Norman Naimark: Genocide, Stalin, Hitler, Mao, and Absolute Power | Lex Fridman Podcast #248

1. 0:00 – 0:20

   Introduction

   1. LFLex Fridman0:00

      The following is a conversation with Norman Naimark, a historian at Stanford specializing in genocide, war and empire. This is the Lex Fridman Podcast. To support it, please check out our sponsors in the description and now, here's my conversation with Norman Naimark.

2. 0:20 – 14:17

   Stalin and absolute power

   1. LFLex Fridman0:20

      Did Stalin believe that communism is good, not just for him, but for the people of the Soviet Union and the people of the world?

   2. NNNorman Naimark0:27

      Oh, absolutely. I mean, Stalin believed that, uh, you know, socialism was the be all and end all of, uh, you know, human existence. He was a true Leninist and in Lenin's tradition, this was, uh, you know, what he believed. I mean, that- that set of beliefs didn't, uh, exclude other kinds of things he believed or thought or did. But, uh, no, the kind- w- what had- the way he defined socialism, the way he thought about socialism, no, he absolutely thought it was in the interest of the Soviet Union and of the world. And in fact, that the world was one day going to go socialist. In other words, I think he believed in the- in eventually in the international revolution.

   3. LFLex Fridman1:09

      So given, uh, the genocide in the 1930s that you describe, was Stalin evil, delusional or incompetent?

   4. NNNorman Naimark1:19

      Uh, evil, delusional or incompetent? Well, you know, evil is one of those words, you know, which has a lot of, uh, kind of religious and moral, uh, connotations. And in that sense, yes, I think he was an evil man. I mean, he, you know, eliminated people absolutely unnecessarily. He, um, tortured people, had people tortured. Uh, he was completely indifferent, uh, to, uh, the suffering of others. He couldn't have cared a whit, you know, that millions, uh, uh, were suffering. And so yes, I- I consider him a- an evil man. I mean, y- you know, historians don't like to-

   5. LFLex Fridman2:01

      Use the word evil?

   6. NNNorman Naimark2:01

      ... use the word evil. It's a, you know, it's a word for moral philosophers, but I think it certainly fits, uh, who he is. I think he, uh, was delusional. And there is a wonderful historian, uh, at Princeton, a political scientist actually, named Robert Tucker who said he suffered from a paranoid delusional system. And I will always remember that of- of Tucker's, uh, writing because, uh, what Tucker meant is that he was not just paranoid, meaning, you know, I'm paranoid, I'm worried you're out to get me, right?

   7. LFLex Fridman2:39

      Mm-hmm.

   8. NNNorman Naimark2:40

      But that he constructed a whole, uh, plots of people, uh, whole systems of people who were out to get him. So in other words, his delusions were that there were all of these groups of people out there, um, who were out to, uh, diminish his power and remove him fr- and remove him, uh, from his position and undermine the Soviet Union in his view. So yes, I think he did suffer from, uh, from, uh, delusions. And this had a huge effect because whole groups then, uh, were destroyed, uh, by his, uh, by his activities which he would construct, uh, based on, uh, on these delusions. He was not incompetent. He was an extremely competent man. I mean, I think most of the research that's gone on especially since the, uh, Stalin archive, uh, was opened at the beginning of this century. And I think almost every historian who goes in that archive comes away from it with the feeling of a man who was enormously hardworking, intelligent, uh, you know, with an acute sense of politics, a really excellent sense of, um, you know, political, uh, rhetoric. A fantastic editor, you know, in a kind of agitational sense. I mean, he's a real agitator, right? And, um, of a, um, you know, a really hard worker. I mean, somebody who works from morning 'til night. Uh, a micromanager in some ways. So his competence, I think, was really extreme. Now there were times when that fell down. You know, times in the '30s, times in the '20s, times during the war where he made mistakes. It's not as if he didn't make any mistakes, but I think, you know, you- you look at his stuff, you know, you look at his archives, you look what he did, I mean, this is an enormously competent man who- who in many, many different a- areas of enterprise because he, you know, he had this notion that he should know everything and did know everything. I remember one, uh, archive, dyala it's called, you know, a kind of folder that I looked at where he actually went through the wines that were produced in his native Georgia and- and- and wrote down how much they should make of each of these wines, you know, how m- how many, you know, barrels they should- they should produce of these wines, which grapes were better than the other grapes. Sort of correcting-

   9. LFLex Fridman5:13

      Mm-hmm.

   10. NNNorman Naimark5:13

       ... in other words what people were putting down there. So he was, um, you know, his competence ranged very wide or at least he thought his competence ranged very wide. I mean, both things I think are the case.

   11. LFLex Fridman5:25

       If we look at this paranoid delusional system, Stalin was in power for 30 years. He is, many argue one of the most powerful men in history. Did, in his case, absolute power corrupt him or did it reveal the true nature of the man? And maybe just in- in your sense as we kind of build around this genocide of the early 1930s, this paranoid delusional system, did it get built up over time? Was it always there? It's- it's- it's kind of a question of, um, did the genocide, was that always inevitable essentially in this man or did power create that?

   12. NNNorman Naimark6:05

       I mean, it's a great question and I don't think you can... I, I don't think you can say that it was always, uh, in- kind of inherent in the man. I mean, the man without his position and without his power, you know, wouldn't have been able to accomplish what he eventually, uh, did in the way of murdering people, you know, and murdering groups of people, which is what genocide is. So, you know, I don't... I, I c- it wasn't sort of in him. I mean, there were... And again, you know, the new research has shown that, you know, he had... His childhood was, um, you know, not a particularly nasty one. Uh, people used to say, you know, the father beat, beat him up. And then it turns out actually it wasn't the father, it was the mother once (laughs) in a while. But, but basically, you know, he was not, um, an unusual young Georgian kid or student even. And, uh, you know, it was, it was the, the growth of the Soviet system and him within the Soviet system, I mean, his own development within the Soviet system, I think that led, you know, to the kind of, uh, mass killing that occur- occurred in the 1930s. Um, h- you know, he essentially achieved complete power by the early, uh, 1930s. And then as he... As he rolled with it, as you would say, you know, or people would say, y- you know, it increasingly became murderous. Uh, and there was no, um... You know, there were no checks and balances, obviously, on that, that murderous system. And not only that, you know, people supported it, uh, in the NKVD and elsewhere. And he learned how to manipulate people. I mean, he was a, a superb, you know, political manipulator of, uh, of, of those people around him. And, um, uh, y- you know, we have... We, we, we've got new transcripts, for example, of, of, you know, Politburo meetings in the early 1930s. And you read those things and you re-... You know, he uses humor and he uses sarcasm, especially. He uses verbal ways to undermine people, you know, to control their behavior and what they do. And he's a really, uh... You know, he, uh, he's a, a real, um, I guess manipulator is the right word, and he does it, he does it with, um, you know, a kind of skill that on the one hand is admirable, and on the other hand, of course, is, uh, is terrible because it ends up, uh, you know, creating the system, uh, of terror, uh, that he creates.

