← The Monocle Daily
The Monocle Daily
The US claims progress on Ukraine talks, the G20 wraps up and Israel targets Hezbollah
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- [00:02]
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- [00:37]
Julia Yoffe
Listening to the Monocle Daily, first broadcast on 24 November 2025 on Monocle Radio.
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Andrew Muller
Is Donald Trump's Ukraine peace plan just Russia's wish list? Israel resumes its campaign against Hezbollah officials. And would you be more tempted to holiday in Saudi Arabia if you thought you could get a drink? I'm Andrew Muller. The Monocle Daily starts now. Hello and welcome to the Monocle Daily, coming to you from our studios here at Midori House in London. I'm Andrew Muller. My guests Vincent McEvany and Bertu Ershelik will discuss the day's big stories and we'll speak to Julia Yoffe about her new book, telling the women's story of Russia from the Revolution onwards. Stay tuned. All that and more coming up right here on the Monocle Daily.
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Vincent McAvenny
FOREIGN.
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Andrew Muller
This is the Monocle Daily. I'm Andrew Muller and I am joined Today by Vincent McEvany, political broadcaster and commentator, and Bertu Ershelik, senior research fellow, Middle east security at the Royal United Services Institute. Hello to you both. Hello, Bertu. You arrive here having just been in the Middle East. How's it all going? Oh, wow.
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Bertu Ershelik
Where do I start? Where do I take that? Yes, I was in Iraq post parliamentary elections, specifically in Iraqi Kurdistan, in Erbil and Dohuk and then Amman after that in Jordan. So yes, an interesting time, sort of mix of, what should I say, sort of caution, anxiety about the future as well as some optimism in places, I think, depending on where you are.
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Andrew Muller
Is Iraq any more or less optimistic than it has now than it has been on previous visits, especially with reference to the election?
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Bertu Ershelik
I think Iraq now faces quite a challenging time ahead as they will try to as Baghdad will navigate the very complicated and likely protracted period of the government formation process. There is no clear cut winner, of course, Prime Minister. Incumbent Prime Minister Sudani's coalition came out on top. But now various parties, Sunni, Shia and Kurdish, will negotiate over the future of the premiership and the allocation of ministerial posts. So it's optimistic in that Iraq has enjoyed a period of relative stability in recent years, but the tensions continue, particularly over disputed territories, revenue sharing with respect to Kurdistan and Baghdad, the Federal arrangement.
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Andrew Muller
And Vincent, you have been, after a fashion, back to school.
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Vincent McAvenny
Yeah, I had to sit an exam for the first time in about 16 years. And they're all on computers now, which was quite weird. I had the option of doing it at home, which I did. You have to sort of scan the room with your camera to show you're not hiding any notes and there's no one there. And then the whole time you're doing it, your webcam and mic have to be on so that they know you're not conferring, that they're watching you. And apparently they use an AI to track that you're not sort of quietly moving some notes from under the laptop or something else to check that you're sort of focused on the exam. So it was quite a weird experience.
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Andrew Muller
I mean, does this strike you? Those are more efficient means of invigilating than having everybody in a, as I recall, sort of drafty school hall while teachers, you know, pay attention to the students. But as I was later informed by an actual teacher often doing things like playing a variation on Pac man, which involves walking around the table in a preordained route set by other teachers on pain of various forfeits.
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Vincent McAvenny
Yeah, I mean, those exam halls were terrible, weren't they? And in our school we had a particular disaster. If you were chosen by a certain art teacher, he would just sit there and pick a student at random to portrait during an exam. And that is one of the most annoying things that you could possibly have if you're very conscious that someone is trying to draw your portrait as you're sort of doing the exam of your life. But it was interesting. I mean, the big change, I am such, I was awful with like handwriting and exams. It was indecipherable because I was trying to write so quick, get everything down. Typing on a laptop is a real game changer. It was great. I really enjoyed it.
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Andrew Muller
Well, we will start in Ukraine, where peace may shortly be about to descend. At least in the view of US President Donald Trump, who is now, and we checked, 307 days adrift of the self declared deadline by which he would end the war. Upon returning to office 308 days ago, talks have occurred between American and Ukrainian officials in Geneva around the 28 point plan which Trump has recently been brandishing and but which increasingly appears to have been dictated more or less wholesale by the Kremlin. Ukraine, unsurprisingly, has severe reservations about the plan. President Vladimir Zelensky has reiterated his line that national boundaries must not be altered by force. Vincent was. Was. I mean, I know I was not alone. I'm wondering if you were also of that tendency who looked at the 28 point plan and thought, this is the Kremlin wish list.
