Lions Led By Donkeys Podcast - Episode 62 - The Pepsi Navy

Episode Date: August 5, 2019

This is the story of how Pepsi, yes that Pepsi, ended up controlling the world's sixth largest submarine navy. Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/lionsledbydonkeys Buy a shirt: https://teespring.com/stores/lions-led-by-donkeys-store Buy Joe's new book: https://www.amazon.com/Citizen-Earth-Galaxy-Joseph-Kassabian/dp/1949645347 sources: https://www.redkalinka.com/Russian-Blog/78/_The-day-Pepsi-became-a-great-military-power/ https://www.nytimes.com/1990/04/09/business/international-report-pepsi-will-be-bartered-for-ships-vodka-deal-with-soviets.html https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/soviet-union-pepsi-ships

Nixon must have bought your body from the pawn shop. Yeah, and that electric guitar. Remember what the Dormouse said. Feed your head. I'm meeting you halfway, you stupid hippies. Hello, and welcome to yet another Lions Led by Donkeys podcast. Another one. Another episode. We're still doing this thing.

We are. People aren't sick of us yet. That was a bad intro. Anyway, I'm Joe, and with me today is Nick. Do we ever have good intros? No, we're not good. So you can't say that. I almost feel like our intro is based on my awkward introduction all the way back on episode one. And I did not want to change it.

So here we are over a year later and I'm still saying the same dumb shit. Anyway, how have you been? Oh, great. Sore most of the time. Other than that, I feel good not bad i have spent the majority of today getting yelled at online by fans of prager you that was awesome i'm so glad you sent me the link while i was at work because i was having a shitty day and then i saw that and you know what bumped it up uh for people who are not extremely extremely online like myself, I got bored and made a t-shirt,

which I said I was going to make a long time ago that just said, fuck PragerU, because fuck those guys. Right. And then they retweeted it. And they attempted to publicly shame me. And what I didn't, and I guess what they didn't expect to happen was a lot of people follow them

because how much they hate them. So they got ratioed pretty hard. And it also drove up shirt sales quite a bit. Within... Which also now I know I could break out the whole fuck you Kasabian one. Oh yeah, that was also very popular. Yes, I made that in a mall

about a year ago, so now I can break that out. One of their fans made a really bad Photoshop picture that said fuck Joe Kasabian and a lot of people wanted to buy it. And it's not for his sake, it's for us. I'm going to wear it to my next book

signing. We ended up selling $60 worth of merch in about an hour. Solid. I realized that I had to use my powers for good. I donated all of the money we made from the PragerU shirt to Means TV. we made from the PragerU shirt to Means TV. Means TV is a new platform, and it's like a worker-owned YouTube.

So it's not like soulless tech douchebags crushing their workers. Also, they have way more power to fight PragerU than we do, and I hate them. And I also knew that PragerU hates Means TV. So I think they would hate it more if I gave them money. I hope a YouTube video comes out about lions led by donkeys. Debate me, you cowards. That'd be great.

I want to have these people come on a stage with me. And I'm not going to debate them. I'm just going to tell them to go fuck themselves and they get frustrated and walk away. Anytime they try to talk. Hey, hey, hey buddy, how about you go fuck yourself? Have you tried fucking yourself lately? Until security escorts me out because I'm making

a scene, you know, like any family function I've ever been to. Yes. Anyway, the episode that brings us here today. Which I still don't know. I kept Nick in the dark on this one because I think uh it would his reactions would be just so much better so you know how i said last week we'd be done talking about the soviet union i knew you were lying we're not and it's not my fault so i posted a a uh vote

on our patreon page uh and I let people pick a palate cleanser from our seven part series which just got finished airing. One ended up being a little bit more of a palate cleanser than the other and won in a landslide vote. Like it wasn't even fucking close. And that is

why I'm going to tell you the story today of how that one time Pepsi accidentally became a naval superpower. What? They have fucking like tin cans in the water? Not quite. So they would become... Like warships? Yes.

I hope it had the Pepsi logo on the side. Kind of. This is sweet. I like this. So, to get to that point, we have to talk about Soviet and American politics during the Cold War, which I know is why- This has nothing to do with Pepsi. This is horse shit.

This is- You're roping me back in. It's the long con. I tried to be down with the Soviet Union for at least a couple months, but they pulled me back in, Nick. I think you did it yourself. Well, I did propose the subject, so I got the assist. Fucking asshole. I was the ollie to their oop. I think that's

how that works, right? Just go on with your story. That was terrible. So a lot of footwork went into the insane story that is the glorious Navy of the People's Republic of Pepsi. And it starts all the way back in 1950. Sorry, the 1950s with the death of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin and the rise of Nikita Khrushchev.

He was a Pepsi man. I'm going to think Stalin was just the blood of other humans, man. OK, he may have put people in a blender and drank them. Was it like a Pepsi based pop? From my understanding, he drank a lot of water while thinking. So a story that I heard was that Joseph Stalin would make people like Nikita Khrushchev, who used to be a close confidant of his and other people around him, get belligerently drunk on vodka like he would force them to. While he was sipping water, while they thought that was also vodka. And then he would sit back and watch as they just made asses of themselves.

He looked like a champ to them. while they thought that was also vodka. And then he would sit back and watch as they just made asses of themselves while they were drunk. Oh, so he looked like a champ to them. I think at that point, Joseph Stalin was the friend they kept because they didn't want to die. Oh, very true. Yeah. So when he died,

I'm not going to talk about the power politics at play of how Nikita Khrushchev became chairman, but he did. He ended up becoming in control of the Soviet Union. See, Stalin wasn't a huge fan of allowing Soviet citizens to travel abroad, and he definitely was not a fan of allowing citizens from the West to visit the Soviet Union.

I don't know about you, but if there's one hot vacation spot in the world, it is Stalin-era Soviet Union. You know? Of course, there's a lot of different reasons for why Stalin wanted to put this barrier in place a lot of it was paranoia the guy is a very very paranoid man right um if you let people leave they can turn against you and never come back or uh he was also worried that um they'd just

turn uh turn to be spies or the people that they would come to vacation the soviet union would be spies he got that when his cat ran out the front door and never came back. So that paranoia stuck with him. You know, it's funny because at one point the CIA, go ahead and hit the hip hop sirens, attempted to make a listening device out of a cat.