   13. LFLex Fridman8:48

       I mean, I g- I guess just to linger on it, (sighs) I just wonder how much of it is a slippery slope. In the early '20s, 1920s, did he think he was going to be murdering even a single person, but, uh, thousands and millions? I, I just wonder, maybe the murder of a single human being just to get them... You know, because you're paranoid about them potentially threatening your power, does that murder then open a door? And once you open the door, you become a different human being. A deeper question here is the Solzhenitsyn, you know, "The line between good and evil runs in every man." Are all of us, once we commit one murder in this situation, does that open a door for all of us? And it... Uh, I guess even the further deeper question is how, how, how easy it is for human nature to go on this slippery slope that ends in genocide?

   14. NNNorman Naimark9:49

       There are a lot of questions in those-

   15. LFLex Fridman9:51

       I apologize. (laughs)

   16. NNNorman Naimark9:51

       ... in those questions. And, uh, you know, the slippery slope question, uh, I would, I would answer, I suppose by saying, you know, Stalin wasn't the most likely, uh, successor of Lenin.

   17. LFLex Fridman10:04

       Right.

   18. NNNorman Naimark10:04

       There were plenty of others. There was a... There were a lot of political contingencies that emerged in the 1920s that made it possible for Stalin to seize power. I don't think of him as a... Uh, you know, if you were to just know him in 1925, I don't think anybody would say, much less himself, that this was a, a future mass murderer. I mean, Trotsky mistrusted him and thought he was a, you know, um, uh, uh, a mindless bureaucrat. You know, others were less mistrustful of him, but, you know, he managed to gain power in the way he did through this bureaucratic and political maneuvering, uh, that was very, uh, successful. Uh, you know, the slippery slope, as it were, doesn't really begin until the 1930s, in my view. In other words, once, once he gains complete power and control of the Politburo, once the, the, the, um, programs that he institutes of the Five-Year Plan and collectivization go through, once he reverses himself and is able to reverse himself or reverse the Soviet path, you know, to give, uh, various nationalities their, you know, their ability to develop their own cultures and sort of internal, uh, uh, politics... Once he reverses all that, you know, you have the Ukrainian famine in '32, '33, you have the murder of Kirov, who was one of the leading, uh, figures, you know, in the political system, you have the suicide of his wife, you have all these things come together in '32, '33 that then, you know, make it more likely, in other words, that bad things are gonna happen. Um, and people start seeing that too around him, they start seeing that it's not a slippery slope, it's a, it's a dangerous... It's a dangerous, uh, situation which is emerging.And, and some people really understand that. So I don't... I, I really do see a differentiation than between the '20s. I mean, it's true that Stalin during the Civil War, there's a lot of, you know, good research on that, um, you know, shows that he already had some of these characteristics of being, as it were, murderous and being, uh, you know, being, um, dictatorial and pushing people around and that sort of thing. That was all there. Uh, but I don't, I don't really see that as kind of the necessary stage for the next thing that came, uh, which was the '30s, which was really terror, uh, of the worst sort, you know, where e- everybody is afraid for their lives and there are... Most people are afraid for their lives and their families' lives and where torture and that sort of thing becomes a common part, you know, of who, who... what people had to face. So it's a different... It's a different world and, you know, people will argue. They'll argue this kind of Lenin, Stalin continuity debate, you know, that's been going on since I was an undergraduate, right? That, that, uh, that argument, you know, was Stalin the natural sort of next step from Lenin or was he something completely different? Um, many people will argue, you know, because of Marxism-Leninism, because of the ideology, that, you know, it was, it was the ne- natural... It was a kind of natural next step. I don't think so, you know? And I would, I would tend to lean the other way. Not absolutely. I mean, I won't make an absolute argument that what Stalin became had nothing to do with Lenin and nothing to do with Marxism-Leninism. It had a lot to do with it, but th- you know, he takes it one step, one major step further and again, that's why I don't like the slippery slope, you know, metaphor because that means-

   19. LFLex Fridman13:55

       There's a leap.

   20. NNNorman Naimark13:55

       ... it's kind of slow and easy.

   21. LFLex Fridman13:57

       Yeah.

   22. NNNorman Naimark13:57

       It's a leap.

   23. LFLex Fridman13:58

       Yeah.

   24. NNNorman Naimark13:58

       Uh, and, and we call, you know... I mean, historians talk about the Stalin Revolution, you know, in '28 and '29, you know, that, that he, he in some senses creates a whole new system, you know, through the five-year plan, collectivization and seizing political power the way he does.

3. 14:17 – 38:43

   Dictators and genocide

   1. NNNorman Naimark14:17

   2. LFLex Fridman14:17

      Can you talk about the 1930s? Can you describe what happened in Holodomor, the Soviet terror famine in Ukraine in the '32 and '33-

   3. NNNorman Naimark14:25

      Yes. So-

   4. LFLex Fridman14:25

      ... that killed millions of Ukrainians?