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Vincent McAvenny
Well, there's increasing evidence online that it was actually first written in Russian and then translated to English. Yeah, there are analysts who have gone through it and there have been some using AI as well, which have basically found very similar sentence structures, ordering of lists, the kind of terminology being used. Strongly points that this was in fact a Russian plan that has been translated to English. So it came from the Kremlin. And I think it's really interesting, a point to note as well, this sudden rush to get it done. Do you guys know what Thursday is in the United States?
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Andrew Muller
It's Thanksgiving.
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Vincent McAvenny
It's Thanksgiving. And what does a classic reality star do? They hijack every event possible and make it about themselves. Donald Trump very clearly just saw this plan coming from Russia and thought, oh, I can get a moment here. All of America is going to be gathered around on this Thursday evening and I can break into everyone's dinner with the big announcement that I've brought peace to Ukraine. And lo and behold, the table fights would kick off. That is what he wants. Let's not forget at all times our center of attention.
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Andrew Muller
He doesn't think that tables all over America will be brawling over him on Thanksgiving.
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Vincent McAvenny
Well, he wants to ratchet it up because, you know, next year after the midterms, you know, his side might be on the losing side of these conversations and he might be in lame duck status, but he is determined, as ever, to make everything possible about himself.
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Andrew Muller
Bertu, it is very hard to avoid noticing, although we have furious denials from the US that they basically just jotted this down with somebody speaking Russian on the other end. It's hard to avoid noticing that Russia seems a good deal keener on this than Ukraine does.
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Bertu Ershelik
Yes, absolutely. And going through the peace plan, I think it's clear as to why that is. Having said that, I think to counterbalance the point that it does appear to have come directly from the Kremlin or at least in close proximity to the Kremlin, there have been Russia analysts who have tried to debunk the theory that it was written by Russia. So it's difficult to tell. I certainly don't have the answer. But it's highly contentious and I think President Zelensky and the Ukrainians have good reason to push. At the same time, they are in a very. I mean, they're sort of Cornered, aren't they? Because they feel as though they've compromised and compromised and compromised, and yet they are so far from their own definition of what success looks like in terms of ending the war. But the pressure, I think, to come to some type of conclusion, and, yes, Thanksgiving, the very aggressive timeline for signature that Trump has put forward seems wildly unrealistic. But there's also the view that the Kremlin, yes, whilst they are highly agreeable to the plan, they are also not happy with the security guarantees that the plan proposes to offer to Ukraine. So, in a way, this doesn't please anyone. It pleases the Russians more, I would imagine. But we seem to be not very close to any type of decisive victory towards a ceasefire in that sense.
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Andrew Muller
Just to follow that up quickly, you talk about Ukraine being cornered, and it is noticeable that the way this is being proposed is that, you know, Russia is the party with the upper hand, and Ukraine should be happy for whatever it can get away with. But does that lose sight of the fact that Russia has now spent nearly four years being fought to a standstill, having thrown extraordinary resources, hundreds of thousands of lives at this thing, and they're not really much further in than they were by the end of February 2022?
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Bertu Ershelik
They have thrown extensive resources at this at a high cost of human life and suffering. Certainly, Ukraine is the party that has been invaded unfairly. It certainly has the moral high ground. It certainly is on the right side of international humanitarian law and the principles on which our global order rests in principle. However, I think there is a waning appetite, certainly in the United States, to continue to support at the public level, I mean, in terms of public opinion, to continue to support what is seen as Europe or a European war. And Ukrainian military triumph on the battlefield has not been to such a high standard that they're not winning necessarily. They're holding ground. They have made serious advances, which matter, but they're not winning necessarily. And I think that's why they're cornered and pressured by a US President who wants to see this wrap up. He wants to deliver on his promise of ending the war, but on what terms? Whose terms? I think is the big and unanswered.
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Andrew Muller
Question, Vincent, just finally and quickly on that, because what it is going to come down to, at least to some extent, is territorial concessions. President Zelensky has said again today that he's absolutely against that and not unreasonably, this is Ukraine's territory. But that aside, does he also have a political problem which, even if he wanted to sell territorial concessions to the Ukrainian people. He can't.