Yeah. It got ran over. Immediately, like, first mission, just, alright. Go mittens. Yeah, I think first mission, just, all right, go mittens. Yeah, I think it was called Operation Acoustic Kitty, and I am not fucking lying about that name. I wonder if it looked like shit. It was just like, that's a very non-distripped cat

with an antenna sticking out of its fucking forehead, because this is like... Oh, its ears look like antennas. Because it's like 1960s technology. Its tail is the whip. I'm getting static. It's a giant whip antenna. When it's mouth opens up,

it's just an American going, meow. Yeah, meow. Comrade, did that cat sound a little funny to you? Meow. Nope, sounds normal. My cat sounds like that. That's not a Russian cat. and to be fair there's a fair bit of of realism behind some of stalin's paranoia like if a wave of people from the west came over to see the soviet union they probably would have been a hefty amount of spies involved

um right but khrushchev was a very different man or at least at first. So one of the first things Khrushchev did was launch the de-Stalinization of the Soviet Union, which included denouncing him in secret because of all the mass murder and cult of personality, which Khrushchev wasn't all about. He not only wanted to liberalize the Soviet Union in a process known as the Khrushchev thaw, but he also wanted Soviet citizens to know they had it damn good. While they are not quite up to the West standards, he definitely believed that the Soviet Union could get them there in a short amount of time. He believed that the Soviet should show off their accomplishments to the world rather than hiding them behind an iron curtain. Because he was Soviet premier, he still had to make it sound terrible, though.

Maybe it's because translations don't always work great, but in 1957, when the Festival of the Youth and Students was held in Moscow, he told officials to, quote, smother foreign guests in our embrace. What? Sounds like he's going to fucking murder them. Yeah, like he has a fucking pillow on standby yeah uh i'm sure it sounded very nice in russian but uh but in english it sounds like he's gonna smother us with a pillow which again brings us back to our last series god damn it everybody's getting

pillows this is horse shit um he also wanted soviet mass tourism for the first time uh so many people traveled to and from the USSR during this time, and many people were fucking because that's what people do. They be fucking. How does this take? What? This matters? Yeah, it matters.

It created something of an international baby boom. So there's a lot of non-full-blooded Soviet citizens now in the Soviet Union. People wanted to travel to the Soviet union then a lot of the same reasons why they wanted well there's a lot of cool places in the then soviet union i mean encompasses half the goddamn world um it's kind of like what people want to visit north korea like it's an it's a novelty uh because only a couple years before you couldn't fucking go there and i'm're like, oh shit, I can go there? I gotta check this place out. Yeah, I gotta fuck there. Yeah, I gotta fuck.

Yeah, I gotta fuck list. You gotta fuck your way through the Soviet Union? I'm sure they probably... Gotta hit one in each Soviet Republic? I think my grandpa played that game. Nice. So a bit of a side note here. This thaw would end in 1962 and this is important because khrushchev is kind of a comical character um a number of soviet uh officials and khrushchev

went to visit an art gallery being held by the moscow's artists union and uh they had a lot of advent guard uh type art there the kind of Western-inspired type stuff. Yes. Khrushchev hated it so much, he flew into a rage and called it dog shit and put the old limitations on artist-free speech back in place. Just for that? Yes.

Wow, he threw a temper tantrum. Literally the only thing this guy was about was consumerism. Whenever he was uh confronted with any kind of western art or culture he fucking hated it like what a fucking hater which it's fine it's totally within like your wealth and your rights to hate other people's shit but like he he always did it like he he never was like that's not that's not for me he's like it's dog shit yeah it's not for everybody now. This fucking sucks. You know who else hates it?

Everybody of the Soviet Union now. This is probably due to the back. I kind of liked it. I liked where his nose is on his shoulder. Against the wall! The man wasn't exactly hip to new art forms. For example, when he heard jazz for the first time, he said, quote, I don't like jazz. It's as

if I had gas on the stomach. Gas on the stomach. He thought jazz was a fart. He thought jazz was a fart. I do like fart music. Think of it this way. I want to dig up Nikita Khrushchev, slap some headphones

and some fucking AirPods in his ears and make him review music. Like, if he thought jazz was a fart, I want to make him listen to like Takeshi69 or SoundCloud rappers or Nickelback. He's like, please put me back in the ground. What have I done to deserve this? Attach the headphones to maybe your asshole?

No, he already said he doesn't like jazz. He might like that one. let's get some bass um then came the cultural exchanges now there's a lot of reason that these happened um this is when the cold war was was just starting to thaw and they wanted to bring the two cultures together kind of at least at least that's what they said on the surface. You always know there's more to it than this. It's Cold War politics. Hypothetically, you're less likely to hate a group of strangers if you get introduced to a couple of them. It's like even your racist friend in your family is like, oh, no, you're one of the good ones.

They wanted to do that with the whole country. That's not going to work at all. It's not. It doesn't work with one person it's the 50s things only get worse uh especially with when khrushchev is in charge but um you know so a lot of it wasn't diplomacy and i know it's shocking a lot of people it was a giant pissing contest between capitalism and communism uh and thankfully this pissing contest between capitalism and communism. And thankfully this pissing contest between the two didn't kill anybody which is like the only time you can say that.

Furthermore, President Eisenhower actually wanted to show the Soviets the power of good old American consumerism in an attempt to get Khrushchev to keep up with them. Now this is actually a pretty good idea. So at the time, the Soviets were kicking America's ass

in the space race. Sputnik had happened. Their space program was much more advanced, meaning their rocket technology was much more advanced. Later on, it ended up not being such the case, and it ended up being more of the case of the Soviets didn't have a lot of

safety regulations in place for its space program. I imagine there's a shit ton of people that are not on the books that died. So there's a pretty big conspiracy theory about that actually. I believe in that shit. I kind of do. I'm not going to buy all the way in. I'm not big into

conspiracies but I will definitely put some fucking two cents into that. I will say I buy into it being a possibility simply because somebody actually caught them doing it once. So there was some kind of radio operator, satellite radio operator, I don't know, in Australia, I believe. Wasn't it Italy or some shit like that? Maybe it was Italy. I think you're right. It was somewhere like that.

wasn't it Italy or some shit like that? maybe it was Italy I think you're right it was somewhere like that and he was listening to radio waves and caught someone screaming in pain as they entered the atmosphere and translated out of Russian to English and it was them like cursing

the fucking space program and everything else for abandoning him and shit like that before he died and more details have opened up about that and everything else for abandoning him and shit like that before he died. And more details have opened up about that since that radio recording came out. And you can listen to that on YouTube, actually. Yeah, it's on YouTube. I think it's called The Lost Cosmonaut or something like that.

