part of western society as the rest of europe. Especially the cruelty that russians are hated for comes from these Events too and would propably never have happened without it.
I love how you end these Simon! No need for outro bs just finish the horror history and fade to black! Legend!!!!
It's because like the rest of us he feels the urgent need to go off for a shower, and try scrubbing off the filth of how terrible we Humans can be.
To think, people still support this revolution and it's architects.
Mostly privileged people, who will never have to experience it.
You can't hide truth forever. It has a way of coming out. Knowledge of this horror is spreading.
It's almost always a bunch of rich Hollywood celebrities
@@rightwingreactionary that's true most "socialists" are upper class kids
And yet, you still cheer to the collapse of USSR that brought even more death, conflict and misery upon the same lands because you were told that USSR is an evil empire that deserved it. How it is different from revolution? How can you ignore the architects of this collapse?
It’s crazy how common it is nowadays for people to glorify these evil people and their ideology.
It's U.S Democrat party practice.
@@bigdubya001 Not even close. Not even vaguely a hint close. Put down the joint, mate.
@@RejectedInch Exaggerated but not false enough. There's an unhealthy rise of Socialism, and many do present that as a more acceptable stepping stone for more radical iterations. For example, there's the Project Veritas video of a Bernie staffer talking about his personal (him not Bernie) reverence for outright Communism and "joking" about putting the right wingers in camps. Plus you see a decent amount of Hammer and Sickles in left wing protests.
How was wanting to dismantle capitalism evil?
@@Ocinneade345 The tens of millions of dead bodies to start with.
Like. How is this a real question even. It's so wrong in many ways.
Damn! fact boi...I swear every single one of your 256458 channels seem to be doing extremely well, both subs and views! Congrats.
You have this way of making ANY topic captivating and interesting to listen to, I especially enjoy your crime content 👌🏼
Casual criminalist and BB are my fav.
2:05 - Chapter 1 - Mother russia
5:15 - Chapter 2 - Revolution
6:30 - Chapter 3 - Civil war
7:50 - Chapter 4 - Red terror
11:00 - Chapter 5 - Repression sweeps the nation
13:05 - Chapter 6 - The net widens
14:55 - Chapter 7 - Torture
16:40 - Chapter 8 - The terror subsides
18:17 - Dramatic exit
The Red Army is blitzed...
Mother Russia, by Renaissance. Fab song.
Thank you
Thank you for this show, Simon. This channel explains these dark topics in a thoughtful and interesting way. I’d love to have it available as a podcast too.
The death of one is a tragedy, the death of millions is a statistic.
Thanks, Joe.
Thanks Joe
UNCLE JOE!
I think covid verified that this bar was lowered to hundreds, sadly.
This video should be shown in secondary schools.
People often ask, why Russians are so skeptical about liberal ideas.
Well, we once had a group that wanted to give power to the people, wanted democracy in its very definition. They wanted to shake up the stale system, to tear down corrupt hierarchy of rich and uncaring, to break the yoke of opression. This video gives a good glance at how they went about it.
No doubt. But there is a middle ground.
@@Rockoblocko we are still ( all) working to find a reasonable one.
Turns out HOW you do things is just as important as why. Sucks that most people don't really see or care about the minutia of how to properly do something - they just kind of rubber-band between silly ideas as they forget how bad one was before going to the other bad one.
The Bolsheviks were the very opposite of Liberals.
Another fantastic and fascinating video.. well done Simon! I did my senior project in college on the Romanoff family, rise and fall and it was absolutely fascinating and horrifying how the bolsheviks came to power.
Fun little fact, tortured confessions are admissible in court TODAY in Russia.
I strongly disagree that the dying in Russia "all began in 1918". Staying alive was very difficult in Russia throughout the 20th century, dying was almost a habit, an addiction. 2,700,000 died from 1914-1918 in the fields of WW1, the most of any combatant nation. The carnage was breathtaking, and the Russian leadership just didn't care.