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Vincent McAvenny
Yeah, he can't. He is completely hamstrung in this and trying to say to Ukrainian people, land that we are still in control of, that we have fought tooth and nail to keep. We're just going to hand it over to the Russians. And we need now a mass retreat of people because people in those parts that aren't controlled, that Russia, according to this document, should be getting know what is to come if Russia takes control of them. It involves abuse of the population, abduction of the children, sexual violence, all of these kinds of things. And so it is not just sort of saying, okay, we've got a demarcation line, we're going to call it here. It is allowing Russia to encroach further on the territory. And really, who is to say that they will then stop? It's not clear. And this document, I mean, I do think it really is a sort of Putin wishlist, the mad demand as well. Part of it to get back into the G7 and turn it into the G8 again. I was at the last G8 in Northern Ireland where Russia attended. They put USB drives in everyone's hotel room which were riddled, which I think had the hotel logo on them, were riddled with spyware to get into everyone's laptops. They were there just to obstruct and spy. So the idea that they get back into that club somehow is madness.
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Andrew Muller
Well, to Lebanon now, where the first Israeli strike on Beirut in some months has killed at least five people. Among them, the target of the raid, Hezbollah Chief of Staff Haisam Ali Al Tabtabi. As part of its response to the Hamas attacks of October 7, 2023, Israel conduct a campaign targeting individual Hezbollah members and officials, including the exploding pager operation which injured thousands, and the airstrike which killed long serving Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah. Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, by way of suggesting that there might be more where today's raid came from, said he expected Lebanon's government to fulfill its promise to disarm Hezbollah. But before we get on to that, and we do of course acknowledge that at least five other people were killed, several dozen injured. Is someone like, you know, Hezbollah's chief of staff a legitimate target if you are in conflict with that organisation?
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Bertu Ershelik
He is, from an operational point of view, certainly. I mean, I presume you don't want to get into the legal, the international legal, sort of the weeds of the argument about extraterritorial targeted assassinations, but he is a legitimate target in that he has been part the core ideological sort of foundation of Hezbollah as well as the operational. He's been influential in Lebanon as well as Yemen. So he was someone who would have been in the planning and coordination of the 7 October attacks against Israel. And from the point of view of Israel's multi front operations since the 7 October attacks, I think he would have been seen and clearly was identified as a high level commander in Hezbollah whose killing would deliver a serious blow to the command structure of the organization as well as its morale. I mean, Israel has been targeting rank and file in recent months, but this was the most significant escalation since the ceasefire that came into effect.
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Andrew Muller
Vincent, is there any argument though that this does make the job of Lebanon's newish government more difficult? Because they have been extremely forthright saying we actually do intend to disarm Hezboll. It remains to be seen whether they're capable of doing that, but they have absolutely explicitly stated that that Lebanon's own armed forces should be the only armed forces on Lebanese territory. But does an action like this risk rallying ordinary Lebanese people to Hezbollah's banner? Because in Lebanon, Israel is surely the one thing everybody can agree on.
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Vincent McAvenny
Yeah, potentially it will do. Because if you've got a government saying, look, we're going to finally clamp down on this, they're not going to operate on our territory. And if they genuine moves to do this, Israel just still decides, okay, we're going to extend our reach into your sovereign territory, take out these strikes, kill others apart from the target as well. It is going to cause people to feel like there is nothing a government in Lebanon can do to please the Israelis when it comes to this issue? And why should they cooperate with the government on this? Why would they withdraw any support that's still remaining for Hezbollah when Israel won't abide by the agreements that it has.
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Andrew Muller
Signed up to Bertu, going back again to your recent and previous travels in the Middle east, what have you been able to discern about what people actually think about the dismantling of Hezbollah, leaving aside their views on, you know, Israel, who is doing it? Are people who aren't Hezbollah across the Middle east necessarily all that sorry to see the back of them?
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Bertu Ershelik
No, I think first and foremost the desire, the objective to disarm Hezbollah is a Lebanese domestic priority.
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Julia Yoffe
And.
