"This is not wide spread knowledge" Jordan Peterson on Soviet History — Transcript

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1. 0:00so I want to tell you about a book today
2. 0:02the book is called The Gulag Archipelago
3. 0:06you ready the book is called The Gulag
4. 0:11Archipelago and it's by a russian author
5. 0:15soviet author named Alexander
6. 0:17Solzhenitsyn who was in they do like
7. 0:21archipelago concentration camp system
8. 0:24for a very long time he had a very hard
9. 0:26life he was on the Russian front when
10. 0:33the Germans invaded Soviet Union in the
11. 0:38early stages of World War two now Hitler
12. 0:40and Stalin had signed a non-aggression
13. 0:43pact and Hitler invaded the Soviet Union
14. 0:51anyway and from what I've been able to
15. 0:53understand the Soviets had prepared an
16. 0:56invasion force for Europe at that point
17. 0:59but were not concerned with having to
18. 1:01defend their territory and so they were
19. 1:03caught completely unawares by Hitler's
20. 1:05move and conditions on the Russian front
21. 1:08were absolutely dreadful and
22. 1:10Solzhenitsyn was a soldier on the
23. 1:13Russian front and he wrote some letters
24. 1:19to one of his friends which were
25. 1:22intercepted complaining about the lack
26. 1:25of preparation and and using bitter dark
27. 1:29humor to describe the situation and the
28. 1:34consequences of that was that he was
29. 1:35thrown into a work camp the Soviet
30. 1:38system relied on work camps and so those
31. 1:41were large labor camps of people who
32. 1:45were essentially enslaved many of whom
33. 1:47were worked to death often froze to
34. 1:49death working in conditions that were so
35. 1:51dreadful that they're virtually
36. 1:53unimaginable Solzhenitsyn spent a very
37. 1:57large number of years in these camps
38. 1:59sometimes in a more privileged camp
39. 2:02because he was an educated man and
40. 2:03sometimes in worst camps he also
41. 2:09developed cancer
42. 2:12later and wrote a book about that called
43. 2:16cancer ward which is a brilliant book so
44. 2:19he had a very hard life there's there's
45. 2:21just no way around that to be on the
46. 2:23front and then to be in a concentration
47. 2:25camp and then to have cancer that's
48. 2:27that's pretty rough now he wrote The
49. 2:30Gulag Archipelago he wrote a book called
50. 2:34one day in the life of Ivan Denisovich
51. 2:36first that was published in the early
52. 2:381960s when there was a brief thaw Stalin
53. 2:42was pretty much out of the picture by
54. 2:44the end of the 1950s there's some
55. 2:45indication that he was murdered by
56. 2:47Khrushchev and a Khrushchev became
57. 2:51premier of the Soviet Union after Stalin
58. 2:56and there's some indication perhaps that
59. 2:58Stalin was either murdered by Khrushchev
60. 3:00and a set of his cronies or when he was
61. 3:03very ill just before he died was not
62. 3:06helped at least by wasn't provided with
63. 3:10any medical attention because of the
64. 3:12intervention of Khrushchev and his
65. 3:13cronies now there's some indication as
66. 3:15well at that point that Stalin who is an
67. 3:18absolute absolutely barbaric in every
68. 3:21possible way you could imagine was
69. 3:23planning to start a third world war and
70. 3:26he was certainly capable of doing such
71. 3:28things because he had already imprisoned
72. 3:31or killed tens of millions of people now
73. 3:36just after Stalin died there was a bit
74. 3:39of a thaw in the Soviet Union with
75. 3:41regards to internal repression in the
76. 3:43early 1960s
77. 3:44Solzhenitsyn published a book called one
78. 3:46day in the life of Ivan Denisovich which
79. 3:48was a story about one day in the life
80. 3:50his life really inside one of these
81. 3:52so-called gulag archipelago camps now he
82. 3:55called it the gulag archipelago because
83. 3:57an archipelago is a chain of islands and
84. 3:59so Solzhenitsyn likened the work camp
85. 4:03system in the Soviet Union which is made
86. 4:05up of isolated camps distributed across
87. 4:07the entire state he likened that to a