   5. NNNorman Naimark14:27

      Right. It's a long story, you know, but le- let, let me try to (laughs) be as succinct as I can be. I mean, the Holodomor, the, the terror famine of, uh, '32, '33 comes out of, in part, an all-Union famine that re- that is the result of collectivization. You know, collectivization was a catastrophe. Uh, you know, the more or less of the so-called kulaks, the more or less richer farmers... I mean, they weren't really rich, right? Anybody with a tin roof and a cow was considered a kulak, you know, and other people who had nothing were also considered kulaks if they opposed collectivization. So these kulaks, we're talking millions of them, right? And U- Ukraine, it's worth recalling, and I'm sure you know this was a, you know, heavily agricultural area and Ukrainian peasants, um, you know, were on... in the countryside and resisted, uh, collectivization more than even Russian peasants resi- resisted, uh, collectivization, um, suffered during this collectivization program and they, you know, burned sometimes their own houses, they killed their own animals. Um, they were shot, you know, sometimes on the spot. Um, tens of thousands and others were sent into exile. So there was a conflagration in the countryside and the result of that conflagration in Ukraine was terrible famine and again, there was famine all over the Soviet Union, but it was especially bad, uh, in, uh, Ukraine, in part because Ukrainian peasants resisted. Now in '32, '33, a couple of things happen. I mean, I've argued this in, in my writing and, and, and, um, you know, I've also worked on this. I continue to work on it, by the way, with, with a museum in, in Kyiv that's going to be about the Holodomor. They're b- they're building the museum now, and it's going to be a very impressive, uh, set of exhibits and talk with historians all the time about it. So, so what happens in '32, '33 are a couple of things. First of all, the, uh, uh, Stalin develops an even stronger... I say even stronger 'cause he already had an antipathy for the Ukrainians, an even stronger antipathy for the Ukrainians in general. First of all, they resist collectivization. Uh, second of all, he's not getting all the grain he wants out of them and which he needs and so he sends in then, uh, people to expropriate the grain and take the grain away from the peasants. These teams of people, you know, some policemen, some urban thugs, some party people, some poor peasants, you know, take part too, go into the villages, uh, and forcibly seize grain and, um, and animals from the Ukrainian peasantry. They're seizing it all over. I mean, let's remember again, this is all over the Soviet Union in '32, uh, especially. Uh, then, uh, you know, in December of 1932, uh, January of '33, February of '33, Stalin is convinced the Ukrainian peasantry, um, needs to be shown who's boss, that they're not turning over their grain, that they're resisting the expropriators, that they're hiding the grain, which they do sometimes, right? That they're basically not loyal to the Soviet Union, that they're acting like traitors, that they're ready-And he says this, you know, to, I think it's Kaganovich he says it to, you know, they're ready to kind of pull out of the Soviet Union and join Poland. I mean, he thinks Poland is, you know, out to get the U- out to get Ukraine. And so he's gonna then essentially break the back of these peasantry. And the way he breaks their back, uh, is by going through another expropriation program, which is not done in the rest of the Soviet Union. So he's taking away everything they have. Everything they have. There are new laws introduced where they will actually punish people, including kids, with death if they steal any grain. You know, if they take anything from the, you know, from the fields. So, you know, you can shoot anybody, you know, who is looking for food. And then he introduces measures in Ukraine which are not introduced into the rest of the Soviet Union. For example, um, Ukrainian peasantry are not allowed to leave their villages anymore. They can't go to the city to try to find some things. I mean, we've got pictures of, you know, Ukrainian peasants dying on the sidewalks in Kharkiv and in Kiev and, and places like that, who've managed to get out of the village and get to the cities. But now they can't leave. They can't leave Ukraine to go to Belorussia or Belarus today, uh, or to Russia, you know, to get any food. There's no... He won't allow any relief to Ukraine. A number of people offer r- relief, including the Poles, but also the Vatican offers relief. He won't allow any relief to Ukraine. He won't admit that there's a famine in Ukraine. And instead what happens, uh, is that Ukraine turns into, the Ukrainian countryside turns into what my now, uh, passed colleague, who died several years ago, Robert Conquest, called a vast Belsen. And by that, you know, the images of bodies just lying everywhere. You know, people dead. And, uh, and dying, you know, of hunger, which is, b- by the way... I mean, uh, uh, as you know, I've spent a lot of time studying genocide. I don't think there's anything worse than dying of hunger, from what I have read. I mean, you see terrible ways that people die, right? But dying of hunger is just such a, a horrible, horrible thing. And so, for example, uh, we know there were many cases of cannibalism in the countryside, 'cause there wasn't anything to eat. People were eating their own kids, right? And Stalin knew about this. And again, you know, we started with this question a little bit earlier. He doesn't, he, there's not a sign of remorse. Not a sign of pity, right? Not a sign of any kind of human emotion that normal people would have.

   6. LFLex Fridman21:01

      What about the opposite of, um, joy for teaching them a lesson?

   7. NNNorman Naimark21:08

      I, I don't think there's joy. I'm not sure Stalin really understood-

   8. LFLex Fridman21:13

      Emotion of-

   9. NNNorman Naimark21:13

      ... what joy was.

   10. LFLex Fridman21:14

       ... inter- interaction?

   11. NNNorman Naimark21:14

       You know, I, I th- I, I, I think he felt it was necessary to get those SOBs, right? That they deserved it. He says that several times, "This is their own fault." Right? "This is their own fault." Um, and as their own fault, you know, they get what they deserve, basically.

   12. LFLex Fridman21:36

       How much was the calculation? How much was it reason versus emotion? In, in, in terms of-

   13. NNNorman Naimark21:42

       Uh-

   14. LFLex Fridman21:43

       You said he was competent. Was there a long-term strategy, or was this strategy based on emotion and anger and...

   15. NNNorman Naimark21:51

       No, no. Well, I think actually the r- the right answer is a little of both. I mean, usually the right answer in history is something like that.

   16. LFLex Fridman21:59

       A little of both.

   17. NNNorman Naimark21:59

       Right? Now you can't, you can't... It wasn't just... I mean, f- first of all, you know, the, the Soviets had it in for Ukraine and Ukrainian nationalism, which they really didn't like. And by the way, Russians still don't like it, right? Um, so they had it in for Ukrainian nationalism. They, they feared Ukrainian nationalism. As I said, you know, Stalin, Stalin writes, you know, "We'll loo- we'll lose Ukraine," you know, if these guys win. You know, so there's a kind of long-term determination, as I said, you know, to kind of break the back of Ukrainian national, uh, identity and Ukrainian nationalism, as any kind of separatist force whatsoever. And so there's that rat- rational calculation. At the same time, I think Stalin is annoyed and, um, peeved and angry on one level with the Ukrainians for resisting collectivization and for being difficult and for not, you know, not conforming, uh, you know, to the way, uh, he thinks, uh, peasants should act in this situation. So you have both things. He's also very angry at the Ukrainian party and eventually purges it for not being able to control Ukraine and not be able to control the situation. You know, Ukraine is, in theory, the breadbasket, right, of Europe. "Well, where, well, how come the breadbasket isn't turning over to me all this grain so I can sell it abroad and, and, uh, you know, build new factories and support the workers in the cities?" So there's a kind of annoyance, you know, when things fail, and this is absolutely typical of Stalin, when things fail, he blames it on other people, and usually groups of people, right? Not individuals, but groups, again. So a little bit of both I think is the right answer.