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Bertu Ershelik
Putting aside for a moment Israel's objectives and their own security definitions, I think it is important for Lebanon to be able to successfully dismantle Hezbollah and to prop up the capabilities of the government and its own national Lebanese Army. Their capabilities are limited and that is the issue. So we have disarmament objectives. When we look at both Hezbollah in Lebanon as well as Hamas in G, where of course part of the other Trump plan, the 20 point plan of the ceasefire agreement calls for the demilitarization of Gaza and the disarmament of Hamas, these are extremely difficult tasks to actually operationalize on the ground. The same is true for Hezbollah in different ways. They're not identical in terms of their capabilities, their outreach and their entrenchment in the state in Lebanon. But there is a sense and going back to your question of the wider, when we zoom out the wider piece in the Middle east, there is a sense that the era of armed non state actors, as they're called, or Iran linked proxies, militia groups, that they are on the back foot, that there is now a moment of opportunity for ruling governments, as problematic as they might be on the democratic front, there might be an opportunity now to push back these organizations to reclaim the monopoly on the use of legitimate violence by state actors. The extent to which this will succeed is the open ended question. And there is still a high level of risk of instability, of turmoil and renewed violence across the Middle East. The bigger picture, I mean, we're talking about the targeted assassination of a Hezbollah leader. The bigger picture is a prospect of a second round of violence between Israel and ir. And that really is what people across the region are talking about, are concerned about. And they're sort of existing in the shadow of what might be looming. Right. Coming up soon is the second round of violence between Israel and Iran. One possibility that was raised as Iraq enters into this government formation process, which optimistic assessments are four to six months. I mean, officially it should be as soon as 40 days. In terms of transition of power, it could be likely much longer. So one theory, and there are many conspiracies in the Middle east as we know, as is elsewhere, but one theory is that if there is a second round of violence or armed conflict between Israel and Iran, would Israel consider attack another attack on Iran during the government formation process in Iraq because of Iran's influence over over Baghdad. So these are some of the issues.
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Andrew Muller
That come up, never a dull moment, to South Africa now, specifically Johannesburg, where the curtain has been rung down on the first G20 summit to be held in Africa. Such wingdings tend to be dominated by the United States because it's the United States. This one ironically was dominated by the United States, even more so because US President Donald Trump declined to turn up due to his morbid conviction that South Africa's white population is uni persecuted, this meant a rewrite of the closing ceremony at which the host is supposed to hand over to the next G20 host, which, as luck would have it, is the United States. Vincent, do we think that this, his grave concern for the beleaguered white people of South Africa was the actual reason Trump decided not to go?
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Vincent McAvenny
No, I don't think he wanted to go. He sort of is quite awkward. I've seen him at G20s before because it's hard for him to steal total focus because it's, you know, 20 presidents and if it's not all about him, doesn't really like it. So I think he, you know, he, he, the way that he dealt with President Ramaphosa earlier this year in the Oval Office showed the sort of disdain that he had for the leadership in South Africa. His views on race are well known and well documented. Using words like, you know, asshole country. He has signaled all throughout the year he didn't want to go to this. And in part, it's a play to kind of build up next year's G20. He is insanely lucky in this second term. He gets a home G20, a home World Cup, a quincentennial and a home Olympics, all events that he can dominate and bend to his own will. And we are seeing him do this. So with the G20 that's going to come in the States next year, a lot of it is going to be stripped back. It's not going to be the kind of side meetings on things of environmental issues, inequality. It is going to be purely a leaders meeting and the kind of economic meeting. And he very clearly just wasn't interested in going to this kind of trying to insult essentially by sending in place a sort of very junior diplomat to do this handover ceremony. And rightly, the South African president said, no, I can wait.
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Andrew Muller
There were contrasting reactions to the US Absence virtue among those who did go. Chancellor Mertz of Germany said that the United States not attending was, quote, not a good decision. But President Lula of Brazil just said it doesn't matter much. Is it arguable that there was in fact an opportunity because. Because, to use an appropriately South African metaphor, the elephant was not in the room.
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Bertu Ershelik
I like that. Well, the bigger picture is this tension between how what Trump's America represents make America great again, the MAGA movement and the anti interventionists. Right, on the one hand, which see America's role quite differently than under a Democratic president, than perhaps at any other time. And on the other hand, those who still want to champion multilateralism and what that represents, the liberal international order, the premises of which are anchored within international law, sovereignty, non interventionism, cooperation across borders. And so I think the American absence was a statement or was taken as a statement of America's desire to both be great and to promote a type of unilateralism that is on Trump's terms and other member states were positioning themselves or posturing against that and that there is value in cross border cooperation and multilateralism and the future of the international order cannot be dictated by Washington D.C. alone. There is value in state to state cooperation. So there was some of that kind of signaling going on as well, Vincent.