Yuri Gagarin, I believe, was supposed to be on that flight, who happened to be the first man to orbit the Earth. And the guy who got on the flight instead was his friend and knew that the spaceship did not pass inspections and whoever was in the gun was going to die. That's spicy news. Spoiler alert, he was 100% accurate about that, and he died. Okay, so this is way off topic, but even more depressing than that, they held a state funeral for what they found of him,

which was like a couple fucking teeth and a lump of flesh. You're probably picturing they put it in a casket, right? I'm picturing a shoebox. No, they put it in a casket right i'm picturing a shoebox no they put it on a fucking pedestal there's a picture of it really yes it's one of the more disturbing things that's crazy i honestly was picturing like a shoebox it's kind of in a box yeah it's like up on a pedestal in a box and everybody's like standing around like yep that was him they just found found his fucking chain and a watch. A pair of Mokpas.

He always did love these shoes. I don't know why. Anyway, back on topic. So Eisenhower wanted to get Khrushchev to buy into this consumerism thing. Because he knew Khrushchev told the Soviet people like we see how good they have it we're going to get there we're not far we're going to get you there

the reason why is because he would have to divert resources away from their space program to do so because remember the Soviets have a planned economy they have to plan these things out so he's like if I make Khrushchev think that everybody wants a whole bunch of fucking toasters and shit he can't build as many rockets it kind of ended up being true really yeah um so i'll i'll

let you be the judge of who wins the battle of the wills there um but the first uh cultural exposition came to new york city and it was by the Soviet Union. It was something of a mini world's fair. Ooh, fun. That featured Soviet cultural displays like art and music. But the Soviets stuck to their guns around science and technology. For example, the main focal point was Sputnik, which I had a mock-up of inside the Expo Center. But it also had tidbits

to show Americans what a normal Soviet citizen had and how they lived. Kind of bridge that cultural gap. For example, it had a mock-up three-room apartment and a quote-unquote normal Soviet kitchen. At the time, that was not normal. Does everybody

in the household wear Adidas sweatsuits so that way that apartment was something that like uh khrushchev um wanted to build everywhere and he did end up building a lot of them um he built a ton of apartments while he was so they had like a little model home on display it wasn't a model it was the whole thing like uh they built a two-scale three-room apartment like things worked in it and everything wow uh and of course america being america they'd one-up them later but we'll get to that um we have four bedrooms there was even fashion shows and a they flew in a passenger jet uh to show off uh a soviet passenger jet like they had no like literally no expense was was spared on this shit.

Like I said, it's a pissing contest. You know, it's like, well, I was going to say, it's pretty much exactly like this. Not everybody in the Soviet Union is living like that, but much like the Americans exposition, not everybody in America was living like that either. Yeah. But it was like more of

this is what we hope to be in a couple years everything that's fair like just with me that everything about the cold war was a giant pissing contest everything no you're 100 right i mean yeah there's ideology involved but even the the ideology was a pissing contest yeah nobody like neither side stuck to their guns when it came to ideology. It's like obviously America wasn't the land of the free and the home of the brave because they were throwing people out of their jobs and blacklisting them for being members of the Communist Party.

And the Soviet Union people didn't have everything they wanted even though they worked for the state. Their money was almost worthless, which we'll talk about in a little bit. You had to wait three years to get a car and shit like that. Yeah, it wasn't exactly a worker's paradise.

But that has way more to do with just a long chain of incompetent idiots being in charge, which unfortunately is like, you know, at least in America, we have generally semi-free elections. So we can all band together as a country and make a mistake every four years when we decide who's in charge and are completely wrong by it. Soviets didn't have that. It was all backroom politics and dealing. And in Khrushchev's case, he just kind of outmaneuvered a couple people and ended up in charge. In Stalin's case, he shouldn't have been in charge.

Like, Lenin wanted Trotsky in charge, and Stalin just outmaneuvered him, then ice axed him in the back of the head. So, like, it's... That's one way to do it. You can't exactly build a worker's paradise if you're just having a whole bunch of elites in the back room make choices for you.

Like, that's how things are supposed to work. Having death matches. Just like, you know, you can't have a free and fair democracy of a bunch of billionaires making choices for you so they just resort to killing people in the third world with billions of dollars of military technology which is kind of how we built the basis of this show um so all comes full circle yes it does uh so the soviets put out little guest books in front of the exhibits to let people sign, like say, oh, thanks for coming by.

I'm so-and-so from wherever. And Americans filled those books with exactly what you'd imagine they'd fill them with. Ah, yes. The old dick. So that probably happened. I don't remember. This is the 50s. So they probably weren't like... Oh, they censored it. Well, they probably weren't saying anything too horrible but uh the only thing that ever was released by them was

released by the Soviet Union uh said uh there's a few of them but the funniest one I think is quote Soviet music is for the birds if they'll have it I'm really glad I don't live in a time where somebody considers that a burn that's probably a hardcore burn back then. But the Soviets acknowledged that everything else written in them was so vulgar they would never publish it, and they haven't. I'd love to see it, honestly. I think there's a whole lot of go-fuck-yourself reds

and fuck communists and shit like that. We're not exactly an imaginative people, especially in the 1950s. And after that, it was theicans turned to the exact same thing they set up what is known as the american national exhibition in moscow and they brought some heavy fucking hitters uh corporations like ibm rca cadillac disney dixie cups and pepsi dixie cups dixie cups incorporated which is like so our red Solo cup went over there and raised... No, that's Solo, sir.

That's a different company, I think. My bad. Oh, it is. Yeah, you're right. They literally wrote a whole song about it, Nick. It's fucking horseshit. The song or the exhibition? No, the fact that Dixie was there.

Oh, they had to serve the Pepsi in something. A fucking glass. Spill it on your hands, lap it up. Yeah. So, like I said, Americans wanted to one-up their Soviet compatriots, and they built

an entire full-size suburban home. What a bunch of assholes. And it actually was a manufactured home. It was originally built in New York. And large numbers were like, oh, fuck it, we'll bring it to the Soviet Union, too.