That's a pattern in Russia, unfortunately. The Soviets were no different from the Czars.
@@templarw20 they were worse, but that is propably, because soviet leadership lacked both education in leadership in warfare. The only thing they didn't lack was manpower.
I wouldn’t say the Russian leadership didn’t care. The czar, for all his faults, cared deeply for his people.
@@eleanorkett1129 Depends on which czar. Peter vs Ivan...
Revolution
In 1900s, ww1, Spanish flu, red and white terror, depression, famine, Finland-Russian war, ww2.. Jesus that’s a lot
"Hellen Reading....... Standing By"
"Simply Red........ Standing By"
"Red October........ Standing By"
There were multiple factions in 1918, not just the Bolsheviks and the government; the Bolsheviks were neither the biggest nor the only Left-Wing one- the Social Revolutionaries (SR) and the Mensheviks were obvious competitors. Kerensky was actually more worried about the extreme right (who had also tried to overthrow the government before) than he was about Lenin despite warnings and pretty much everyone except the Left SR (which split from the SR) were angry with the Bolsheviks for taking over, especially since they did so a mere week before a democratic revolution (which Lenin reluctantly allowed to take place then promptly ignored once the Bolsheviks failed to win).
And the storming of the Winter Palace wasn't really in protest of their policies, although that was the excuse- Lenin was VERY PUBLICLY "smuggled" into Russia by the Germans with the express intent of overthrowing the government in return for peace with Germany (though Lenin hoped that his revolution would inspire an anti-Kaiser German one). It was an open secret that Lenin was in the country to take power and he was regularly accused of being little more than a German spy, which was exacerbated when he was forced to sign the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk which turned everyone across the political spectrum against them, and anti-Bolshevik and pro-Bolshevik violence was breaking out months before the "official" start of the Red Terror including the assassination of the German ambassador by the Left SR
That's something you don't hear about. It also doesn't go with the narrative that many want to push.
Tldr
@@HyprHotshot
Basically the right wing also wanted to overthrow the government in 1917, not only Lenin. And Lenin didn't have most of the communists on his side either.
And Nicholas II was known as Nicholas the Bloody. I think the Red Terror far surpassed anything Nicholas ever did. Good video.
Mark Twain disagreed - A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court. You should read it if you get the chance. It's about serfdom, peasants, royalty and revolution.
Though Communist USSR was a nightmare
Russian Empire was no paradise either with Serfdom only abolished in 1867 and bloody ending of peasant rebellion such as the Pugachev Rebellion with nearly 20,000 killed
I don't think anyone argues the Tzar Regime was by any means some utopia. But I would bet more people were killed for making a joke about Stalin than in that rebellion.
@@calexander7495 Agreed, when we really look at facts and figures Russia bled and suffered more under the less then century long stranglehold the Marxists/Communists had on Russia then they ever did in over the 3 centuries of Romanov rule.
It truly is a cruel irony that Russian people traded a less then satisfactory deal for a total rip-off.
I guarantee that the Bolsheviks were hypocrites, as people expected brutality of the Romanovs, but the Bolsheviks escalated violence...all for the supposed Greater Good.
Great video Fact Boy.
I thought the video had skipped it ended so quickly!
Love the way they end.
You had me at “murderous chaos”.
I'm kind of amazed, and lost count of just how many were killed in the Soviet Union from 1900 or so for the next 50 odd years. I only caught the different amounts and a rough estimate was about 60 million+, right?
in my hunt to find Simon's every channel, this is the latest one I have found, and so far I've lost count
Never clicked faster lol
Simon gives me the extended learning in social studies I have craved since high school. University didn’t have near any.
Admittedly this is more of history than social studies. They're different, although history is definitely used as a reference in social studies when they have statistics for things.
@@monsieurdorgat6864 Simon has about 10 channels or more that focus on a lot of things that are history and hell a variety of subjects. All snapshots of history.
What is social studies by definition?
Various aspects or branches of the study of human society, considered as an educational discipline.
