WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.620 So in 1958, there was this Soviet clerk in Moscow. 00:00:05.280 --> 00:00:08.160 And they accidentally put the wrong files into 00:00:08.160 --> 00:00:10.019 a batch of boxes that were bound for Ukraine. 00:00:10.279 --> 00:00:13.419 Right. Just a totally mundane routine administrative 00:00:13.419 --> 00:00:15.599 transfer. Exactly. A completely mundane slip 00:00:15.599 --> 00:00:18.920 of the pen. But that single mistake is basically 00:00:18.920 --> 00:00:21.800 the only reason we now know about the secret 00:00:21.800 --> 00:00:25.640 execution of over 1 ,000 military heroes and 00:00:25.640 --> 00:00:28.440 the systematic purging of, like, 10 ,000 more. 00:00:28.699 --> 00:00:31.500 It's wild. So welcome to today's Deep Dive. We 00:00:31.500 --> 00:00:33.979 are jumping into a really fascinating stack of 00:00:33.979 --> 00:00:36.280 sources today. We've got a Wikipedia article, 00:00:36.380 --> 00:00:38.299 some historical research summaries, archival 00:00:38.299 --> 00:00:40.219 records, and they all detail something called 00:00:40.219 --> 00:00:43.159 the Vesna case. Right, or Operation Vesna as 00:00:43.159 --> 00:00:45.299 it's sometimes known. Yeah, Operation Vesna. 00:00:45.520 --> 00:00:48.579 And your mission today as the listener is to 00:00:48.579 --> 00:00:52.859 explore how a monumental historical event I mean, 00:00:52.960 --> 00:00:55.020 something involving thousands upon thousands 00:00:55.020 --> 00:00:57.840 of lives, how that can remain completely hidden 00:00:57.840 --> 00:01:00.320 from the world for decades. Because it really 00:01:00.320 --> 00:01:02.560 is a piece of history that, well, it completely 00:01:02.560 --> 00:01:04.700 upends our understanding of how totalitarian 00:01:04.700 --> 00:01:06.920 regimes operate. And honestly, more importantly, 00:01:07.340 --> 00:01:10.260 how they manage to hide their tracks so well. 00:01:10.780 --> 00:01:12.859 Yeah, we are going to look at the actual mechanics 00:01:12.859 --> 00:01:16.280 of state terror and how these strangest, most 00:01:16.280 --> 00:01:19.459 bureaucratic paper trails eventually ended up 00:01:19.459 --> 00:01:22.299 revealing this terrifying truth. So, okay, let's 00:01:22.299 --> 00:01:25.120 unpack this. Yeah, let's do it. So, to really 00:01:25.120 --> 00:01:27.680 understand the shockwave the Vesna case sent 00:01:27.680 --> 00:01:29.819 through the historical community, we kind of 00:01:29.819 --> 00:01:32.000 have to look at what the accepted timeline of 00:01:32.000 --> 00:01:34.260 Soviet history was for a very long time anyway. 00:01:34.340 --> 00:01:37.400 Right. If you asked almost any historian before, 00:01:37.480 --> 00:01:40.299 say, the turn of the 21st century, when the Soviet 00:01:40.299 --> 00:01:42.640 state turned on its own military leadership, 00:01:42.739 --> 00:01:45.159 they would point to one specific window. Which 00:01:45.159 --> 00:01:47.939 is Stalin's Great Purge, right? Like 1937 and 00:01:47.939 --> 00:01:50.299 1938. Yeah. Because that is the era everyone 00:01:50.299 --> 00:01:52.280 learns about. I mean, the massive show trials, 00:01:52.459 --> 00:01:55.200 the paranoia, the midnight arrests. Precisely. 00:01:55.540 --> 00:01:57.439 The Great Purge was basically considered the 00:01:57.439 --> 00:01:59.620 defining moment of the military's destruction. 00:02:00.040 --> 00:02:03.099 But the Vesna case, it just shatters that timeline 00:02:03.099 --> 00:02:04.939 entirely. Does it happen way earlier? Right. 00:02:05.280 --> 00:02:07.319 The sources we are looking at today prove that 00:02:07.319 --> 00:02:10.560 a massive, highly systematic purge of the military 00:02:10.560 --> 00:02:13.900 actually happened years earlier, between 1930 00:02:13.900 --> 00:02:17.180 and 1931. Wow. And I want to pause on the scale 00:02:17.180 --> 00:02:18.900 of this for a second, because the numbers in 00:02:18.900 --> 00:02:21.240 the source material are just... They're difficult 00:02:21.240 --> 00:02:23.500 to comprehend as a secret. They really are. We 00:02:23.500 --> 00:02:27.280 are talking about over 3 ,000 group cases, and 00:02:27.280 --> 00:02:30.479 these were spread across Moscow, Leningrad, and 00:02:30.479 --> 00:02:33.400 Ukraine. And from those specific cases, over 00:02:33.400 --> 00:02:36.639 10 ,000 people were convicted. Yeah, 10 ,000. 