   18. LFLex Fridman23:54

       This blame, it feels like there's a playbook that dictators follow. I just wonder if it comes naturally or just kind of evolves. 'Cause, you know, blaming others and then telling these narratives and then creating the other and then somehow that leads to hatred and genocide. It feels like, uh, like, there's too many commonalities...... for it not to be a naturally emergent strategy that works for dictatorships?

   19. NNNorman Naimark24:20

       I mean, that's a good... It's a very good point, and I think it's one, you know, that, you know, has its merits. In other words, I think, uh, you're right, that there's certain kinds of strategies by dictators that, you know, are common to them. Uh, a lot of them do killing, not all of them, of that sort that Stalin did. I've written about Mao and Pol Pot and, you know, and Hitler and, you know, there, there is a sort of, as you say, a kind of playbook, uh, for political dictatorship. Also for, you know, a kind of Communist totalitarian way of, of functioning, you know? And that, that way of functioning was described already by Hannah Arendt early on when she wrote The Origins of Totalitarianism. Um, and, and, and she more or less writes the playbook, um, and Stalin does follow it. The, the real question in, uh, uh, it seems to me is, to what extent? You know, and, and how deep does this go, and how often does it go in that direction? I mean, you can, you can argue, for example, I mean, Fidel Castro was not a nice man, right? He was a dictator, he was a terrible dictator. Um, but he did not engage in mass murder. Ho Chi Minh was a dictator, a Communist dictator, who grew up, you know, in the Communist movement, went to Moscow, you know, spent time in Moscow in the '30s and went to find... fo-found the, the Vietnamese Communist Party. You know, he was a horrible dictator. I'm sure he was responsible for a lot of death and destruction, but he wasn't a mass murderer. And so you get those, you know? I mean, I would even argue, others, others will disagree, um, that Lenin wasn't a mass murderer. You know, that he didn't, he didn't kill the same way, you know, that Stalin killed. Or, or people after him. They're Communist dictators too, after all. Khrushchev, well, was a Communist dictator, but he stopped this killing. Um, a- and, you know, he's still responsible for Gulag and people sending off... sent off into a Gulag and imprisonment and torture and that sort of thing, but it's not at all the same thing. So there are some, you know, like Stalin, like Mao, like Pol Pot, you know, who commit these horrible, horrible atrocities, uh, extensively engaging, in my view, uh, in genocide, uh, and there are some who don't. Um, and, you know, what's, what's the difference? Well, you know, the difference is partly in personality, partly in historical circumstance, you know, partly in, you know, who is it that controls the reins of power.

   20. LFLex Fridman26:54

       How much do you connect the ideas of Communism or Marxism or socialism to Holodomor, to Stalin's rule? So, how naturally, as you kind of alluded to, does it lead to genocide?

   21. NNNorman Naimark27:09

       It's also, uh... I mean, I, in some ways, I've just addressed that question by saying it doesn't always lead to genocide. You know, in the case, again, you know, Cuba is not pretty, uh, but it wa- didn't have, uh, there was no genocide in, in Cuba, and same thing in North Vietnam.

   22. LFLex Fridman27:26

       Yeah.

   23. NNNorman Naimark27:27

       Um, you know, even North Korea, as awful as it is, is a terrible dictatorship, right? And, and people's rights are totally, uh, destroyed, right? They have no freedom whatsoever. You know, is not, as far as we know, genocidal. Who knows whether it could be or whether if they took over South Korea, you know, mass murder wouldn't take place and that kind of thing. But my point is, is that the ideology doesn't necessarily dictate genocide. In other words, it's a, it's an ideology, I think, that, that makes genocide sometimes too easily possible, given, you know, the way it thinks through history as being, you know, you're on the right side of history and some people are on the wrong side of history, and you have to destroy those people who are on the wrong side of history. I mean, there is something in, you know, uh, Marxism-Leninism which, which, you know, has that kind of language and that kind of thinking. But I don't think, um, it's, um, necessarily that way. There's a wonderful historian at, uh, at Berkeley named Martin Melia, who, uh, has written, uh, you know, wrote a number of books on this subject, and he was very, very... Uh, he was very... He was convinced that the, um, you know, that the ideology itself, uh, you know, played a, a crucial role in the murderousness of the Soviet regime. I'm not completely convinced. You know, when I say not completely convinced, I think there're... or you could argue with different ways. Equally valid... val- uh, you know, with equally valid arguments.

   24. LFLex Fridman29:05

       I mean, there's something about the ideology of, of Communism that allows you to, uh, decrease the value of human life, almost like this philosophy of, it's okay to crack a few eggs to make an omelet.

   25. NNNorman Naimark29:19

       Right.

   26. LFLex Fridman29:19

       So maybe that... if you can reason like that, then it's easier to take the leap of, for the good of the country, for the good of the people, for the good of the world, it's okay to kill a few people, and then that's where... I j- I, I... (sighs) I wonder-

   27. NNNorman Naimark29:35

       No.

   28. LFLex Fridman29:35

       ... about the slippery slope. (laughs)

   29. NNNorman Naimark29:37

       Yeah. No, no. Again, you know, I don't think it's a slippery slope. I think it's, um... I think it's dangerous. In other words, I think it's dangerous. But I don't, I don't consider... You know, I don't like Marxism-Leninism any better than the next guy-

   30. LFLex Fridman29:51

       Yeah.
4. 38:43 – 48:50

   What is genocide

   1. LFLex Fridman38:43

      What is genocide? What are the defining characteristics of genocide?

   2. NNNorman Naimark38:48

      Dealing with genocide is a difficult thing when it comes to the definition. Um, there is a definition, the December 1948, uh, UN, uh, Convention on the Pre- Prevention and Punishment of Genocide is considered the sort of major document of definitionally, in the definitional sense of genocide. And it emphasizes, you know, the intentional destruction, you know, of, uh, an ethnic, national, racial, or religious group, those are the four groups again, uh, comma, as such. And what that means basically is destroying the group as a group. In other words, there's a kind of beauty in human diversity and different groups of people, you know, Estonians, you know, a tribe of Native Americans, South African tribes, you know, the Rohingya in, uh, Myanmar. There's a kinda beauty humanity recognizes in the distinctiveness of those groups.

   3. LFLex Fridman39:54

      Mm-hmm.