It was a real thing. I believe it. It included cars, movies, art, music, a 360-degree cinematic experience set up to play a movie about America, which... That was probably a shitty movie. It's not probably good. Pots, pans,

nylons, beauty kiosks, books, an entire Buckminster Fuller designed geodesic dome inside which a film titled Glimpse of the USA produced by Disney would play across several giant screens. Was there also a family living there for the time being?

I don't know. I feel like there should have been. Several giant screens. Was there also a family living there for the time being? No. But what they did have... I feel like there should have been. What they did have was several Russian-speaking American citizens, college students, college grads, that showed up to give people tours because not a lot of people in the Soviet Union spoke English. Right.

So they had to have little guided tours, and they were supposed to be there to kind of like tell them about a day in the life of an American citizen. Again, bridge the gap. They want to know what the day in the life is. Whatever they said did not go over well. Okay. So these college grads who showed up were pretty much only there to be like, yes, this is how my kitchen looks.

This is how I go to work at such and such days. So they were pretty much immediately peppered with questions that they were not prepared to answer. Things about racism, Jim Crow lawsim crow american imperialism violent crime what's the threat count on your silk linen how come that guy can't drink out of the same water fountain as you oh fuck next question why did you invade south Korea? Next question. Why are there military bases all over Western Europe? Guys, I majored in philosophy. I'm not prepared to answer these questions.

They pretty much just tried to not answer them, which, I mean, there's no good way you're going to answer that. Does anybody have a question about the home? Does anybody have a question about my stove? Yeah. I mean, it's exactly what i imagine would happen when um a country that's been made incredibly demonized and rightfully so for many of those reasons same thing with the soviets um that you're going to ask about those questions it's like the same thing like if we talk to

somebody from North Korea. We're going to want to know if your leaders really did feed his uncle the dogs and you're really going to be curious of why the cops are killing so many people because that's what we hear about. Does he have an asshole? Does he poop? I heard he invented the hamburger.

Solid. Those are both things that they actually said. So, it also happened to be the first time the vast majority of the Soviet citizenry got the chance

to taste a wonderful taste of Pepsi Cola. Now, pop or soda, depending on where you're from in the United States, Shut the fuck up.

was not I fucking hate you, was not really a common thing outside of North America and Western Europe. Like, carbonated beverages weren't a novelty quite yet in the Soviet Union.

It was the first time a lot of people were getting to see that. They were drinking kivvahs. We normally just drink vodka and water this is great so the the pepsi was totally free and it was yeah it was it was dispensed to anybody who walked by now uh they actually made it with two different kinds of water for reasons they made uh some out of american water that was brought with them and some out of russian water which they made on site with Pepsi concentrate. For reasons that aren't entirely sure.

Did the Russian water get you fucked up or something? No, it was just one of those things like, look, Pepsi's the same everywhere. Look, we're equal. But everybody said the Soviet one tasted better, which of course it didn't. It's fucking Pepsi. You can't taste the quality of water in Pepsi. Vodka, sure. I don't like the quality of water in Pepsi. Vodka? Sure. I don't like soda. No I don't either.

But honestly I'd rather go for a Coke. Ah you're a Coke man. Well we're in the middle of the Coke wars. The Cola wars. Which we'll talk about. They're involved? Oh yeah. Oh my god. They have a Navy? No no no. They didn't quite think about that. Oh, my God. They have a Navy? No, no, no.

Oh. They didn't quite think about that, but we will talk about it. Now, this being the first time a lot of people had this drink, it turns out it's a bit of an acquired taste. Nikita Khrushchev's son said people thought it smelled and tasted a bit like shoe polish. Which, going off the series we just did, meant people thought they were going to get drunk. First of all, these fuckers are shoe polish sommeliers over there. They know exactly what's going on with their shoe polish. This isn't the fucking vintage I wanted.

This was made in the northern side of the factories. I didn't have to scrape toast for this. Now, it also should be noted that one of the pieces of art was a Jackson Pollock painting titled The Cathedral. Pretty much everybody hated it. What did it look like? I don't know. It's a Jackson Pollock painting, so it's a big mess.

Oh, okay. All Jackson Pollock paintings look like the toilet bowl after a long night of tacos and booze. After you're done poop raping your toilet. Oh, God. Never say that again. I hate you so much.

So before this episode, he called his toilet the butt sink. Yes. And that made me uncomfortable. That just, that just, you're a habitual line stepper sir you stepped over the line so you're okay with butt sync now no I'm not comfortable with any of this you never repaint the old butt sync

I hate you I wish I could hate you to death so art and music aside however the American display was meant to show the soviet citizens what is like for a normal day a normal everyday american at the time uh what they could own and afford uh because you know that's it's easy to pop up a whole bunch of shit that like the one percent can own like drive up in a bugatti bike this is america like fuck you, bitch. Motherfucker, what? My car's 500,000 miles on it, and it's on fire!

But, like, they wanted to show what an average American, hypothetically, could afford. And they did do that, to an extent. Now, obviously, the average American isn't every American. There's a lot of people who are homeless, even then. This is Kit the Car.

It can talk to you. This this is a smart house even the air is touchscreen i fucking hate that movie smart house so there's a movie really off topic but there's a movie on disney oh no back in the day remember when they used to come out with a movie every other week yes so they had one which is a smart house i don't know what it's called i can't remember what it's called now but it's essentially what it is it's a smart house does the house kill the family it tries to a disney channel yeah fuck disney after hours bro dude it's awesome soul skate yeah pretty much awesome i fucking love disney channel back then so um oh all right so smart house another i remember they did a simpsons episode making fun of hal back then. Alright, so Smart House.

I remember they did a Simpsons episode making fun of Hal, and it had a Smart House where you could pick the voices of the Smart House, and one of them was Chandler begging from friends. So, the house they built

was a reproduction, and it cost about $14,000 back then, which is decently affordable. So with inflation, that's about $150,000 in 2019 bucks. In 2019 bucks? Yeah, which I have to admit, it's pretty goddamn affordable.

It's a good deal. So for people who are unaware of where we are based, we live in Washington State. And for $150,000, that won't even get you an old refrigerator box to live in, like previously used by another homeless guy. That shit's going to go for at least $200,000 and a down payment.

That's pretty hefty. If you get a VA loan, you might be able to sneak in, though. This corner's pretty hefty. If you get a VA loan, you might be able to sneak in. This corner's where I sleep. This corner gets really wet. This is all you got, really. You got two corners to work with. This is the moist corner. Yeah. You can take a shower. And that's like, you might be able to get a used tent and a timeshare with a couple other people that smoke meth. And I wouldn't even trust that tent either. No, that tent's got dick holes in it.