00:02:36.699 --> 00:02:38.680 But they weren't just random citizens either. 00:02:38.909 --> 00:02:41.490 The state specifically targeted a group called 00:02:41.490 --> 00:02:45.169 the the Voyant Spetses. Yes, the military specialists. 00:02:45.169 --> 00:02:47.810 Right. So these were former officers and generals 00:02:47.810 --> 00:02:50.349 of the Russian Imperial Army. You know, the old 00:02:50.349 --> 00:02:52.430 czarist regime. The guys they literally just 00:02:52.430 --> 00:02:55.469 fought against. Exactly. But they had transitioned 00:02:55.469 --> 00:02:58.270 to serving in the Red Army and the Soviet Navy 00:02:58.270 --> 00:03:00.490 after the revolution. Which, I mean, it kind 00:03:00.490 --> 00:03:02.729 of makes sense politically if you were a paranoid 00:03:02.729 --> 00:03:05.550 dictator. Oh, absolutely. You rely on their tactical 00:03:05.550 --> 00:03:09.310 expertise to build up your new military. but 00:03:09.310 --> 00:03:11.110 you never actually trust them because, well, 00:03:11.110 --> 00:03:12.789 they used to wear the enemy's uniform. Right, 00:03:12.949 --> 00:03:15.050 they're a necessary evil until they aren't necessary 00:03:15.050 --> 00:03:18.310 anymore. Exactly. But it's the sheer brutality 00:03:18.310 --> 00:03:20.710 of how they were eliminated that really stands 00:03:20.710 --> 00:03:23.229 out in the reading. The sources highlight one 00:03:23.229 --> 00:03:28.030 specific event in May of 1931 in Leningrad. It's 00:03:28.030 --> 00:03:30.050 known as the Guards case. The Guards case, yeah. 00:03:30.129 --> 00:03:33.150 And in that single case, in that one city alone, 00:03:33.880 --> 00:03:36.580 over a thousand people were executed. Just let's 00:03:36.580 --> 00:03:38.580 really think about the physical reality of that 00:03:38.580 --> 00:03:40.879 for a second. It's hard to even picture. A thousand 00:03:40.879 --> 00:03:44.039 executions in a single city, in a single month. 00:03:44.219 --> 00:03:46.419 I mean, how do you process that? How do you transport 00:03:46.419 --> 00:03:48.500 that many people? Right. How do you dispose of 00:03:48.500 --> 00:03:51.659 the evidence? The sheer bureaucratic machinery 00:03:51.659 --> 00:03:54.400 that's required to condemn and execute a thousand 00:03:54.400 --> 00:03:57.620 prominent individuals is staggering. And to your 00:03:57.620 --> 00:04:00.060 point about prominence, these were not anonymous 00:04:00.060 --> 00:04:03.199 foot soldiers. No. Not at all. The source lists 00:04:03.199 --> 00:04:06.159 major high -profile military figures. People 00:04:06.159 --> 00:04:09.759 like Andrei Smesarev, Aleksandr Swechin, Pavel 00:04:09.759 --> 00:04:12.740 Sitin, and Mikhail Bunch Breivich. Right. I mean, 00:04:12.879 --> 00:04:15.900 these were men who essentially wrote the textbook 00:04:15.900 --> 00:04:18.680 on military strategy for that era. It's kind 00:04:18.680 --> 00:04:20.519 of like finding out a devastating earthquake 00:04:20.519 --> 00:04:23.920 you thought happened in 1937 actually had a massive, 00:04:24.199 --> 00:04:26.939 equally destructive foreshock years earlier. 00:04:27.160 --> 00:04:29.600 That is a great way to look at it. Because it 00:04:29.600 --> 00:04:31.980 fundamentally changes our understanding of the 00:04:31.980 --> 00:04:34.480 state's capacity for violence at that earlier 00:04:34.480 --> 00:04:36.540 point in time. But this is where I am struggling 00:04:36.540 --> 00:04:40.079 a bit. OK. If you have 10 ,000 convictions and 00:04:40.079 --> 00:04:42.939 you are executing 1 ,000 high profile generals 00:04:42.939 --> 00:04:46.480 and officers in a single month in a major city, 00:04:46.980 --> 00:04:49.040 how does the global community of historians just 00:04:49.040 --> 00:04:50.860 miss that? It seems impossible, right? Yeah. 00:04:50.990 --> 00:04:53.629 How does an event of that magnitude stay buried 00:04:53.629 --> 00:04:56.470 for nearly 70 years? Well, if we connect this 00:04:56.470 --> 00:04:58.670 to the bigger picture of how authoritarian systems 00:04:58.670 --> 00:05:01.250 function, history isn't just a record of what 00:05:01.250 --> 00:05:04.310 happened. OK. History is entirely dependent on 00:05:04.310 --> 00:05:06.490 when the physical evidence becomes available 00:05:06.490 --> 00:05:10.069 to prove what happened. I see. So if the state 00:05:10.069 --> 00:05:12.149 machinery is powerful enough to not only kill 00:05:12.149 --> 00:05:14.509 people, but to completely control the paperwork 00:05:14.509 --> 00:05:17.529 documenting their deaths, the event essentially 00:05:17.529 --> 00:05:20.410 ceases to exist. Exactly. You don't just erase 00:05:20.410 --> 00:05:23.129 the person, you erase the record of the person. 