   4. NNNorman Naimark39:55

      Uh, you know, this was a notion that emerges really with romanticism at the, after the French Revolution in the beginning of the 19th century with Herder mostly. And th- this beauty of these groups then, um, you know, is what is under attack in genocide. Um, and it's with intent, you know, the idea is that the in- it's intentional destruction. So this is a kind of, um, you know, um, analogy to first degree, second degree, and third-degree murder, right? First-degree murder, you know, you're out to kill this person and you plan it and you go out and you do it.

   5. LFLex Fridman40:33

      Mm-hmm.

   6. NNNorman Naimark40:33

      Right? That's intent, right? Manslaughter is not intent. You end up doing the same thing, but it's different. So, um, you know, the, the major person behind the definition was a man named Raphael Lemkin. I don't know if you heard his name or not, but he was a Polish-Jewish jurist, uh, who came, you know, from Poland, came to the United States during the war and had been a kind of, um, crusader for recognizing genocide. It's a word that he created, by the way, and he coined the term in 1943, and then published it in 1944 for the first time. Genoc meaning people and cide meaning killing, right? And so Lemkin then had this term, and he pushed hard to have it recognized, and it was in the UN convention. So that's the rough definition. The problem with it is, uh, uh, the definition... The problems with the definition are several. Uh, you know, one of them is, um, is it just these four groups, you know, racial, religious, ethnic, or national? See, this comes right out of the war. And what's in people's minds in 1948 are Jews, Poles, Russians, Yugoslavs sometimes, who were killed by the Nazis. That's what's in their mind.

   7. LFLex Fridman41:54

      Mm-hmm.

   8. NNNorman Naimark41:54

      But there are other groups, too, if you think about it, you know, who are killed, social groups or political groups. And, and that was not allowed in the convention, meaning for a lot of different reasons, the Soviets were primary among them, they didn't want other kinds of groups, let's say kulaks, for example-

   9. LFLex Fridman42:14

      Mm-hmm.

   10. NNNorman Naimark42:15

       ... uh, to be considered. That's a social group.... uh, or peasants, which is a social group. So... Or a political group. I mean, let's take a group, um, uh, you know, communists killed groups of people, but non-communists also killed groups of people. You know, in Indonesia in 1965-'66 they killed, you know, we don't know exactly, but roughly 600,000 Indonesian communists. Well, is that genocide or not? You know, uh, my point of view, it is genocide, although it's Indonesians killing Indonesians. And we have the same problem with the Cambodian genocide. I mean, we talk about a Cambodian genocide, but most of the people killed in the Cambodian genocide were other Cambodians. They give it the name... They're ready to recognize that it's genocide because they also killed some other peoples, meaning the Vietnamese, the Cham people who are, you know, Muslim- Muslim- smaller Muslim people in the area, and a few others. So the question then becomes, well, does it have to be a different nationality or ethnic group or religious group for it to be genocide? And my answer is no. You know, you need to expand the definition. It's a little bit like with our Constitution. You know, we got a constitution, uh, but we don't live in the end of the 18th century, right? We live in the 21st century, and so you have to update the Constitution over the centuries. And similarly, the Genocide Convention needs up- updating too. So that's how I work with the definition.

   11. LFLex Fridman43:45

       So this is this invention. Was it an invention, this beautiful idea, romantic idea that there's groups of people and the group is united by some unique characteristics? That was a invention in human history that... This idea? Not the-

   12. NNNorman Naimark44:02

       Well, that's the word, yes.

   13. LFLex Fridman44:02

       Not to see us as individuals?

   14. NNNorman Naimark44:03

       In some senses, it was. Uh, I mean, it's not... It, you know... There are things that are- are always constructed at one fashion or another, and that-

   15. LFLex Fridman44:10

       Yes.

   16. NNNorman Naimark44:11

       ... the cons- and the construction, you know, more or less represents the reality. And what the reality is always much more complicated than the construction or the invention of the... of- of a term or a concept or a way of thinking about a nation, right? And- and this way of thinking of nations, you know, as- as, again, you know, groups of religious, linguistic, um, uh-

   17. LFLex Fridman44:36

       Right.

   18. NNNorman Naimark44:38

       ... um, not political necessarily, but cultural entities-

   19. LFLex Fridman44:41

       Mm-hmm.

   20. NNNorman Naimark44:42

       ... is something that was essentially invented. Yes.

   21. LFLex Fridman44:45

       Yes. I mean, you know, if- if you look at-

   22. NNNorman Naimark44:47

       They're no- They're no Germans in the 17th century.

   23. LFLex Fridman44:49

       Mm-hmm.

   24. NNNorman Naimark44:50

       There are no Italians in the 17th century, right? They're only there after, you know, the invention o- of the nation, which comes, uh, again, mostly as, uh, out of the French Revolution and in the Romantic movement, a man named Johim... Johann Gottfried von Herder, right, who was the... really the first one who sort of went around, collected people's languages and collected their sayings and their dances and their folkways and stuff and said, "Isn't this cool," you know, that there are Estonians and that there are Latvians and that there are these other... these interesting different peoples who don't even know necessarily that they're different peoples, right? That comes a little bit later, right? Once the concept is invented, then people start to say, "Hey, we're nations too." You know? And the Germans decide they're a nation, and they unify, and the Italians discover they're a nation, and they unify instead of being, you know-

   25. LFLex Fridman45:45

       Mm-hmm.

   26. NNNorman Naimark45:46

       ... Florentines and Romans and- and, um, you know, Sicilians.

   27. LFLex Fridman45:52

       But then beyond nations, there's, uh, political affiliations, all those kinds of things. It- it's- it's fascinating that, you know, you start, you look at the early homo sapiens and then there's obviously tribes, right?

   28. NNNorman Naimark46:03

       Right.

   29. LFLex Fridman46:04

       And then that- that's very concrete. That is geographic location, and it's a small group of people, and you have warring tribes probably connected to just, um, limited resources. But it's fascinating to think that that is then taken to the space of ideas to where you can create a group at first to, um, to appreciate its beauty. You create a group, uh, based on language, based on, um, maybe even... So political, philosophical ideas, religious ideas, all those kinds of things, and then that naturally then leads to getting angry at groups-

   30. NNNorman Naimark46:41

       Right.
5. 48:50 – 1:18:35

   Human nature and suffering

   1. LFLex Fridman48:50

      with Jews... (sighs) You know, I come, you know, I'm a Russian Jew and it's always interesting, I take pride in, um, in... You know, I love the tradition of the Soviet Union, of Russia, I love America, so I, I love these countries. They have a, they have beautiful tradition, and, in literature, in science, in art, and all those kinds of things. But it, it's funny that people, not often, but sometimes, correct me that I'm not Russian, I'm a Jew. And it's, uh, it's a, it's a nice reminder-

   2. NNNorman Naimark49:30

      Yes.