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Andrew Muller
There was some chat which came out of it about working towards peace in Sudan, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ukraine, Palestine, which is all very worthy and good luck with these endeavours, etc. But given your experience of beanos such as this, how seriously are they actually taken by the participants? Where do they rank on a scale involving things like, I don't know, NATO summits, the Munich Security Conference, any of the others you could spend your life going to?
- [23:26]
Vincent McAvenny
I mean, the G20 is quite a significant calendar date because it was born out of a crisis. So 2008, it had been around for a while as a kind of economic ministers meeting. And it was Gordon Brown, the former Prime Minister of this country, at the height of the sort of Lehman financial crisis. He sort of decided, well, let's get together a meeting of the actual leaders of the G20 nations. It has held out in the Edexcel Centre in London's Docklands. And it was seen, you know, it was sort of quote, unquote, the sort of meeting saved the global financial system as kind of Gordon Brown's team wanted it to kind of be known. And since then it has kind of morphed in ways, but it is seen as significant. I mean, there are absolutely tons of bilateral meetings. Some of these are sort of formal, staged meetings. I've been in all kinds of ones, even ones, you know, Theresa May looking as grumpy as possible, having to greet Vladimir Putin. And then there are the brush buys which are carefully choreographed of, of leaders. And you kind of do get to see who's in, who's out. You know, I remember the meeting where MBS went after Jamal Khashoggi had been killed after the Salisbury poisoning as well. He basically, his only friend there was Vladimir Putin. And everyone was doing their best to not look at the two of them, to avoid them. And so you do kind of see where the winds are swaying and the leaders do take these as quite important meetings and it is quite interesting to see the kind of choreography that goes on around them as well.
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Andrew Muller
Well, to Saudi Arabia now, where all assessments of dramatic liberalising reforms have to be adjusted for the fact that such things, like all things, are relative. However, and on the quiet, Saudi Arabia does seem to be taking a slightly less forbidding line on alcohol. Not for locals, of course, for whom the price of a drink will continue to be the risk of imprisonment and or the lash. But non Muslims with a particular residency status will be permitt to load up at the shop in Riyadh's diplomatic quarter, which has hitherto been open only to foreign diplomats. Bertu on the scale of Saudi Arabia's recent reforms, which often turn out to be, on further examination, quite a lot less spectacular than we're being led to believe. How big a deal is this that slightly more foreigners can get drunk than previously?
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Bertu Ershelik
I think it's significant. I think it speaks to how Mohammed bin Salman or MBS is trying to position the kingdom as on the front foot, is becoming more liberalized, more open, more progressive. And of course, we had the meeting at the White House last week where Saudi Arabia seems to be stepping up into the role of even a greater kind of regional actor, intervening, mediating in various conflicts in the region and overseas. Sudan comes to mind and was discussed during this meeting. This domestic step in terms of making alcohol slightly more freely available to foreigners. It's part of this incremental, very, very slow burn kind of step by step process of opening up. But presenting Saudi as a place where foreigners can holiday, can invest, can do business, can have a relatively more familiar type of life. I was as a child, many years ago, my parents were stationed in Riyadh and I do recall these types of weekend parties where I think home brewed. Should I be saying this? Home brewed alcohol wine. I want to say I don't remember, but I remembered that there was this kind of this going on and my mom saying, I'm not having any of that. I don't know where that was.
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Andrew Muller
You've really got to want a drink before you have it out of somebody's bathtub. Vincent, would the prospect of being able to get, I don't know, some sort of drink in your hand tempt you towards rethinking your holiday plans for next year?
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Vincent McAvenny
No. Unless they're also reviewing their laws on LGBTQ people, then I don't think it will do. For myself, personally, But I think it is interesting because they're having a bit of a difficult time. They've had sort of failures or setbacks with big megaprojects. So like the NEOM line, which if you can imagine is basically the height of the Shard here in London, but running for essentially two or three kilometers.
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Andrew Muller
Yeah, I'm not gonna lie, I was skeptical when I saw the pictures. I mean, I'm not an architect or an engineer, but I just thought, nah, can't see it.