00:05:23.290 --> 00:05:26.050 Yes. And the Soviet archiving system was incredibly 00:05:26.050 --> 00:05:29.050 siloed. It was highly restricted. So if the central 00:05:29.050 --> 00:05:32.629 government in Moscow locks those specific files 00:05:32.629 --> 00:05:36.230 in a vault and outlaws any public discussion 00:05:36.230 --> 00:05:38.490 of the missing men. Which they did. Right. Then 00:05:38.490 --> 00:05:40.569 the narrative is perfectly controlled. The cover 00:05:40.569 --> 00:05:43.389 -up is absolute. Which naturally leads us to 00:05:43.389 --> 00:05:45.410 the most incredible part of this deep dive, I 00:05:45.410 --> 00:05:48.370 think. because that flawless absolute cover -up 00:05:48.370 --> 00:05:50.850 eventually fell apart. It did. And it didn't 00:05:50.850 --> 00:05:54.110 fall apart because of like a daring spy mission 00:05:54.110 --> 00:05:56.709 or some dramatic whistleblower leaking documents. 00:05:56.829 --> 00:05:59.209 It fell apart because of an administrative typo. 00:05:59.470 --> 00:06:02.209 Yeah, what's fascinating here is the sheer banality 00:06:02.209 --> 00:06:04.610 of how the truth was preserved. Banality is the 00:06:04.610 --> 00:06:07.389 perfect word for it. Let's look at 1958. The 00:06:07.389 --> 00:06:10.399 central directorate of the KGB decides it basically 00:06:10.399 --> 00:06:13.060 needs to clean house. They want to transfer a 00:06:13.060 --> 00:06:15.740 massive batch of files out of Moscow. Specifically, 00:06:15.920 --> 00:06:19.240 they are moving 3 ,496 criminal investigation 00:06:19.240 --> 00:06:21.939 cases regarding these former Tsarist officers 00:06:21.939 --> 00:06:25.430 from the 1930 to 1931 period. And according to 00:06:25.430 --> 00:06:28.009 the sources, they transferred these thousands 00:06:28.009 --> 00:06:31.910 of files to their Ukrainian SSR department. And 00:06:31.910 --> 00:06:34.910 the logic there being that the majority of these 00:06:34.910 --> 00:06:38.329 specific cases had ties to Ukraine. So they were 00:06:38.329 --> 00:06:41.129 just shipping the regional paperwork back to 00:06:41.129 --> 00:06:43.629 the regional office. Exactly. Pure administrative 00:06:43.629 --> 00:06:46.709 housekeeping. They're just moving pallets of 00:06:46.709 --> 00:06:50.430 paper from one secure facility to another. However... 00:06:50.509 --> 00:06:52.930 For reasons that remain completely unknown, I 00:06:52.930 --> 00:06:56.149 mean, most likely a tired clerk or a really vague 00:06:56.149 --> 00:06:58.649 shipping manifest. Just a Monday morning mistake. 00:06:58.709 --> 00:07:01.709 Right. This massive batch of files mysteriously 00:07:01.709 --> 00:07:04.389 included hundreds of cases that had absolutely 00:07:04.389 --> 00:07:06.870 nothing to do with Ukraine. They included the 00:07:06.870 --> 00:07:09.389 highly sensitive files concerning the executions 00:07:09.389 --> 00:07:12.449 and convictions in Moscow, Leningrad and Voronezh. 00:07:13.050 --> 00:07:15.649 So the very blueprints of the purge, like the 00:07:15.649 --> 00:07:18.350 actual records of the Leningrad guards case and 00:07:18.350 --> 00:07:20.740 the executions in the heart of the Soviet Union, 00:07:21.040 --> 00:07:22.920 those were accidentally boxed up and shipped 00:07:22.920 --> 00:07:25.779 off to Kiev. Yes. It's almost comical. It is 00:07:25.779 --> 00:07:28.439 the ultimate irony of bureaucracy. Yeah. The 00:07:28.439 --> 00:07:31.439 very system designed to meticulously document 00:07:31.439 --> 00:07:35.120 and execute state terror is the same system that 00:07:35.120 --> 00:07:38.139 accidentally mislabels a box and preserves the 00:07:38.139 --> 00:07:40.839 evidence of its own crimes. That's