   3. LFLex Fridman49:31

      ... that, um, that is always there. The desire to create these groups and then when they're living in the same place, for that division between groups, that hate between groups can explode. And I just, I wonder why is that there? Why does, why does the human heart turn so easily towards this kind of hate?

   4. NNNorman Naimark49:57

      Uh, you know, that's a big question in and of itself. You know, the human heart is full of everything, right? It's full of hate, it's full of love, it's full of indifference, it's full of apathy, it's full of energy. So...

   5. LFLex Fridman50:11

      Yeah.

   6. NNNorman Naimark50:12

      I mean, hate is something, you know, that, um... I mean, I, I think, uh, a- and, you know, along with hate, you know, the ability to really hurt and injure people is something that's within all of us, you know, it's within all of us, and it's just something that's part of who we are, um, and part of our society. So, you know, we're shaped by our society, and our society can do with us often what it wishes. You know, that's why it's so much nicer to live in a more or less beneficent society, like that of a democracy in the West, than to live in the Soviet Union, right? I mean, because, um, you know, you have more or less the freedom to do, to do what you wish, and, and not to be forced into situations in which you would have to then do nasty to other people. Um, you know, some societies, as we talked about, you know, are more, are more have, have proclivities towards, you know, asking of its people to do things they don't want to do, and, uh, and forcing them to do so. So, um, you know, freedom is a wonderful thing, to be able to choose not to do evil is a great thing, you know? Whereas in some societies, you know, you feel in some ways for, not so much for the NKVD bosses but for the guys on the ground, you know, in the 1930s, or not so much for the Nazi bosses but for the guys, you know, in the police battalion that were told, "Go shoot those Jews." You know? And you do it not necessarily because they force you to do it but because your social, you know, your social situation, um, uh, you know, encourages you to and you don't have the courage not to.

   7. LFLex Fridman52:10

      Yeah, I was just, uh, as I often do, re-reading Victor Frankl's Man's Search For Meaning-

   8. NNNorman Naimark52:15

      Oh, right.

   9. LFLex Fridman52:15

      ... and, and he said something, um, that just, uh, I often pull out, sort of lines. "The mere knowledge that a man was either a camp guard or a prisoner tells us almost nothing. Human kindness can be found in all groups, even those which as a whole it would be easy to condemn." So that's speaking to, um, you feel for those people at the lowest level implementing the orders, um, of those above.

   10. NNNorman Naimark52:49

       Right. And also you worry yourself what will happen if you were given those same orders, you know? I mean, what would you do? You know, what, what kinda reaction would you have in a similar situation? And, um, you know, you don't know.

   11. LFLex Fridman53:07

       I could see myself in, in World War II, uh, fighting for almost any country that, uh, I was born in. There's a love of community, there's a love of country that's just, um, at least to me comes naturally. Just love of community, and country is one such community.

   12. NNNorman Naimark53:27

       Yeah.

   13. LFLex Fridman53:27

       And I could see fighting for that country, especially when you're sold the story that you're fighting evil, and I'm sure every single country was sold that story, effectively, and then, uh, when you're in the military and you have a gun in your hand or you're in the police force and, uh, you're ordered, "Go to this place and, uh, commit violence," it's hard to know what you would do. It's a mix of fear, it's a mix of, um... Maybe you convince yourself, you know, what can one person really do? And over time, it's again that slippery slope, 'cause you could see all the people who protest, who revolt, they're ineffective. (laughs) So like, if, if you actually want to practically help somehow, you're going to convince yourself that you can't, one person can't possibly help.

   14. NNNorman Naimark54:21

       Right.

   15. LFLex Fridman54:22

       And then you have a family, so you want to make sure, you know, you wanna protect your family. You, you tell all of these stories and over time-... it, uh, you naturally convince yourself to dehumanize the other. (inhales deeply) Yeah, I think about this a lot, um, mostly because I worry that I would be a good German.

   16. NNNorman Naimark54:42

       Yeah. No, no, that's right. That's right. And one of the, you know, one of my tasks as a, as a teacher, right, uh, are students. And I have, you know, classes on genocide, and I have one now, uh, and another one, by the way, on Stalin. Um, but the one on, on genocide, you know, o- one of my tasks is to try to, try to get th- get the students to understand this is not about weird people who live far away in, in time and in place, but it's about them, you know? And that, you know, that's a hard lesson, but it's an important one, you know, that, that this is in all of us, you know, it's in all of us, and there's nothing, you know... And, and you just try to gird yourself up, you know, to try to f- figure out ways that maybe you won't be complicit, um, and that you learn how to stand by your principles. But it's very hard. It's extremely difficult. And you can't... T- the other interesting thing about it, it's not predictable. In other words, they've done a lot of studies of Poles, for example, who during the war saved Jews, you know. Well, who were the Poles who saved Jews versus those who turned them in? It's completely unpredictable, you know. Sometimes it's the worst anti-Semites who protect them because they don't believe they should be killed.

   17. LFLex Fridman55:56

       Mm-hmm.

   18. NNNorman Naimark55:57

       Right? Um, and sometimes, you know, you, you... It's not predictable. It's not as if the humanists among us-

   19. LFLex Fridman56:03

       Mm-hmm.

   20. NNNorman Naimark56:03

       ... you know, are the ones who, uh, you know, con- consistently show up, you know, uh, you know, and, and, and experience danger, in other words, and are ready to take on danger, uh, to defend, you know, your fellow human beings. Not necessarily. I mean, sometimes simple people do it, and sometimes they do it for really simple reasons, and sometimes people you would expect to do it don't, m- m- you know. And you've got that mix, and it's just not predictable.

   21. LFLex Fridman56:33

       One thing I've learned in this age of social media is it feels like the people with integrity and the ones who would do the right thing are the quiet ones.

   22. NNNorman Naimark56:43

       Yeah.

   23. LFLex Fridman56:44

       Uh, in terms of humanists, in terms of activists, there are so many points to be gained, um, of declaring that you would do the right thing.

   24. NNNorman Naimark56:53

       (laughs)

   25. LFLex Fridman56:53

       It's, um, it's the simple, quiet folks, um, that... 'Cause I've, I've seen quite... O- on a small, obviously much smaller scale, just shows of integrity and character when there were sacrifice to be made and it was done quietly, uh, the s- sort of the small heroes. Um...