88. 4:10series of islands in hence hence the
89. 4:12metaphor and one day in the life of Ivan
90. 4:14Denisovich was one of the first
91. 4:16publications released in the Soviet
92. 4:18Union that dared make public what had
93. 4:22happened inside these camps at least
94. 4:25initially now that saw I didn't last
95. 4:27very long but that book had a tremendous
96. 4:29effect it's a short book it's worth
97. 4:31reading after that he spent he wrote a
98. 4:35number of other books which are also
99. 4:36he's great he's a great literary figure
100. 4:38in the same category I would say as
101. 4:40Tolstoy or Dostoyevsky which is like
102. 4:42really saying something you know those
103. 4:44those two are perhaps the greatest
104. 4:45literary figures who ever lived with the
105. 4:47possible exception of Shakespeare he
106. 4:50wrote this book called The Gulag
107. 4:52Archipelago which is published in three
108. 4:54volumes each of which is about 700 pages
109. 4:56long the first one details the origin of
110. 5:01the oppressive Soviet system at least in
111. 5:04part under Lenin and then it's full
112. 5:06fledged implementation under Stalin and
113. 5:08the depths of while Solzhenitsyn
114. 5:10estimated the deaths in in internal
115. 5:13repression in the Soviet Union that's
116. 5:15something approximating 60 million
117. 5:16between 1919 and 1959 now that doesn't
118. 5:20count the death toll in the Second World
119. 5:22War by the way now people have disputed
120. 5:24those figures but they're certainly in
121. 5:27the tens of millions and the low-end
122. 5:28bounds are probably 20 million and the
123. 5:30high-end bounds are nearer what so
124. 5:31Solzhenitsyn estimated he also estimated
125. 5:34that the same kind of internal
126. 5:36repression in Mao's China cost a hundred
127. 5:39million lights and so you can imagine
128. 5:41that the genuine historical figures
129. 5:43again are subject to dispute but
130. 5:46somewhere between fifty and a hundred
131. 5:47million people and one of the things
132. 5:49that's really surprising to me and that
133. 5:51I think is absolutely reprehensible
134. 5:54absolutely reprehensible is the fact
135. 5:56that this is not widespread knowledge
136. 5:58among students in the West any of this
137. 6:00and it's because your education your
138. 6:02historical education if you started to
139. 6:04describe it as appalling you would
140. 6:06barely scratch the surface these were
141. 6:08the most important events of the 20th
142. 6:10century and they're barely covered at
143. 6:11all in standard historical curriculum
144. 6:14you know something I would presume about
145. 6:17World War Two and about the terrible
146. 6:19situation in Nazi Germany in the death
147. 6:21of 6 million gypsies and Jews and
148. 6:23homosexuals in the concentration camps
149. 6:25in Nazi Germany but my experience with
150. 6:29students has been that none of them know
151. 6:31anything about what happened as a
152. 6:32consequence of the repression of the
153. 6:34radical left in the 20th century and I
154. 6:36believe the reason for that is that
155. 6:38the communist system had extensive
156. 6:42networks of admirers in the West
157. 6:44especially among intellectuals and and
158. 6:47still in fact does which is also equally
159. 6:49reprehensible and I believe that one of
160. 6:52the consequences of that is that this
161. 6:55element of history has been under under
162. 6:59what would you say under examined and
163. 7:02certainly very little attention has been
164. 7:04brought to it in the public school
165. 7:06curricula and there's absolutely no
166. 7:08excuse for that it was the worst thing
167. 7:10that happened in the 20th century and
168. 7:12that's really saying something because
169. 7:13the 20th century was about as bad as it
170. 7:15gets and so and the fact that these
171. 7:18these massive these deaths on massive
172. 7:21scale occurred and the fact that we
173. 7:23don't know that deep inside our bones is
174. 7:25is testament to the absolute rot of the
175. 7:28education system