Yet the history he shows us does not devolve from these snap shots to fit this definition you say?
History- ‘the study of past events, particularly in human affairs’
Social studies “study of human society”
History “study of past human affairs”
This is social studies.
Class dismissed.
@@5777Whatup I've known plenty of social studies experts who'd disagree.
I guess if you really want me to throw you a bone, history is a major body of evidence that social scientists use. Social science is, after all, technically a broad category? I guess it could include economics by your definition, but it usually doesn't in practice.
Typically, history in University is taught through the field of anthropology, which is less concerned about statistical conclusions and more about record keeping and conceptual analysis.
@@monsieurdorgat6864 that’s not “ my” definition. That’s what is in the dictionary… social studies includes mostly history.
Social studies here *was history class* 😂
The same with my university. There’s history classes for history majors, the rest of us take social studies because it encompasses errthang in it. 😎
Lol
@@5777Whatup Yeah... there's a lot wrong with this.
Saying you learned all of history from a social studies class is... bold. It's sort of like how me, being a chemist, know everything about biology because it's all derived from chemistry. Then following that logic, I should entirely understand psychology, then sociology, etc.
Spoilers, me being a chemist doesn't make me an expert in sociology. I only get to have friends and acquaintances in the field. That's where my perspective comes from.
That one blurb and your intro-level "social studies class" (never heard it called that in university, only in high school...) is not a definitive understanding of the subject, and I really don't think it's a bad thing that you wouldn't get the specifics of the subject given that you aren't and don't know any experts.
The stupid thing you're doing is existing in the Dunning-Kreuger minimum - you don't really know much about it, but you're insisting you know enough to dismiss any uncertainty or nuance presented to you.
You’re most powerful video to date from any channel
Love your videos
I like the dramatic walk offs at the end :D
My grandmother and Great Grandparents were victims of this. My grandma stood in front of soldiers who came to kill my great-grandparents and said to kill her instead, instead they left without carying out the deed. I was nearly never born because of this.
I'm glad that this earlier period of terror is getting some attention, it's always overshadowed by what came later.
This was a very good look on the origins of terror in Russia, starting with Czarist repression. The Romanovs pioneered all the tactics the soviets are famous for, from internal exile to ceaseless government surveillance.
I thought you should ask British about pioneering anything in that regard. Don't just rob them of their national pride!
While watching this video today, the words Ukraine and Kyiv jump out. Taking everything into to account, you can see why Ukraine wants nothing to do with Russia, except fot what I image are pre negotiated trade deals.
Being a Russian was really unfortunate in the 20th century. The Nazi invasion had also left millions of Russians dead.
Did anyone lose relatives to Stalin's terror?
When Stalin invaded Poland in 1939, he sought revenge for his embarrassing defeats during the Soviet Polish war of 1921. My paternal grandfather's first cousin was among those who were simply summarily shot. My maternal grandfather and his three surviving brothers fled the Nazis to the relative safety of the Soviet Union. He was relative, because they had joined a larger group of Polish Jews, and one of them disparaged Soviet boots. Over a dozen men were sent to different gulags. Of these, only my grandfather and his older brother survived the gulags and military penal battalions, which were still essentially death sentences.
I imagine.. someone born in 1900 would have experienced ww1, revolution, red terror, Great Depression, famine, ww2 etc even worse in Russia
Possible suggestion for future video in this series would be the battle of the somme? The bloodiest single day in the history of the British Army. Would be a really interesting video
Man, if it was not for videos like this, I would have nothing to watch. Love your channels friend.
Been binge watching ur videos for the past few days I’ve been sick-
Very fascinating (and scary).
They should make horror films on this subject.
Thank you for the video.
Good video 👍
I enjoy viewing the progress of that beard. You'll be Sea Captain length soon.
And now it feels like the stage is set in the very much the same manner like it was so those long gone (???) days. Even the smallest details seem frighteningly look a like. The history on the other hand tends to prank us by repeating itself.. What I mean is:
Hope that Russians and the humanity as a whole grew wiser for 100 yrs.