   26. NNNorman Naimark57:12

       Yeah.

   27. LFLex Fridman57:12

       Those are, um... Yo- you're right. They're... It's surprising, but they're often quiet.

   28. NNNorman Naimark57:17

       Yeah.

   29. LFLex Fridman57:17

       That's why I'm distrustful of people who kind of proclaim that they would do the right thing.

   30. NNNorman Naimark57:21

       Right, right, right. And there are different kinds of integrity too. I mean, I edited a, a memoir of a Polish, uh, you know, underground fighter, uh, member of the underground who was in Majdanek, in the concentration camp in Majdanek, you know? And he was just an interesting mix of different kinds of integrity, you know. On the one hand, you know, he, he, it, it, it really bothered him deeply when Jews were killed or sent to the camp or that sort of thing. On the other hand, he was something of an anti-Semite, you know? Um, he would, uh, you know, sometimes if Jews were his friends, he would help them, and if they weren't, sometimes he was really mean to them, you know? And you could... Uh, there are various levels, you know. A concentration camp is a, um, you know, a terrible social experiment in some ways, right? Uh, uh, but you learn a lot from how people behave, and what you see is that they... You know, people behave sometimes extraordinarily well in some situations and extraordinarily poorly in others, and that it's mixed and you can't predict it and it's hard to, hard to find consistency. I mean, that's the other thing. It's, you know... I think we claim too much consistency for the people we study and the people we think about in the past, you know?
6. 1:18:35 – 1:25:49

   Mao's Great Leap Forward

   1. LFLex Fridman1:18:35

   2. NNNorman Naimark1:18:35

      Right.

   3. LFLex Fridman1:18:36

      Can you tell the story of China from 1958 to 1962? What was called the Great Leap...... Forward, orchestrated by Chairman Mao Zedong that led to the deaths of tens of millions of people, making it arguably the largest famine in human history.

   4. NNNorman Naimark1:18:54

      Uh, yes. I mean, it was, uh, you know, a terrible set of events, um, that led to the death... You know, people will dispute the numbers. Um, you know, 15 million, 17 million, 14 million, 20 million people, uh, died, um, in-

   5. LFLex Fridman1:19:15

      Many people-

   6. NNNorman Naimark1:19:15

      ... the Great Leap.

   7. LFLex Fridman1:19:16

      ... say 30, 40, 50 million.

   8. NNNorman Naimark1:19:17

      Some people will go that high too. That's right. That's right. Essentially, Mao, uh, and the Communist Party leadership, but it was, you know, it was mostly Mao's doing, decided he wanted, you know, to move the country into communism. And, and part of the idea of that, you know, was rivalry with the Soviet Union. Um, you know, Mao was a good Stalinist, or at least felt like Stalin was the right kind of communist leader to have, and he didn't like Khrushchev at all, and he didn't like what he thought were Khrushchev's reforms. And also Khrushchev's pretensions to moving the Soviet Union into communism. So Khrushchev, you know, started talking about giving more power to the party, less power to the state, and if you have more power to the party versus the state then you're moving into communism quicker.

   9. LFLex Fridman1:20:06

      Mm-hmm.

   10. NNNorman Naimark1:20:07

       So what Mao decided to do was to engage in this vast program of, you know, building what were called people's communes. And these communes, you know, were enormous conglomerations of es- essentially collective farms, you know? And what would happen on those communes is there would be, you know, there would be places for people to eat and there would be places for the kids to be raised in, you know, essentially kind of, uh, separate homes and they would be schooled. Everybody would turn over their metal, which was one of the, actually turned out to be terribly negative phenomenon, their metal pots and pans to be melted to then make steel. Every of these big communes would all have little steel plants, and they would build steel, and the whole countryside would be transformed.

   11. LFLex Fridman1:21:00

       Mm-hmm.

   12. NNNorman Naimark1:21:01

       Well, like many of these sort of m- I mean, a true megalomaniac, uh, project, you know, like some of Stalin's projects too. And this particular project then, you know, the people had no choice, uh, they were forced, you know, to do this. Um, it was incredibly dysfunctional, uh, for Chinese agriculture, um, and ended up, you know, creating, as you mentioned, a wh- a- a terrible famine that everybody understood was a famine as a result of this. I mean, there were some, there were also some, uh, problems of nature at the same time and some flooding and bad weather and that sort of thing, but it was really a manmade famine. Uh, and, and, and Mao said at one point, "You know, who cares, you know, if, you know, millions die. It, it just doesn't matter. We've got millions more left." I mean, he would periodically say things like this that showed that like Stalin he had a, you know, total indifference, you know, to the fact that people were dying in large numbers. It led, again, to cannibalism and to terrible wastage, uh, all over, uh, the country and millions of people died, and there was just no stopping it. Uh, you know, there were people in the party who began to kind of edge towards telling Mao this wasn't a great idea (laughs) -

   13. LFLex Fridman1:22:24

       (laughs) .

   14. NNNorman Naimark1:22:24

       ... you know, and that he should back off, but he wouldn't back off, and the result was, you know, catastrophe in the countryside and all these people dying. And then they, you know, compounding the problem was the political elite which then, you know, if peasants would object or if certain people would say no, they'd beat the hell out of them. You know, they would beat people, you know, who didn't do what they wanted them to do. So it was, um, it was really, really, um, a horrific set of events, uh, on the Chinese, uh, i- in the Chinese countryside. I mean, you know, and people, people wrote about it. I mean, we, we, we learned about it. There were people who were keeping track of what was going on and eventually wrote books about it, so, you know, so we have, I mean, we have pretty good documentation. Not so much on the numbers. Numbers is a, numbers are always a difficult problem, you know. I'm, I'm facing this problem, by the way, this is a little, little bit separate, with the Holodomor where, you know, Ukrainians are now claiming 11.5 million people died in Holodomor and, you know, most people assume it's somewhere in the neighborhood of 4 million, 4.5 million maybe. So you have wildly different numbers that come out. And we have different kinds of numbers as, as you mentioned too with the Great Leap Forward. So it was a huge catastrophe for, for China, and Mao only backed off when he had to and then, you know, revived a little bit with the, um, you know, Red Guards movement later on when, when, you know, he was, he was upset that the bureaucracy was resisting him a little bit when it came to the Great Leap. But he had to, he had to back off. It was such a, such a terrible catastrophe.