crazy. Because 00:07:40.839 --> 00:07:43.560 once those files arrived in Ukraine, they just 00:07:43.560 --> 00:07:46.610 sat there. They were relocated, forgotten, and 00:07:46.610 --> 00:07:49.149 most importantly, they were insulated from any 00:07:49.149 --> 00:07:51.250 central purges of the archives that might have 00:07:51.250 --> 00:07:53.149 happened in Moscow later on. They were basically 00:07:53.149 --> 00:07:55.329 sitting in a bureaucratic time capsule waiting 00:07:55.329 --> 00:07:57.889 for the world to change. Exactly. And the world 00:07:57.889 --> 00:08:00.230 finally did change with the collapse of the Soviet 00:08:00.230 --> 00:08:03.470 Union. Yes. When the Soviet Union fell in the 00:08:03.470 --> 00:08:06.670 early 1990s, the political landscape transformed 00:08:06.670 --> 00:08:09.420 overnight. Suddenly, archives that had been locked 00:08:09.420 --> 00:08:12.220 away for over half a century in places like Ukraine 00:08:12.220 --> 00:08:14.800 were accessible. And that is when a Ukrainian 00:08:14.800 --> 00:08:17.639 researcher named Yaroslav Tinchenko enters the 00:08:17.639 --> 00:08:20.360 picture. Right. The sources note that he, working 00:08:20.360 --> 00:08:22.519 alongside the archivists of the newly formed 00:08:22.519 --> 00:08:25.209 Ukrainian security service, finally got access 00:08:25.209 --> 00:08:27.629 to these misplaced boxes. Imagine being in that 00:08:27.629 --> 00:08:30.329 room. I know, right? You open a file expecting 00:08:30.329 --> 00:08:33.490 routine regional reports, and you are suddenly 00:08:33.490 --> 00:08:36.169 staring at the death warrants of thousands of 00:08:36.169 --> 00:08:38.990 men whose fates had been a complete historical 00:08:38.990 --> 00:08:41.350 black hole. It completely shifted the historical 00:08:41.350 --> 00:08:43.629 paradigm. I mean, the source mentions that the 00:08:43.629 --> 00:08:46.649 Vesna case was briefly touched upon in 1998 in 00:08:46.649 --> 00:08:48.990 a book by Oleg Suvinorov. Yes, he was one of 00:08:48.990 --> 00:08:51.289 the first. But it was Tinchenko who really broke 00:08:51.289 --> 00:08:53.879 the dam in 2000 with his major book. It was titled 00:08:53.879 --> 00:08:57.019 Calvary of Russian Officers in the USSR. Right. 00:08:57.200 --> 00:08:59.299 And this research is still ongoing. Like, as 00:08:59.299 --> 00:09:02.519 recently as 2016, the Russian journal Herald 00:09:02.519 --> 00:09:05.399 of an Archivist was publishing detailed articles 00:09:05.399 --> 00:09:07.899 breaking down these exact documents. It is a 00:09:07.899 --> 00:09:11.220 profound reminder that truth is incredibly resilient, 00:09:11.559 --> 00:09:13.860 provided the physical paper trail survives. Yeah. 00:09:14.080 --> 00:09:17.080 That one slip of the pen in 1958 inadvertently 00:09:17.080 --> 00:09:19.240 saved this entire chapter of history from being 00:09:19.240 --> 00:09:21.779 permanently erased. It really is amazing. OK. 00:09:21.909 --> 00:09:24.049 So we know how the files survive the cover -up, 00:09:24.210 --> 00:09:26.129 but I want to look closely at what those documents 00:09:26.129 --> 00:09:28.690 actually reveal about the mechanics of the terror 00:09:28.690 --> 00:09:30.710 itself. Let's do it. Because reading through 00:09:30.710 --> 00:09:33.730 these sources, one thing becomes shillingly clear. 00:09:34.330 --> 00:09:36.389 You do not just wake up one morning and arrest 00:09:36.389 --> 00:09:39.009 10 ,000 people out of nowhere. No, definitely 00:09:39.009 --> 00:09:41.710 not. The logistics of that would break the system. 00:09:42.330 --> 00:09:44.990 So how does a state manufacture a conspiracy 00:09:44.990 --> 00:09:47.970 of that size from scratch? Well, the documents 00:09:47.970 --> 00:09:51.210 reveal that it is a deeply systematic methodical 00:09:51.210 --> 00:09:54.710 escalation. It is entirely about softening of 00:09:54.710 --> 00:09:57.850 the targets first. The repressions against these 00:09:57.850 --> 00:10:00.710 former military men didn't start with mass arrests. 