Oh, what? So along these displays were other things like the fashion shows and the beauty chaos, which is funny because that was specifically targeted towards Soviet women who only weeks before Khrushchev talked about how women don't need beauty kiosks. Ah, yes, natural beauty. Yeah. Turns out they were really fucking popular, though. Like, they all ran out of makeup.

Really? Yeah, because they're just all giving shit away for free. Oh, yeah, free's the best. I love free. I don't use makeup, but if I go to a local fucking World's Fair, I'm like, this blush is how much? Fuck, load me up.

I'll take some fucking blush. Does that max my skin tone? I don't know. I'll figure it out. Sir, you have to contour. Fuck you, it's free. I'll do what I want. I look beautiful.

So the main draw of this whole exhibition was the incredibly popular American kitchen display. It fucking would be. Now, there's a reason for that. Soviet kitchens were the central part of their display. Like they show, because even though... With their diverse... I don't know what they eat to be honest sadness but that's what I think

the so a lot of the Soviet propaganda involved like equality between men and women wasn't entirely true there was still like there was still a housewife culture so that's so they made made a very heavy lean towards their kitchen.

So America took that as a direct challenge. It's like, we'll check out our kitchen. And if you look at pictures of it, it seems to be a bit above average, which, I mean, of course it was. Is it nicer than your kitchen? Now? No.

Because I don't have to worry about things randomly catching on fire because it's not 1950s um i like your kitchen the why thank you um one of the people drawn to this kitchen display was none other than soviet premier nikita khrushchev nice what do you like about it where he was met with none other than vice president and world-renowned asshole, Richard Nixon. What? Yeah. This brings us to the famous kitchen debate. Now, I know it sounds stupid, but this is kind of a weird, important part of history. That's awesome.

That where Khrushchev and Nixon got in a bit of a yelling match. Now, the absolute weirdest thing about this debate is exactly what it's about. The debate is not about nukes. It's not about war. It's not about military possibilities or capabilities. Just so you know, here's part of the transcript. Nixon, I want to show you this kitchen.

It's like one of our houses in California. Nixon points the dishwasher. Khrushchev, we have such things. Nixon, this is our newest model. This is the kind that was built in thousands of units with direct installations into the dishwasher. Khrushchev, we have such things. Nixon, this is our newest model. This is the kind that was built in thousands of units with direct installations into the houses. In America, we like to make things easier

for women. Khrushchev, your Catholic attitudes towards women do not occur under communism. Nixon, I think this attitude towards women is universal. What we want to do is make life more easier for our housewives. It kind of went on and on like that. Now, it gets

weirder as Khrushchev insists that some things never need to be replaced because Nixon points out that our houses are so cheap, if someone wants a new one, they could just buy a new one. Khrushchev decides that houses simply never need to be replaced

because I know... They don't grow on trees. I know when I saw pictures of my great-great-grandfather's shack, I wanted to move right into that motherfucker. It was still good. I never had to move out of it. Now, Nixon counters this with a wonderfully bad argument, saying that anyone in America can afford a house because we have extended mortgages.

What? You know the thing that routinely collapses the economy from time to time? I thought they were going to debate something like why use medium heat when you could use high? Why didn't you put a char on that? Yeah.

That color sucks with that countertop. It's so neutral. that backsplash is a goddamn war crime cruise ship you know it and the soviet union all backsplashes are equal fuck you uh also things get really weird because nixon demands that soviet citizens be given the opportunity to make their own choices regarding of housing ideas and soup soup soup soup's involved yeah nobody wants cold soup because he's like the stoves are for because he's like you know ideas and soup. Soup. Soup. Soup's involved. Yeah, nobody wants cold soup. Because he's like,

what stoves are for? Because he's like, you know, you can make a choice about anything and he ends up soup and Khrushchev's like, we can make choices about soup.

Like, that's the fight you're going to pick. We like cold soup, Nick. Oh! I am not a soup crook. I can't do a Nixon impression. Neither can I This whole episode is considered

Way more entertaining If you imagine it's Nixon from Futurama And he's just the head Yes Or Nixon with the giant robot body All Nixon from Futurama I'm picturing While he's arguing

His pants are off for some reason. I don't know why. They did call him Tricky Dick. Yeah. But everybody's telling him, put your pants back on. He's like, just fucking going nuts. I'm sorry. I thought this was America.

Sir, you're Moscow. Put your pants on. Or we could talk about my favorite line of the whole thing, which now, it's going to sound funny. The soups weren't? No, no. Because it is, but also it means something. It's kind of lost in translation.

Khrushchev says, quote, I am a warrior for communism. You are a warrior for capitalism. Let's kiss. Did they? No. Also, this whole time, Khrushchev is wearing a white fedora. I feel like I need to underline that. Why? What an asshole so i a lot of it had to do with khrushchev obviously coming to the

conclusion of like this debate is meaningless because obviously neither one of us are going to change our minds fucking meme oh khrushchev is a walking meme and we'll talk about that but like i'm hoping nixon got confused like so do i do i 90% on this kiss or is he going to go 90%? I feel like Nixon would go full tongue to the back of the throne. I think he'd go full 100%. Wouldn't give him a chance. He would definitely grab his ass too. Nixon was a fucking weird guy.

Yeah. But to Khrushchev's credit, what he meant was, why are we even debating this is pointless? Yeah, the kitchen? Yeah, I would imagine it's pointless well debating in general like the premier of the Soviet Union the vice president of the United States are going to get in a debate and Nixon said like I've suddenly seen

the light of Marxism sir I'm going to move in you could still have a good debate but not over a kitchen well it wasn't over a kitchen it was in a kitchen holy fuck I didn't know it was in a kitchen it was in it wasn't over a kitchen. It was in a kitchen. Holy fuck. I didn't know it was in a kitchen. It was in the kitchen display. I hope they...