P.S. It's necessary for the sake of so many lives, to ad here, that after 1945 not one of the new Soviet "satellites" was spared of that horror once more.
Luv & Respect from Bulgaria.
I mean when Putin's palace literally features the crest of Russia's Tsar's it's hard to not see the literal writing on the wall lmao.
Great video! ...But...Where's your blazin' gamin' channel? Feel free to use the name lol this brought back hilarious flashbacks to your playing of,papers please 🤣
Lavrentiy Beria: [hands an execution warrant to an NKVD officer] Shoot her before him, but make sure he sees it.
[hands a second warrant to another officer]
Lavrentiy Beria: Oh, and this one, kill him, take him to his church and dump him in the pulpit.
[hands the remaining warrants to a third officer]
Lavrentiy Beria: The rest I leave up to you
That is a great movie.
hands down, the funniest movie ever since will ferrell gave up on comedy
what i meant was no, problem.
God if I could marry that beard
😂
WTF?
Wow, I am gobsmacked and enlightened. Brutality never ceases it doesn't matter where it comes from
Could you make an in dept video of the russian civil war? Perhaps for the warographics channel.
And the soviets export these horrors all over the world.: My grandfather had to use a broom and shovel to bury what was left of a friend in Ibiza.
Wow. He never ended a video like that. Poignant.
A family argument caused my kulak Great Grandfather to leave Grodno about 1912. He enlisted in the U.S. 4th Cavalry or 26th Field Artillery to fast track citizenship. A few brothers & sisters got out about 1920, the rest were murdered. He was not drafted in 1917, as he'd recently discharged of the Army. He was hit by a car in Philly in 1945.
Thank you
🐺
Little wonder, even today's Russia is underpopulated for a gargantuan country of its size.
Simply unreal. As someone once said, man's inhumanity towards man...
Technically it wasn’t Christmas Day in Russia. Christmas celebrated 7th January 🎅
@into the shadows why is it that you don't have any sources listed in your description?
Another uplifting lunch.
It's amazing how just a few charismatic people affected world history so profoundly. Mao, Lenin, Churchill, Hitler and FDR to name but a few who changed the world.
That figure doesn't include the over 2 million women and children estimated to have perished in the factories during the war.
Как классно смотреть на то как иностранцы судят Сталина и СССР, даже не живя в СНГ и не зная историю России и СССР в целом. Особенно весело смотреть как Сталина считают хуже Гитлера. Таким даже объяснять бессмысленно.
"what do you mean our paranoid, mass murdering dictator, who was responsible for 2 different genocides, was a bad person?"
Lets not forget that after the Red Terror and Holodomor there was also the Great Purge.
Thanks
@into_the_shadows why is it that you don't have any sources for your information listed?
Possible spin-off vid here, Simon - the ANZACs that were in Arkhangelsk during 1918-19
If you want more detail about Stalin's time read "The Court of the Red Tsar" by Simon Sebag Montefiore.Very dark indeed.
I don’t know if it’s the fact that I have a headache or that I’m super tired but I didn’t recognize Simon’s voice for the first few seconds. Despite the fact that his channels make up at least of half the videos I watch on UA-cam.
Some nice high resolution archive footage in this video. Looks like it was taken from an old command and conquere.
These are also scenes from Soviet films inspired by 1905 and 1917 events.
What are you sources Simon?! I'd like to read more!
And people have the audacity to call Germany the bad guy of the 20th century.
Ha the evil empire ended on my favorite holiday.
AWESOME 😊
Merry Christmas everyone!🎄
Now you should do the Great Leap Forward
How you leave each time is a bit abrupt. Perhaps a more somber version of your normal outtros? "Thank you for watching" with a fade to black silent cut off may be more in line with the Whistler brand
How many channels does Simon have?
Hate to do this to you but could you do one on the pitesti prison experiments.
Learn more on your channels about Russia than I did in school! Great job, as always!