   15. LFLex Fridman1:24:06

       So one of the things about numbers is that you usually talk about deaths, but with, with the famine and with starvation, the, the thing I often think about that's impossible to put into numbers is the number of people and the degree-

   16. NNNorman Naimark1:24:22

       (sighs)

   17. LFLex Fridman1:24:22

       ... to which they were suffering. You know, the number of days spent in suffering.

   18. NNNorman Naimark1:24:28

       Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

   19. LFLex Fridman1:24:30

       And so, I mean, death is... (sighs) I, uh, death is just one of the consequences of suffering, and to, to me it feels like one, two, three years or months and then years of, of-... of not having anything to eat, um, is- is worse. And it's sort of those- those aren't put into numbers often.

   20. NNNorman Naimark1:24:55

       That's right. And the effect on people long term, you know, in terms of their mental health, in terms of their physical, uh, health, their ability to work, all those kinds of things, you know? I mean, Ukrainians are working on, th- there are people working on this subject now, you know, the long term effect of- of the hunger famine on them. And I'm sure there's a similar kind of long term effect on Chinese peasantry of what happened, you know? The, I mean, you're destroying-

   21. LFLex Fridman1:25:20

       Multi-generational.

   22. NNNorman Naimark1:25:21

       Yes, multi-generational. That's right. That's right.

   23. LFLex Fridman1:25:23

       Wow.

   24. NNNorman Naimark1:25:23

       And, you know, it's a- it's a really... You're absolutely right, this is a terrible, terrible way to die and, uh, and it lasts a long time. And sometimes you don't die, you survive, but, you know, in- in the kind of shape where y- that y- you can't- you can't do anything. I mean, you can't- you can't function, uh, your brain's been injured, you know? Um, no, no, it's a really, uh... Uh, these- these famines are really horrible.

7. 1:25:49 – 1:29:42

   North Korea

   1. NNNorman Naimark1:25:49

      You're right.

   2. LFLex Fridman1:25:49

      So when you talk about genocide, it's often talking about murder.

   3. NNNorman Naimark1:25:52

      Yeah.

   4. LFLex Fridman1:25:52

      Where do you place North Korea in this discussion? We kind of mentioned it. So in the, what is it? The Arduous March, um, of the 1990s where it was mass starvation, uh, many people describe mass starvation going on. Now in North Korea. When you think about genocide, when you think about atrocities going on in the world today, where do you place North Korea?

   5. NNNorman Naimark1:26:20

      So take a step back, when the, uh... There were all these courts that were set up for- for Bosnia and for Rwanda and- and- and for other genocides, uh, in the 1990s, and then, um, the decision was made by the international community, UN basically, to set up the inter- International Criminal Court, which would then try genocide in the more modern period, uh, the more contemporary period. And, um, the ICC lists three crimes, basically. You know, the- the genocide, uh, uh, crimes against humanity, and war crimes. Um, and subsumed to crimes against humanity are a lot of the kinds of things you're talking about with North Korea. I mean, it's- it's torture, it's artificial, sometimes artificial famine or famine, you know, that is not... Uh, not necessary, right? Not- not necessary to have it, and other, there are other kinds of, you know, mass rape and stuff like that. There are other kinds of things that fit, uh, into the crimes against humanity, and that's sort of where I think about North Korea, as committing crimes against humanity, not genocide. And again, remember, genocide is- is meant to be... Uh, it- it- it... I mean some people, there's disagreement among scholars and jurists about this, some people think of genocide as the crime of crimes, the worst of the three that I just mentioned. But some think of them as co-equal, and the ICC, the International Criminal Court, is dealing with them more or less as co-equal, even though we tend to think of genocide as the worst. So I- I mean, what I'm trying to say is that, you know, I don't want to- I don't wanna split hairs. I- I think it's sort of morally and ethically unseemly, you know, to split hairs about what is genocide and what is a crime against humanity. You know, this is for lawyers, not for historians. I mean, it's-

   6. LFLex Fridman1:28:22

      Oh, terminology wise?

   7. NNNorman Naimark1:28:24

      Yeah, yeah. You know, that it... Y- y- you don't- you don't want to get into that because it, uh... I mean, when it happened with Darfur a little bit, where the Bush administration had- had declared that, uh, Darfur was a genocide and the UN said, "No, no. It's, uh..." you know, it wasn't genocide, it was a crime against humanity.

   8. LFLex Fridman1:28:43

      Right. Uh-huh.

   9. NNNorman Naimark1:28:43

      And that, you know, that confused things versus clarified them. I mean, we knew, damn well knew what was happening. People were being killed or being attacked, um, and, uh... And so, you know, on the one hand, I- I think the whole concept and the way of thinking about history using genocide as an important part of human history is- is crucial. On the other hand, I don't- I don't like to, y- you know, get- get involved in hair-splitting, what's genocide and what's not. So- so that, you know, North Korea, I tend to think of, like I said, as, uh, as committing crimes against humanity and- and, you know, forcibly incarcerating people, torturing them, that kind of thing. You know, routinely incarcerating and depriving them of certain kinds of- of human rights can be considered a crime against humanity. But I- I don't think of it as the same way I think about genocide, which is an attack on a group of people. Let me just leave it at that.

8. 1:29:42 – 1:38:38

   Our role in fighting against atrocities

   1. LFLex Fridman1:29:42

      Mm-hmm. What in this, if we think about... If- if it's okay, can we loosely use the term genocide here? Just let's not play games with terminology.

   2. NNNorman Naimark1:29:50

      Okay. Right.

   3. LFLex Fridman1:29:51

      Just bad (sighs) crimes against humanity.

   4. NNNorman Naimark1:29:54

      Right.

   5. LFLex Fridman1:29:55

      Uh, of particular interest are the ones that are going on today still, because it- it raises the question to us, what do people outside of this, what role do they have to play? So w- what role does the United States, or what role do I, a- as a human being who has food today, who has shelter, who has a comfortable life, what role do I have when I think about North Korea, when I think about Syria, when I think about, uh, maybe the weaker population in- in China?

   6. NNNorman Naimark1:30:33

      Well, I mean, the role is the same role I have, which is to teach and to learn and- and to get the message out that this is happening, because the more people who understand it, the more likely it is that the United States government will try to do something about it.... um, you know, in- within the context of who we are and where we live, right? And so, you know, I write books, you do shows, you know?

Episode duration: 2:18:39