That's even better. That's why I never understood the purpose of debating. Unless it's like... Unless you do it in a kitchen. If it's for an election, I get it because it's a competition of ideas and then we get to pick the winner. Effectively, that's how our offices are all chosen badly um but like none of the soviet

citizens present listening to that weren't going to be like i want to pick my own soup this nixon guy has it has it has a good fucking point what is i'm sick of eating camp's Chunky. I want to try Progresso. It's pointless. It's exactly like all the times that Ben Shapiro challenges people to debate. Yeah, I watch it. Except somehow I hate Richard Nixon less than I hate him. And he is a war criminal. Maybe it's because you have the Futurama Nixon you grew up with I am fond of that Richard Nixon

because I love him he's fucking hilarious yeah he kind of made that show go around somehow so there's another part of this debate that Khrushchev was not aware he was walking into now he was being introduced to a lot of small

nuances of American life he hasn't seen the pantry yet he was about to to a lot of small nuances of American life. He hasn't seen the pantry yet. He was about to see another one. That is bold-faced, corrupt American hucksterism. Now, you see, Pepsi executive Donald Kendall had gone to the USSR to make sure his product's display went off without a hitch. But in doing so, he actually went against company policy. Pepsi, it turned out, wanted absolutely nothing to do with this whole thing.

Really? And told him not to get involved. Kendall decided to fuck that, and he's going to do what he wanted anyway, which, I mean, big Kendall energy to you, but it's kind of ballsy. Now, there's a reason for that, though. Kendall wasn't just casting his fucking lot and seeing where it landed. He was a calculated guy. He knew he would be in trouble

possibly even fired if he went that whole time without getting a single picture that he needed and that was Nikita Khrushchev holding a glass of Pepsi. Now you're probably asking how the fuck was he going to get that to happen? Well, he ended up being very

very good friends with one Vice President Richard Nixon. Okay, never mind. I'm not going to say that. And he asked for a favor. Nixon would ensure that he initiated his debate right next to the Pepsi display while Kendall would lay in wait.

Now, there's a reason why everybody knew this was going to work. Whenever Khrushchev got upset, he had a tendency to fly off the handle and lose his temper when he got into debates. Only a few years later, he became kind of famous for taking his shoe off and slamming it on the desk at the United Nations.

He was also kind of always red-faced whenever he got upset and would sweat a lot he was a big old fat sweating guy yeah um it was also july uh and oh yeah air conditioning was not exactly prevalent in 1950s moscow oh no um nixon knew this um and uh so another thing is nixon knew how easily upset khrushchev got. So after they were done talking, he's like, so you want to fight me now? It was like the Nixon version of what? You mad, bro? You mad?

You mad, bro? You look mad. He actually said that. Really? Yeah, he actually was like, so you mad, bro? No, he said, you want to fight me? Oh, I was kind of hoping he said, you mad, bro? And Khrushchev got, like, you could tell that he kind of got mad, but he's like, oh, of course, I don't want to fight you.

But it's like, he's red as a fucking tomato. Kendall, who was quite literally lying in wait with a glass of Pepsi on the outlines, quickly ran up in a Pepsi-branded paper cup in spring and gave Khrushchev the cup as soon as he saw him begin to sweat. Here, it's cold. In a now legendary photo, you can see the leader of the Soviet Union happily chugging some Pepsi.

Do you think since Dixie was there, it was just a plain Dixie cup and he was trying to find a Pepsi cup? He's like, oh, no time. And he drew down on the Pepsi logo. It is purposely labeled Pepsi. Really? Yeah.

Now, the press went insane over the picture as you could imagine uh it was a bit of a pr coup and then went with headlines like quote khrushchev wants to be sociable now that makes no sense in 2019 but it was actually a play of the pepsi slogan at the time be sociable have a pepsi which leads me to believe that marketing back then was fucking stupid it was like that's not a slogan like be sociable like oh so when i drink coke i'm actually alone in my apartment depressed you're crying in the corner yeah and it's red you call me oh no they're on to me yeah mccarthy's blacklisted in your apartment alone drinking coke blacklisted from the podcast world that's like the the saddest

thing to be blacklisted oh my asian fired me and nate won't do my production work anymore uh but it turns out that pitcher kind of made kendall's whole entire goddamn career within a few years he was ceo of pepsi and now he had to run a global soft drink empire. But he never forgot the untapped market of the Soviet Union. He also knew it was only a matter of time before Pepsi's arch nemesis, Coke, broke into the markets. Those fucks. So he used what he had, which was connections. A lot of people in the Soviet Union remember Pepsi.

I mean, their leader was drinking it. It's like the best viral marketing you could have. For free. In 1972, Pepsi got what they wanted. Not only would they be the first capitalist brand to ever break the Soviet market, they would get exclusive

rights for 15 fucking years for the entire country of 241 million people. It definitely did not hurt Pepsi's chances because Kendall's good friend Richard Nixon was now president of the United States. But, I mean, credit where credit's due. That old no pants relationship.

Now, this came with a few problems, however. Normally two business partners would simply sign a contract, money would be exchanged, and that would be that uh things were not so simple in the ussr the soviet ruble could not be converted into any other currency which meant that the soviet government paid pepsi to build factories and whatnot um it would be in effect totally useless the second pepsi tried to pay its bills outside the Soviet Union. And there's a few reasons for that.

Now, I'm not an economist. I consulted a few. This is the dumb rundown of why this is needed. There are a few reasons for this. In capitalist countries, currency is a market. The entire reason for its existence is to support the mechanism of free market. The exchange of currencies for goods and services.

Now in the Soviet Union, there's technically no free market. This meant the currency was just a tool of centralized planning. The ruble could only be used in sanctioned government stores to buy sanctioned government goods or services at prices and quantities set by the government. Clear as yeah so a lot better it it makes sense right yeah a planned

economy makes sense if it's planned right which is the the big question mark right yeah um i'm not an economist i am a socialist and i will say it kind of makes more sense to have price controls guys uh maybe people will be able to afford to live in washington state now as papsu's not a soviet citizen as far as anybody was aware uh this meant they had absolutely no use for soviet currency they legally wouldn't even be able to buy it in soviet shops you had to be a soviet citizen right uh but that just means they have to go back to the old old way of human transactions bartering yes now Pepsi had the technical know how

the equipment and the concentrated syrup that the USSR would need to pump out gallons of pop so the Soviets had to pay in something they had plenty of in exchange and the one that Pepsi could in turn sell the United States for money vodka okay or more specifically the exclusive that Pepsi couldn't in turn sell to the United States for money. Vodka! Okay.