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Vincent McAvenny
I mean, all the steel in the world, all the cement in the world, I mean, yeah, come on, guys. So I think they are having to think more carefully because they've got competition. I mean, Dubai is attracting a lot of people to it, not just for holidays but also increasingly to live as well. They have long relaxed these laws and kind of manage it in a way that seems to get on both for the kind of expat tourist community and for local people as well. This will be quite a big change for Saudi Arabia. But you know, if they, if they start, if this is the kind of crack in the door, I don't think they could ever go the full way that Dubai has gone, for instance. But this might start to allow a bit of tourism in if it's kind of confined to the resorts. But they've got a lot of work to do in terms of the branding. I think still when people think think of Dubai, they think glamour and fun and theme parks and water parks and all that kind of stuff. When they think Saudi Arabia, they're not so sure. I think they think Petro state.
- [28:52]
Andrew Muller
Well, sceptical though we are. And this again, I think goes to their long city wall, that is an actual city in a wall as well. You can't accuse the Saudis virtue of not talking a big game. The official line is that by 2030, which is not long, they want an annual incoming tourist influx of 150 million people. People which to put in perspective would make Saudi actual Arabia by far the most visited country on earth. And it wouldn't be close. France currently tops the poll, about 102 million people annually. I mean, aside from the fact that obviously that's insane and isn't going to happen. Would Saudi authorities want that to happen? Because that would transform Saudi Arabia. You can't invite 150 million people a year to come and visit your country. Especially a country which is in so many respects so different from the rest of the world and not. That's going to have an impact.
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Bertu Ershelik
It would have an impact and there would be significant pressure and pushback. The intermingling between the domestic population and the influx of foreign tourists I think would create a new type of social dynamic that might be difficult to contain in ways that are both predictable and difficult to predict all at once. It's highly ambitious. It's part of the wider Vision 2030 program. We've already seen scaling back, as you've mentioned in the mega infrastructure project and some of the funding schemes. This too will likely be scaled back in terms of expectation, but you can't fault them for trying.
- [30:25]
Andrew Muller
Bertu ershelik and Vincent McAvenny, thank you both for joining us. Finally on today's show, histories of Russia, histories indeed in general tend to be histories of men, and in Russia's specific case, mostly dreadful men. A new history of Russia's last century and a bit by Julia Yoffe aims to redress this bal somewhat. A History of Modern Russia From Revolution to Autocracy tells the story of Russia's women, some famous and powerful, some not some the recent ancestors of the author. I spoke to Julia earlier and began by asking about the period immediately following the revolutions of 1917, which was, as she tells it, actually, if briefly, a hopeful moment for Russian women.
- [31:08]
Julia Yoffe
Absolutely. I think the project, the idea was to emancipate all people living in the Russian empire, including half its population women. And thanks to a revolutionary named Alexandra Kollontai, as well as Nadezhda Krubskaya, who was Lenin's wife and also a revolutionary, they had thought through a bunch of these potential reforms and they did things that we are still fighting for as women in the west over 100 years later. They granted women paid maternity leave leave. They granted women access to higher education for free. They granted women no fault civil divorce with the ability to seek child support from a man they weren't married to if they suspected he was the father of their child. In 1920, Soviet women got the right to abortion provided for free in state hospitals, where doctors were now banned from experimenting on their patients. Soviet women were expected to work, mandated to work outside the home. A lot of these things, like I said, we're still fighting for in the west over 100 years later. But in 1918 and 1920, Soviet women were just granted this by the stroke of a pen. It was an extraordinary moment.
- [32:25]
Andrew Muller
One of the things that gives the book its power is that some of the women you profile who benefited or at least seemed to benefit early on were your own forebears, your great grandmothers, and your grandmothers who were doctors and scientists and Engineers. I mean, they were clearly remarkable women. But is there any way at all they could have had similar lives anywhere else in the world at that time?
- [32:48]
Julia Yoffe
That's a great question. And I don't think they could have. They were all born around 1900, so they were of college, university age when the revolution happened, and university doors, which had been closed to them as both women and Jews, were suddenly flung open to them, them, including in the sciences. And they seized it eagerly, I don't think. You know, in the west, in the UK and in the US and the rest of Europe, women still needed their husband's permission to do much of anything at the time, let alone, you know, become a doctor or a scientist who ran her own lab. It was. I think that that is. Is the kernel of the book. The starting kernel of the book is to explain to a Western audience how my great grandmothers might seem extraordinary. They're only extraordinary if you pluck them out of the Soviet context and plunk them into a Western one. But in their own context, in the Soviet context, there were tens and tens of millions of women just like them. And that was because of the reforms that we just talked about.