00:10:00.889 --> 00:10:03.809 It began much more quietly. Initially, these 00:10:03.809 --> 00:10:06.230 Czarist military specialists were simply fired 00:10:06.230 --> 00:10:08.509 from their high -level command posts. Just stripping 00:10:08.509 --> 00:10:11.090 away their immediate power. Exactly. Then they 00:10:11.090 --> 00:10:13.889 were systematically demoted. Or, and this is 00:10:13.889 --> 00:10:16.169 very strategic, they were transferred away from 00:10:16.169 --> 00:10:18.850 active combat units and moved into military teaching 00:10:18.850 --> 00:10:21.809 positions. Wait, why teaching positions specifically? 00:10:21.889 --> 00:10:23.830 That seems like an odd choice. Think about the 00:10:23.830 --> 00:10:26.129 isolation. OK. If you leave a general in charge 00:10:26.129 --> 00:10:28.629 of division, he has loyal troops with guns. If 00:10:28.629 --> 00:10:31.210 you move him to a classroom, you sever his network. 00:10:31.429 --> 00:10:35.220 Oh, wow. He is totally isolated, and his lectures 00:10:35.220 --> 00:10:37.679 can be easily monitored by informants who can 00:10:37.679 --> 00:10:41.679 twist his words into anti -Soviet propaganda 00:10:41.679 --> 00:10:44.820 when the time is right. It is a deliberate unspooling 00:10:44.820 --> 00:10:47.929 of a person's life. Yes. And the source notes 00:10:47.929 --> 00:10:50.070 that the early arrests were only occasional, 00:10:50.169 --> 00:10:53.450 just a slow drip before the volume gradually 00:10:53.450 --> 00:10:55.830 and systematically increased. Right. Testing 00:10:55.830 --> 00:10:58.570 the waters. And this was all happening concurrently 00:10:58.570 --> 00:11:00.929 with other major state repressions, right? Like 00:11:00.929 --> 00:11:03.269 the purge of the military industry in 1929 and 00:11:03.269 --> 00:11:06.090 1930. Exactly. The state was simultaneously attacking 00:11:06.090 --> 00:11:08.490 the industrial base that built the weapons and 00:11:08.490 --> 00:11:10.629 the military leadership that wielded them. But 00:11:10.629 --> 00:11:12.409 this is where the mechanics of the fabrication 00:11:12.409 --> 00:11:15.370 get truly surreal to me. The source material 00:11:15.370 --> 00:11:18.190 outlines how the Vesna case overlapped with other 00:11:18.190 --> 00:11:20.710 oppressions happening at the exact same time. 00:11:20.990 --> 00:11:22.929 Right. And one of them is called the microbiologist 00:11:22.929 --> 00:11:25.750 case. Yes, this is bizarre. The official title 00:11:25.750 --> 00:11:28.429 of this operation, and I'm translating here, 00:11:28.850 --> 00:11:31.289 was the case of the counter -revolutionary wrecking 00:11:31.289 --> 00:11:34.950 rebel organization of microbiologists, veterinarians, 00:11:35.210 --> 00:11:37.909 and former officers. It's quite a mouthful. Now, 00:11:38.149 --> 00:11:40.830 help me understand the logic here. What possible 00:11:40.830 --> 00:11:44.450 goal does the state achieve by linking a veterinarian 00:11:44.649 --> 00:11:47.690 a microbiologist, and a military commander in 00:11:47.690 --> 00:11:50.289 the same conspiracy. Well, it highlights the 00:11:50.289 --> 00:11:52.950 absolute absurdity, but also the terrifying utility 00:11:52.950 --> 00:11:56.750 of fabricated charges. When a totalitarian state 00:11:56.750 --> 00:11:59.250 decides it needs an internal enemy to justify 00:11:59.250 --> 00:12:02.529 its extreme actions, it doesn't need the conspiracy 00:12:02.529 --> 00:12:05.350 to make logical sense. It doesn't. In fact, the 00:12:05.350 --> 00:12:07.730 more sprawling and incomprehensible the conspiracy 00:12:07.730 --> 00:12:10.259 is, the better. Really? Why is that? Because 00:12:10.259 --> 00:12:12.440 if you can convince the public that the enemy 00:12:12.440 --> 00:12:14.980 is everywhere, you know, sabotaging the livestock 00:12:14.980 --> 00:12:17.740 on the farms, poisoning the laboratories, and 00:12:17.740 --> 00:12:20.259 plotting in the military barracks, then the threat 00:12:20.259 --> 00:12:23.019 feels existential. Oh, I see. And an existential 00:12:23.019 --> 00:12:25.379 threat justifies any level of state violence. 00:12:25.500 --> 00:12:27.899 You just connect entirely unrelated dots on a 00:12:27.899 --> 00:12:29.899 piece of paper and call it a unified rebellion. 