Or more specifically, the exclusive rights of Stolichnaya vodka to be sold outside the Soviet Union. This would be the first premium imported vodka. So that's the only one that could be sold outside at the time? At the time. So before that,

it was internal consumption only. It wasn't being exported. So a little bit of vodka history, lines led by booze, as we are currently drinking vodka. This recipe had been around since about 1905, I think. Oh, okay. And it's considered premium vodka.

I definitely helped Pepsi make some money off Stoli because I drank a fuckload of it. Really? It's really cheap. Yeah, it's like 20 bucks. What's it called? Stolichnaya. I don't a fuckload of it. Really? It's really cheap. Yeah, it's like 20 bucks. What's it called? Stolichnaya. I don't think I've seen it.

You definitely have. Have I? It's on the bottom shelf. Then I have it because I don't shop for vodka. My house is always stocked. Yeah, I tend to buy Tito's or... That's too expensive. Yeah.

I got the Tito's off brand. It's called Round Rock. I started buying that. Yeah. It's like 15 bucks a handle handle We got classy up in this bitch This deal was amazing for both sides Soviets drank around 1 billion Servings of Pepsi a year

As well as the first company So Pepsi would also be the first Company to ever air a paid advertisement On Soviet television It starred Michael Jackson He was the Pepsi spokes guy at the time Remember he caught us hair in fire and shit to ever air a paid advertisement on Soviet television. It starred Michael Jackson. Really? Yeah, he was the Pepsi spokes guy at the time.

Remember, he caught us hair on fire and shit. Yeah. While Americans drank hundreds of millions of dollars worth of Stoli. I mean, it's a good vodka for its price, and it was probably even cheaper back then. Also, again, the novelty. This is from the Soviet Union. We don't have anything else from the Soviet Union. And I'm glad to say I helped with that.

Forbidden goods. I'm willing to believe that Pepsi still doesn't control the exclusive rights of Stoli. But if they do, you're welcome for my service, Pepsi. Pepsi's operations in the USSR kept expanding as the Soviets simply could not get enough of this shit. Again, it's a soft drink. It's full of fucking sugar. People probably got addicted to it. Also novelty. Like, hey, look, it's American stuff.

Hey, it's not water. Or vodka. Or, try mixing. Fuck it. Now, this deal was for 15 years. So, when that deal ran out, 15 years later, they had to renegotiate. Now, the Soviet Union was in the middle of a lot of changes, this now being the area of

Glasnost and Prostryka, which we talked about briefly in our Soviet-Afghan war series. To make a long story short, I will say the Soviet markets were in the middle of some reforms, and the Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, wanted to expand the Pepsi operation from 20 factories to 50. Whoa. Pepsi, for obvious reasons, was totally on board for this. The problem, of course, being was the deal was way bigger than their last one, equally got to be around $4 billion. And there wasn't enough goddamn vodka in the world for that deal to last. So the way the last deal worked is like you'd get a quart of Pepsi, I'd get a quart of vodka.

It was like a one-for-one swap. There's no way that any amount of vodka was going to pay this off. Also, there was another small problem. The Soviet Union was now in the middle of the Soviet-Afghan War, which led to a huge fucking boycott against a few Soviet-made products in America, especially Stoli. So Pepsi's like, well, fuck, we're giving Pepsi away for free, and now we have all this goddamn vodka. So the Soviets looked around and found something else they had a surplus of that they could barter for once more. And they found it in a fleet of warships.

How is that a fucking surplus? How is that something you think is good to trade to a fucking soda company? Now, to be more specific. A frigate, a cruiser, a destroyer, and 17 goddamn submarines. They can escort. They can go across the ocean. This deal made Pepsi the sixth largest submarine force on Earth. Yeah, that's a lot.

And I looked it up. Now, for obvious reasons, it's hard to find the size of everybody's Navy currently. But it is bigger currently than England and Germany's navies right now. Also, Canada. I am still hoping that it is a pepsi logo on every single one and the submarine looks like a can of pepsi so if you were to guess who sailed this shit who the fuck did all this who maintained it uh the glorious enlisted men of the pepsi navy uh no they they had to charter a whole bunch of people and move it. Because Pepsi doesn't generally keep up.

Who's qualified to move this at the time? We need a couple dozen submariners. Did they call the fucking A-team of the Navy that just said, oh, fuck the Navy. I'm going to go work with the good old Pepsi. I don't know what you would call their Navy. Pepsi Maritime Self-Defense Force. Yes. Their uniforms must have sucked.

I assume they looked a lot like our Navy, where they look like... I imagine that... They look like the good humor man in summer and the Waffen SS in the winter. I was kind of hoping for a more of a Cracker Jack type of uniform. Yeah, like I said, the summer uniform. Yeah.

It's the same shit. But then mixed with a of like russian shit too because their naval shit looked kind of cool you say what you will about the soviet union they had some sick aesthetics they really did um so are we biased for that no no i think everybody it's like you can accept that some people's uniforms look good if the people in the uniform suck that's true now i will say the soviet aesthetic in af aesthetic in Afghanistan was severely lacking. Very true. They definitely let it slip. So if you were to guess how much Pepsi equaled out that they spent on each one of these submarines.

I don't even think I could make that guess. You said 14 submarines? 17. 17. Sorry for lowballing. 17 submarines. And how much Pepsi can fit in one? How much do you think was the dollar equivalent?

This is the math that Pepsi did, not me. I don't know how you make that math happen. So how much do you think your truck cost? How much do I think it costs? Yeah. I'd say a good $16,000, $17,000. Okay. So remember earlier how I said how much the American house cost?

Yes. $14,000 back then, $150,000 today. So instead of buying that house today, you could buy a Soviet submarine for $150,000 because that's all they got them for. Really? Yes. Is that written down somewhere? Yes. Holy fuck. Really? Yes. Is that written down somewhere? Yes.

Holy fuck. That's insane. I was thinking that they were like, how much Pepsi can we fit in it? And did the math off that. They also got a whole bunch of oil tankers from the Soviet Union. They hand-received those.

Pepsi tankers. It's full of Pepsi. They hand-received those two oil companies uh which honestly are probably still on the sea still in the fucking sea today uh now this led uh kendall the ceo of pepsi to joke to president uh george hw bush um i said to the george hw bush national security advisor that they they are disarmingarming the Soviets faster than the government was. That's a good joke. That's a pretty good joke. Another fun tidbit here.

