I want to welcome everyone back to the Pekingona show.

How are you doing today, Thomas?

And well, thanks as always for hosting me on this fine day.

Yeah.

It's Mother's Day, so good fortune and long life told the mom's out to.

I wish mine was still around.

Likewise.

Yeah.

All right.

So this is long awaited. A lot of people have asked for this. I'm excited about

this. Start talking about the Spanish Civil War. Just start going. I'll interrupt if I have any

questions. Let me start off with an easy one. When was the first time you started looking at the

Spanish Civil War? I mean, for me, it was pretty early on because it's something that was

mythologized very much. I remember when I was like a teenager and college age, you know, like in my late teens, early 20s, there was this great mythology spun around the communist side, which is euphemistically referred to as like the Republican side. I mean, that it's like, you know, the, who was

arming and equipping and providing NKVD, uh, functionaries to slaughter people behind the lines. It was the

Soviet Union doing that. Okay. You weren't, they, they weren't fighting and create like 21st

century Sweden. Not that that would be any

great shakes either. But, you know, then, oh, and, you know, we, there were some Russians there

too. So that didn't make any sense. And the, you know, as I got into before, before consumer

internet was a thing. You know, like I've said, you had to rely basically on the resources of your

local library. And I was blessed in that regard because I live in Chicagoland. Or stuff like the

Institute for Historical Review. And the IHR, they, they were always putting out stuff related to

...