00:12:30.159 --> 00:12:32.620 Exactly. And the archives finally name the men 00:12:32.620 --> 00:12:34.840 who were drawing those dots, the architects of 00:12:34.840 --> 00:12:37.500 the Vesna case. Right, the instigators. The sources 00:12:37.500 --> 00:12:40.159 point to Israel Leplevsky, the leader of the 00:12:40.159 --> 00:12:42.240 Ukrainian state political directorate or the 00:12:42.240 --> 00:12:45.080 GPU, which was the secret police. Yes. He was 00:12:45.080 --> 00:12:47.899 supported by Jenrikh Yegoda, who was a massive 00:12:47.899 --> 00:12:51.019 figure in the Soviet security apparatus. And 00:12:51.019 --> 00:12:53.600 other key officials fabricating these cases included 00:12:53.600 --> 00:12:56.539 Jenrikh Lushkov and Vsevolod Politsky. These 00:12:56.539 --> 00:12:59.379 were the managers of the terror. Their job was 00:12:59.379 --> 00:13:01.759 to construct the narrative and ensure the fake 00:13:01.759 --> 00:13:04.919 evidence was generated to process thousands of 00:13:04.919 --> 00:13:07.659 convictions. Right. But the archive documents 00:13:07.659 --> 00:13:10.299 reveal something about this process that completely 00:13:10.299 --> 00:13:12.659 challenges our typical assumptions about how 00:13:12.659 --> 00:13:15.799 the secret police actually operated. Yes. This 00:13:15.799 --> 00:13:17.919 part is fascinating because I always pictured 00:13:17.919 --> 00:13:21.440 the Soviet secret police as these robotic unquestioning 00:13:21.440 --> 00:13:23.860 zealots who just blindly stamped whatever death 00:13:23.860 --> 00:13:25.440 warrant was put in front of them. Sure, that's 00:13:25.440 --> 00:13:28.080 the stereotype. But the source material explicitly 00:13:28.080 --> 00:13:30.220 states that there was actual dissent from within 00:13:30.220 --> 00:13:33.100 the GPU itself. Yes. Some of the secret police 00:13:33.100 --> 00:13:35.519 officials looked at the documents for the Vesna 00:13:35.519 --> 00:13:38.639 case, saw that the evidence was blatantly fabricated, 00:13:38.840 --> 00:13:40.960 and actually opposed it. They looked at the fake 00:13:40.960 --> 00:13:43.679 evidence and said no. It's incredible and this 00:13:43.679 --> 00:13:45.980 raises an incredibly important question about 00:13:45.980 --> 00:13:49.860 the limits of internal resistance within a totalitarian 00:13:49.860 --> 00:13:53.019 bureaucracy. You have individuals within the 00:13:53.019 --> 00:13:56.299 terrifying secret police apparatus who are trying 00:13:56.299 --> 00:13:59.200 to maintain some semblance of evidential standard. 00:13:59.480 --> 00:14:02.289 Why though? I mean, did they suddenly develop 00:14:02.289 --> 00:14:05.309 a moral conscience? It's likely less about a 00:14:05.309 --> 00:14:07.330 moral awakening and more about institutional 00:14:07.330 --> 00:14:10.330 pride and procedure. Oh, OK. Bureaucracies rely 00:14:10.330 --> 00:14:13.750 on rules. Even corrupt bureaucracies want their 00:14:13.750 --> 00:14:15.809 paperwork to look legally sound. Right, they 00:14:15.809 --> 00:14:18.710 want to look professional. Exactly. These dissidents 00:14:18.710 --> 00:14:21.029 recognized that the charges against these officers 00:14:21.029 --> 00:14:24.470 were so poorly manufactured that it made a mockery 00:14:24.470 --> 00:14:26.850 of the GPU's own internal procedures. They were 00:14:26.850 --> 00:14:29.080 essentially saying, We can't prosecute this. 00:14:29.200 --> 00:14:31.259 The math doesn't add up. But the autocracy doesn't 00:14:31.259 --> 00:14:33.639 care about the math. Exactly. This is the moment 00:14:33.639 --> 00:14:36.039 where we see bureaucratic procedure clash with 00:14:36.039 --> 00:14:39.340 pure top -down power. When those GPU dissidents 00:14:39.340 --> 00:14:42.720 oppose the case, the instigators Yegoda and Lazar 00:14:42.720 --> 00:14:46.139 Kaganovich, they didn't try to argue the evidence. 00:14:46.379 --> 00:14:48.279 They simply went over the dissidents' heads. 00:14:48.379 --> 00:14:51.000 They appealed directly to Stalin. And Stalin's 00:14:51.000 --> 00:14:54.100 response was swift. He just ordered the GPU dissidents 00:14:54.100 --> 00:14:56.860 to be fired. Yep. Which sends a very clear message 00:14:56.860 --> 00:14:59.360 to everyone else in the building. Yeah. You either 00:14:59.360 --> 00:15:01.639 fall in line and participate in the fabrication, 00:15:02.019 --> 00:15:04.840 or you are removed from the board entirely. Exactly. 