I'm John Batchew at Josh Ireland.

Trotsky is dying slowly at the hospital.

At that same hospital,

they bring Ramon, who's been badly beaten by the guards, but he's not dead. It smash his head,

but he doesn't die. He's a big, strong young man. And they extract what they can from him,

why he did it, but he maintains this lie that it was the was it was Sylvia it was Trotsky interfering in my life he was corrupting everybody around me

lies nothing but lies Karadad knows the truth and she wants to rescue Ramon the NKVD knows the truth and and she wants to rescue Ramon.

The NKVD knows the truth, and they're going to let him continue the lies.

And at some point, Josh, I felt that the reason Ramon holds on to that explanation so fiercely

is that he knows that if he tells the truth, everybody he knows is going to die.

Is that true? Would Keredad be punished for his telling the truth?

I think, I mean, I think it's absolutely plausible. I mean, I think the one thing you should,

you should never rule out in Stalin's Soviet Union is that, you know, the,

the viciousness and the willingness to take to do anything necessary to further Stalin's

interests. Yeah, I think, I think, I think it was that, but I think also he was a person that whatever other flaws he had,

no matter how much of a narcissist he was, no matter how capable of lying he was,

he also had a very strong sense of duty.

I think he felt as if that was the duty he'd been charged with

and that he would make sure that he performed his duty to the best.

Did he feel famous?

I think he was, I think, again, this speaks reasonably well of him.

I don't think he particularly gloried in his reputation.

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