The subs that Pepsi bought are currently more advanced than the subs that North Korea fields. Wow. Yeah. That's insane. Because they're still running about 1950s-era diesel Soviet-made submarines. These were newer than that. Wow. Now, theys era diesel Soviet made submarines. These were newer than that.

Wow. Now, they weren't nuclear powered submarines. So now what I'm curious of, what is very much lacking in every source I found from this is what the submarines actually were. Because remember, this is right on the doorstep of when the Soviet Union collapsed. There's a very good chance some of those submarines carried nuclear weapons at some point. Yeah. Because they had submarine-mounted intercontinental ballistic missiles and all sorts of other shit.

None of them were powered by nuclear reactors, though. At least not what anybody's admitting to. Where are these submarines? Does Pepsi still fucking like have a fleet now unfortunately for pepsi i don't know unfortunately for nick and everybody else who longs for a pepsi-based one world government they simply sold their new navy off for scrap what a bunch of fucking idiots honestly i was picturing the old, like, you remember the old Call of Duty, how it showed the map going, like,

fucking one-sided, like, German, Nazi, Nazi, Nazi going out. I was kind of picturing that, but Pepsi... Pepsi just spreading. Pepsi spreading. Let's play a game. What if they didn't? Now, let's say for two years or so,

it just becomes a fun fact that Pepsi owns a fleet of Russian warships. A stupid meme that you see every once in a while, or a dumb subject that your favorite history podcast covers. Wink, wink. Then... Is that us? Yeah, it's us.

Okay. In 1992, PepsiCo makes its move. The Soviet Union falls and everything's up for grabs, Lord of War style. Pepsi cuts a deal with a Russian oligarch to get his hands on nuclear weapons. Oh, fuck, Nicolas Cage. They cut a different deal

with the struggling newly independent former Soviet republics to get jets, tanks, mercenaries, too. Fuck it. Let's bring Eric Prince into this. Holy shit. Then, a week later without warning, Pepsi launches Operation Mountain Dew.

A nuclear strike hits Atlanta, Georgia centered on the Coca-Cola headquarters. I'm pulsating. You're literally engorged. Keep going. After the rubble clears, the remnants of the Coca-Cola company regroup in Chattanooga. A meeting is held, and the board decides they must

fight on. A draft notice is put out for all drinkers of Powerade, Dasani, and Minute Maid, while surge drinkers are held in reserve. Holy fuck. Coke decides to use the remaining assets to purchase the ukrainian air force and the romanian army and as then when the cola wars turned to world war three so now that you've had a tease of my next book uh no uh but yeah uh pepsi scrapped everything

and uh that's it but there actually was going to be another deal that fell through at the last minute because the Soviet Union collapsed. That was going to involve double the amount of warships. Oh, God, that would have been so great. And in exchange, Russia was going to get Pizza Hut. Russian Pizza Hut would be so sad. You wouldn't see all the kids after Little League games going there, fucking having a good time, going to the fucking salad bar. No.

You'd see like a piece of bread with no seasoning. Especially like early Russian Federation right after the Soviet Union collapsed. Papa, Papa, what's for dinner? Sleep. We go to Pizza Hut for this.

You just sit in a booth and just lay down. No, you can't lay down. You just sleep next to other people. You can come into the store and smell some ingredients. Yeah, that deal was going to be worth double the amount. It was going to be like $10 billion. And it was going to include franchises of Pizza Hut.

And it fell through because when the Soviet Union fell apart, the way that PepsiCo got around all that was all aspects of the pizza were going to be made in the Soviet Union. So the cheese, the bread, the meat. But it was going to all be sourced from different republics of the Soviet Union. So when it collapsed, they're like, well, fuck, now we've got to make a deal with 18 different countries. Fuck this around.

And nobody's going to give me a goddamn 18 different countries. Fuck this round. And nobody's going to give me a goddamn fleet of warships for this. I have a sweet story about Pepsi. In my opinion, I kind of like it. So my mom is super into Pepsi. And back when my family was actually a real family. My mom was a Pepsi drinker too. Really?

She won't touch anything else. Fuck. So my mom's going to have the same back as yours? Probably. Fuck. Well, at least she gets a sweet exoskeleton. But anyway, sorry, Mrs. Kazafian. Don't worry. She doesn't listen to podcasts. She doesn't know what they are. Oh, your radio show.

Yes. She thinks I'm on internet radio. So she's really big into Pepsi, and she's been into Pepsi since she was a kid. And while my dad was in the Navy, he used to get Pepsi from every country he went to. So he got some from Iraq back in the day. Way back in the day. It was probably actually Kuwait

Pepsi. More than likely it was Kuwait Pepsi. He was in the Navy? Yeah. Isn't Kuwait landlocked? Yeah. Whatever, fine. He was in the Gulf War. No, it's not. He was in the Gulf War or some shit. Actually, yeah, he was. He got no it's not no it's not he was in the gulf war some shit actually yeah he was he got some from france he got some from all these places one day i find all this pepsi fuck it like a pepsi storage in the closet i'm like oh fuck yeah pepsi i'm not allowed to have soda i'm gonna drink some of this shit. Oh, bad idea. It's like, yeah, Pepsi isn't wine.

No, it's not. Because I think I was 13 at the time. And he got this all back in like, let's see, Gulf War 91. Oh, no. Yeah, really old shit. I did that with a Mountain Dew. I bought it at Bodega down the street from my house. And it was separated.

Like the syrup had sunk and fallen to the bottom of it. It tastes like vomit. Mine had mold layer on the top and I drank it. Fuzzy Pepsi. Yeah. Something was living in it. I'm pretty sure. So that's actually the reason why Pepsi is the still number one drink in the

Russian Federation and most Soviet republics. But that's our episode this week uh don't blame me you voted for it yeah i'm getting sick and tired of this soviet shit i need a real palate cleanser uh so if you would like to be it on the voting for future episodes when when we uh when we put put it up for a vote. You can donate to our Patreon. $1 gets you access to our voting. Early episodes, one bonus episode a month. $5 and above gets you access to everything as well as a free copy of

my book, The Hooligans of Kandahar. Joe's Nudes as well. Those are $10. I have to put some class on that. If you want to wear a shirt that pissed off a whole bunch of billionaires, you can buy it, and we will donate the money to Means TV. Or you can buy one of our other shirts, and we will keep it and spend it on booze. It's up to you. Thank you for tuning in.

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And we will see you next week. Later.