- [33:54]
Andrew Muller
Spoiler, of course, this doesn't last. Is there one clear reason for that? You do write of Stalin's daughter, Svetlana, that she seems as sort of a human metaphor for the entire experiment. But was it just Stalin, who is clearly an extremely strange and unpleasant man, or was he more of a vehicle for, I guess, wider sentiments?
- [34:17]
Julia Yoffe
I think the answer is yes. And Stalin embodied, I think, to the extreme the hesitation and the skepticism and the, I would say, aversion that a lot of Bolshevik men had to these reforms that Bolshevik women had dreamt up, other than Lenin, who was a big proponent of these and was much more of a feminist, if they would not have used that word, than a lot of his other counterparts. They didn't think these were great reforms. They were fine with women working as long as they were were, you know, mostly mothers and homemakers as well. They were not on board for it. And so they never took these reforms as seriously as they needed to in terms of educating the population to how we were going to do things, in terms of building out the infrastructure that women would have needed to work and continue to bear children. It was always lagging behind the number of nurseries and kindergartens. You know, at a certain point, the state promised state laundromats and state cafeteria to support women while they worked. And so they wouldn't have to, as Vladimir Lenin said, be A million individual women in a million stinky kitchens. The other aspect was just all the other decisions that Stalin and the men around him made, which was political repression, civil war, collectivization, which led to mass famine, World War II, these things that mangled Soviet society, killed off all the men, and drove Stalin and the other Soviet leadership down this path of intense pronatalism. Just seeing women as, okay, we need the women to rebuild everything after World War II. The rail ties, the factories, the cities. But we also need them to rebuild the population. And so how do we incentivize them to have more children? So women were pressed into productive labor and reproductive labor, labor without the necessary support, because the people like Stalin and the men around him believe that a we have more serious things to do, like build nuclear weapons, like further consolidate power and repress dissent and engage in a cold war abroad. And women can do it anyway. Russian women, Soviet women are strong. They'll manage. They'll figure it out. They always have and so they always will.
- [36:37]
Andrew Muller
Was any part of the researching and writing, though, did you find yourself imagining yourself, I guess, as a Soviet and or Russian woman? Because you were born just in the Soviet Union in the early 1980s and you moved to the United States when you were a child. But was there a point of connection for you when you were researching these stories, especially when your grandmothers get caught up in the extraordinary and horrendous events of the mid 20th century, do you start finding yourself wondering, how would I have got through this?
- [37:07]
Julia Yoffe
Well, that's always been my approach to learning about history. And it's why I've been interested in history since I was in school, in grade school, you know, this realization, bone deep understanding that the people who lived through the Russian Revolution and the French Revolution and the English Civil War and ancient Rome were all people just like us, who had the same instincts and urges and desires and. And not even trying, but imagining myself in their places. It's what makes the study of history so intoxicating to me. So I was always imagining myself, you know, what would it have felt like to be Koen Thai? What would it have felt like for my great grandmothers to be trying to survive and take care of their families and work during the cataclysm of World War II, most of which happened on Soviet territory? I think for once that penchant for constantly imagining myself living through history was useful for this book.
- [38:07]
Andrew Muller
That was Julia Yoffe speaking to me earlier. A History of Modern Russia From Revolution to Autocracy is available now.
- [38:15]
Vincent McAvenny
Many Rivers to cross.
- [38:20]
Bertu Ershelik
But I can't.
- [38:21]
Julia Yoffe
Seem to find.
- [38:26]
Andrew Muller
Playing us out the unmistakable voice of Jimmy Cliff, who has died at the age of 81. Cliff was one of those figures so colossal as to become not merely an influence, but an ambassador for the reggae he did so much to popularize. And for his homeland of Jamaica. Jamaica's prime minister, Andrew Holness, today summed up both the life and the loss by saying that Jimmy Cliff's music lifted people through hard times, inspired generations, and helped shape the global respect that Jamaican culture enjoys today.
- [38:58]
Vincent McAvenny
I've been licked, washed up for years.
- [39:04]
Andrew Muller
That is all for this edition of the Monocle Daily. Thanks to our panelists today, Vincent McAvenny and Bertu Ursulik. Today's show was produced by Carlotta Rebello and researched by Joanna Moser. Our sound engineer was Elliot Greenfield. I'm Andrew Muller here in London. The Daily is back at the same time tomorrow. Thanks for listening.