My high school was lucky enough to have a Russian history class! But that's pretty rare - most Americans are too self-aggrandizing and McCarthyist to learn about Russian history.
May I suggest you learn from someone who isn’t a self confessed Conservative/Republican. His bias towards capitalism/the right smears the truth of history.
Historians should try too be as neutral as possible. Mr Whistler as yet to cover the horrors the Romanov family put people through. After all people do not revolt for nothing.
Check historical videos/books/documentaries at least 3 times with other sources. One person’s view like Mr Whistlers might be merely propaganda
Also I’m not a communist I just like factual history
Peace and happiness from Dublin Ireland
@@CashelOConnolly I get where you're coming from, but the tough pill to swallow is that there is no such thing as "neutral coverage" just more nuanced. History isn't "neutral", it's just complicated. I'm absolutely a socialist, but I enjoyed this video.
The video has a roughly set length, and it's about the Red Terror. Talking about the crimes of the Russian aristocracy leading up to it would be another subject and not one you could casually tack onto this one.
Also, I'm pretty sure Simon is English, so if he was conservative - he'd be a Tory? Not a Republican?
@@monsieurdorgat6864 A Tory in Britain is a member or someone who votes for the Conservative party. Boris Johnson 🤡 is the leader of the Tory/Conservative and Unionist party. They are mid to far right. The British have no far right members of parliament.
In Ireland where I’m from I vote for Sinn Fein a left wing party
I don’t expect the whole time span of the mid 19th to early 20th century history of Russia to be included into one video but Whistler whilst covering many time spans under Russian communist rule in video’s has never done a single one on the Romanov’s reign of brutally subjecting the poor,
You’re correct he sees history through his conservative/Tory eyes as I see history through my socialist eyes. It’s impossible to be totally neutral but I don’t own multiple UA-cam channels where people take Whistlers word as gospel (read any of the comments sections) I believe he has a duty to scatter in some videos on political history he may not agree with,simply for balance. It’d kill me if I had to do a balanced video on Trump or Johnson but I’d do it.Sadly some people (it seems to be teenagers) believe everything he says.
I’m 22 and just starting my M.A in politics and social poverty in the 19th and 20th history at Trinity college Dublin (I got a full scholarship as my family are piss poor so I’m not a champagne Socialist) not that it matters because if you see poverty,inequality and unfairness in my opinion I don’t see how you can’t be a Socialist
Peace and happiness from Dublin Ireland 🇮🇪 ✌🏻✌🏻✌🏻✌🏻
P.S you can tell I’m a socialist by the way I ramble on 😂
@@monsieurdorgat6864 sorry you said Republican I should have replied with the fact I said Republican for any Americans who don’t know what a Tory/Conservative is. Their Republican Party is the closest thing to the Conservative party
Simon is getting more theatrical now with his walking quietly away at the end of the video. He has obviously been splashing out on getting tuition from someone!
Stalin's purges after WW2 were horrific and made the numbers killed before the war pale in comparison. Everybody talks about how terrible the 6.5 million killed by the Nazis were (and not without reason) but Stalin decided to show them how it should be done and surpassed what the Nazis had done and then some. The really scary part is it could happen all over again.
Based.
You're wildly incorrect.
Yeah. Marxist countries - Russia/China are athiest because they fear religion’s power to change people, against their hold on power (Xi & Putin have been in office way to long). They WILL invade ukraine, china will follow and invade taiwan and we (usa) and our allies will severe economic ties - KILLING the entire worlds economy because of globalization. This will lead to TOTAL WAR, which our Intelligence Angencies are WELL aware we cant do because in the 1940s we were 75% blue collar (actually producing thing) 25% white collar. That has now flip flopped and we cant manufacture fast enough for total war and we will use nuclear. China and russia KNOW we will do this (we are the only countries to ever use nuclear weapons in war), so they have made their HGVs as a novel form of nuclear delivery, which cannot be countered by anti ballistic missile defenses.