00:15:05.000 --> 00:15:08.019 The system explicitly demands that loyalty and 00:15:08.019 --> 00:15:11.500 obedience are valued far above reality. And speaking 00:15:11.500 --> 00:15:14.620 of Stalin, his involvement wasn't just him signing 00:15:14.620 --> 00:15:17.220 a memo from a distant office. No, not at all. 00:15:17.279 --> 00:15:19.779 The source material details how he was intimately 00:15:19.779 --> 00:15:22.919 physically involved in the process. Which brings 00:15:22.919 --> 00:15:26.480 us to an incredibly high -stakes event that foreshadows 00:15:26.480 --> 00:15:29.440 the Great Purge. The Tukhachevsky Prelude. Exactly. 00:15:29.580 --> 00:15:33.240 I want you, the listener, right now to try and 00:15:33.240 --> 00:15:35.820 imagine this scenario. You are a former Tsarist 00:15:35.820 --> 00:15:38.659 officer. You've been arrested in 1930, dragged 00:15:38.659 --> 00:15:41.519 in, and you are being subjected to a cross -examination. 00:15:41.740 --> 00:15:44.679 Terrifying. But you aren't just facing some anonymous 00:15:44.679 --> 00:15:47.100 mid -level interrogator. You are giving forced 00:15:47.100 --> 00:15:49.860 testimony with Stalin himself literally staring 00:15:49.860 --> 00:15:52.389 you down. alongside other high ranking members 00:15:52.389 --> 00:15:54.970 of the Politburo. The psychological terror of 00:15:54.970 --> 00:15:58.429 that room is almost unimaginable. The absolute 00:15:58.429 --> 00:16:01.590 apex of Soviet power has come down to the basement 00:16:01.590 --> 00:16:04.070 to watch you break. Yeah. They aren't just relying 00:16:04.070 --> 00:16:06.549 on reports. They are physically overseeing the 00:16:06.549 --> 00:16:09.389 manufacturing of the lies. And during these terrifying 00:16:09.389 --> 00:16:12.629 cross examinations, several of the arrested individuals 00:16:12.629 --> 00:16:15.970 broke and gave fabricated evidence against a 00:16:15.970 --> 00:16:18.990 very specific target. General, and later Marshal, 00:16:19.250 --> 00:16:21.529 Mikhail Tkachevsky. Right. Now here is the part 00:16:21.529 --> 00:16:24.470 you need to explain to me. The source explicitly 00:16:24.470 --> 00:16:26.950 says Tkachevsky was spared at that time. Yes. 00:16:27.250 --> 00:16:30.470 He survived the Vesna case in 1931, but he was 00:16:30.470 --> 00:16:32.850 ultimately executed years later during the Great 00:16:32.850 --> 00:16:36.330 Purge. Why would Stalin sit in a room personally 00:16:36.330 --> 00:16:38.690 oversee the extraction of fake evidence against 00:16:38.690 --> 00:16:40.929 one of his top generals, choose to spare him, 00:16:41.190 --> 00:16:42.990 but then turn around and kill him using that 00:16:42.990 --> 00:16:45.190 exact same playbook later. Well, it is a brilliant, 00:16:45.629 --> 00:16:48.409 chilling, strategic calculation. It completely 00:16:48.409 --> 00:16:50.909 reframes how we view the Vesna case. Also. It 00:16:50.909 --> 00:16:53.970 wasn't just a purge. It functioned as a terrifying 00:16:53.970 --> 00:16:57.149 rehearsal. By extracting that fabricated evidence 00:16:57.149 --> 00:17:00.669 against Tukhachevsky in 1930 and 1931, the state 00:17:00.669 --> 00:17:03.269 was essentially gathering ammunition. Oh, wow. 00:17:03.500 --> 00:17:06.220 It is like a corrupt corporate HR department 00:17:06.220 --> 00:17:08.640 building a secret file on an employee they want 00:17:08.640 --> 00:17:10.819 to fire, but they wait three years to actually 00:17:10.819 --> 00:17:13.640 use it. Exactly. They are building a repository 00:17:13.640 --> 00:17:16.779 of guilt to keep in their back pocket. Stalin 00:17:16.779 --> 00:17:19.380 didn't need to eliminate Tukhachevsky in 1931. 00:17:19.799 --> 00:17:22.079 Perhaps he still desperately needed his military 00:17:22.079 --> 00:17:24.740 brilliance to modernize the army. Right. Or perhaps 00:17:24.740 --> 00:17:27.299 the political timing just wasn't right to take 00:17:27.299 --> 00:17:30.140 down someone that popular. But by having those 00:17:30.140 --> 00:17:32.539 forced confessions officially on file, Tukhachevsky 00:17:32.539 --> 00:17:34.789 was effective. living on borrowed time. Just 00:17:34.789 --> 00:17:37.390 waiting for the shoe to drop. Precisely. When 00:17:37.390 --> 00:17:39.690 the broader political timeline shifted during 00:17:39.690 --> 00:17:42.890 