We are on the last pope, and there is a prophecy that the last pope would help end communism, and Pope Francis is about to be the first pope to visit Moscow in 100 years. Everything is lining up - the end is coming. If u r fearful, but a good person (someone who has an open mind and genuine concern for others) look up contemplative prayer and use it. You will realize peace and know the Spirit is the the truth behind the veil of life - if u need scientific proof of the existence of Spirit/Nature/God/Collective Consciousness look up Quantum Entanglement, proven in 29 experiments and Einstein wrote a book on it - it PROVES Time & Distance do NOT exist…
Stalin sympathizers and larpers love him and downplay any of his acts and try and pass the blame of the millions of deaths he was ultimately responsible for.
@@THIS---GUY No. He should've killed more.
by now Simon has enough youtube plaques to wallpaper a warehouse
Living is Moscow or Petrovgrad in 19th and beginning of 20th century was more or less bearable. Living everywhere else was, to put it mildly, constant suffering, hunger, and death. So, no, it wasn't all roses. FAR FROM THAT!
Wow no happy endings here.
It was never "love for the poor", but rather "hating the rest"
It baffles me that Nazism and Hitler are (rightly) completely rejected and any supporters considered evil, but somehow, Lenin and Stalin and Marxism aren't nearly as repulsive and even enjoy support today. I would contend that Marxism and communism has caused far more evil in the world than Nazism and fascism was ever allowed to. As a society I feel we should fight just as much against Marxism as we do Nazism.
Stalin was objectively terrible. Lenin you can argue was terrible, but its more in alignment with LBJ's terribleness. Marx and Marxism is more a look at class antagonism or critique; the former more today since Marx was no where near as educated as he thought. If you see someone say they are a Marxist-Leninist you can assume they are actually a Stalinist/Maoist/Pol Potter(?) trying to hide what they are; they are on the level of Neo Nazis pretending they are going to peacefully send Black People back to Africa.
It's because the people that support that stupid shit are nothing but rich kids who think its "cool" to support stupid shit they know nothing about.
They are all on Xanax and heroin ffs, that explains some of their thinking.
@@BasementPepperoni TRUUUUUUUUU
This lead to MI6 not sure Simon does not work for them lol
thank you for the truth
0:13 this signing of the dissolution of the USSR happened 30 years ago yesterday! 8th December 1991
I guess that is where they got the idea for today's video?
The light right behind you makes you hard to kinda watch and not get bothered by it.
There was a poster from the time of the Bolshevik revolution that said "beat the whites with the red wedge". It looked like an expressionist painting of a body on the ground pouring blood from the face.
Fun fact, this was later repurposed as the symbol of the Peacekeepers on Farscape.
This was a very intellectually honest information. I´m Impressed by the quality of the honesty.
I'm amazed there were any Russians left after all that
Seems there is a slight mistake there at 18:20-21: That looks very much like the Voksgerichtshof in Berlin. To the right there is Roland Freisler and in the back you can see the "Tschako"-hats of German policemen of the time.
Should do a story on the kgb,CIA and mi5
Are we getting a Christmas present in the form of a new channel Simon?
Well... time to re-watch Epic Rap Battles of History, Rasputin v Stalin. That is basically my entire education in recent Russian history
How about a comparison between the former USSR and Russia today? Basically to try and see if anything has truly changed for the better in any way at all. Does the leader still surround himself with "Yes" men? Are the people lied to all the time? Does the government blindly support the man at the top, even in the face of evidence that he is slowly destroying the country? And so on and so forth. That would be a very, very fascinating video, and one that I believe only you and your team could truly do justice to.
IDK what you did but youtube just spammed my recommendations with this video, i literally had to scroll down just to see anything else, there were so fucking many. I was using the bathroom and it just kept sending new notifications telling me to look at this.
There was an old joke in the Soviet Union.
Q:" What's the tallest building in Moscow?"
A:"Lubyanka Prison-you can see all the way to Siberia."