the Great Purge in 1937, Stalin didn't need to 00:17:42.890 --> 00:17:44.930 start from scratch. The state simply reached 00:17:44.930 --> 00:17:47.289 back into the archives, pulled out the ammunition 00:17:47.289 --> 00:17:50.190 they had manufactured years earlier, and executed 00:17:50.190 --> 00:17:52.930 him. It is the ultimate insurance policy for 00:17:52.930 --> 00:17:55.490 a dictator. You manufacture the guilt first, 00:17:55.730 --> 00:17:57.769 put it in a drawer, and apply the punishment 00:17:57.769 --> 00:18:00.009 whenever it becomes politically convenient. Yes, 00:18:00.130 --> 00:18:02.789 exactly. So what does this all mean for us today? 00:18:03.029 --> 00:18:05.890 When we step back and look at the entirety of 00:18:05.890 --> 00:18:08.369 the Vesna case, what are we really looking at? 00:18:08.410 --> 00:18:11.690 It's a big question. For me, it proves that we 00:18:11.690 --> 00:18:14.289 can no longer look at the Great Purge of 1937 00:18:14.289 --> 00:18:18.369 as an isolated, spontaneous explosion of paranoia. 00:18:19.230 --> 00:18:21.769 The Vesna case proves that the blueprint for 00:18:21.769 --> 00:18:24.680 that terror You know, the slow demotions, the 00:18:24.680 --> 00:18:27.619 massive scale of arrests, the grouping of unrelated 00:18:27.619 --> 00:18:30.500 professions into absurd conspiracies, and the 00:18:30.500 --> 00:18:32.539 internal purging of anyone who demanded real 00:18:32.539 --> 00:18:35.119 evidence that Blueprint was drafted and executed 00:18:35.119 --> 00:18:37.619 years earlier. It was a machine that was built, 00:18:37.759 --> 00:18:40.579 tested, and hidden by time. And that is exactly 00:18:40.579 --> 00:18:43.220 why exploring these overlooked historical archives 00:18:43.220 --> 00:18:45.700 is so vital. Knowledge is most valuable when 00:18:45.700 --> 00:18:48.200 we understand how systems of power actually operate. 00:18:52.420 --> 00:18:55.380 the lives of 10 ,000 people can be deliberately 00:18:55.380 --> 00:18:57.380 obscured by a state that controls the paperwork. 00:18:57.660 --> 00:18:59.700 It's terrifying. It reminds us that the accepted 00:18:59.700 --> 00:19:02.900 historical record is often incomplete. Without 00:19:02.900 --> 00:19:07.140 physical evidence, like those 3 ,496 files accidentally 00:19:07.140 --> 00:19:10.119 sent to Ukraine, and without the relentless critical 00:19:10.119 --> 00:19:12.440 inquiry of researchers like Tinchenko, who are 00:19:12.440 --> 00:19:15.519 willing to open forgotten boxes, the truth simply 00:19:15.519 --> 00:19:18.579 vanishes into the dark. Which leaves us with 00:19:18.579 --> 00:19:21.779 one final, very unsettling thought to chew on. 00:19:21.819 --> 00:19:25.940 Okay. Think about that 1958 clerical error. A 00:19:25.940 --> 00:19:28.319 tired clerk accidentally puts the wrong files 00:19:28.319 --> 00:19:32.059 onto a train to Kiev. Yeah. If a massive systemic 00:19:32.059 --> 00:19:35.319 purge of 10 ,000 military officers, a purge that 00:19:35.319 --> 00:19:37.980 resulted in over a thousand executions in a single 00:19:37.980 --> 00:19:40.619 city in a single month. Right. If that could 00:19:40.619 --> 00:19:42.640 remain completely hidden from the entire world 00:19:42.640 --> 00:19:45.180 for decades, all because a researcher hadn't 00:19:45.180 --> 00:19:47.380 yet looked in the wrong KGB filing cabinet in 00:19:47.380 --> 00:19:50.599 Ukraine. What other incredibly specific terrifying 00:19:50.599 --> 00:19:52.920 events in history are still sitting in a dusky 00:19:52.920 --> 00:19:55.240 box right now, just waiting for someone to open 00:19:55.240 --> 00:19:58.599 it? Wow. It really makes you question how many 00:19:58.599 --> 00:20:00.880 chapters of our history are currently being written 00:20:00.880 --> 00:20:04.039 based on incomplete archives. It certainly does. 00:20:04.559 --> 00:20:07.180 The ink on history is never truly dry, as long 00:20:07.180 --> 00:20:09.380 as there are still boxes left to open. Thank 00:20:09.380 --> 00:20:11.700 you for joining us on this Deep Dives. Keep questioning 00:20:11.700 --> 00:20:13.599 the narratives around you, keep looking for the 00:20:13.599 --> 00:20:15.619 missing pieces, and we will catch you on the 00:20:15.619 --> 00:20:15.960 next one.