Are the bad guys on the move again?

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Re: Are the bad guys on the move again?

Post by RF »

I don't see the point of Venezuela going to war against Colombia, as it would put the Maracaibo oilfields in the front line, quite apart from the proximity to the Panama Canal and American naval interests......
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Re: Are the bad guys on the move again?

Post by RF »

I see Karl, now that Chavez is dead that the British Government is falling over backwards to praise him. While diplomatic protocol does require some recognition, this over the top response by William Hague, the British Foreign Secretary, is over the top and uncalled for.

Shows where the British Government puts its interests - and Britains' interests.
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Re: Are the bad guys on the move again?

Post by Vic Dale »

Aww come on. Look at how they eulogised Marx and Lenin after their deaths, yet when alive they were the most dangerous people on the planet - as far as capitalism goes anyway - hated and vilified, hunted too.

I have to wonder why Trotsky was never rehabilitated. After all he is good and dead, yet he remains a non-person in Russia, despite his opposition to Stalin for which he paid with his life and in Britain and the US, not a hint of praise from official ranks.

It is clear to me that Hague is just doing his job, licking spittle in order to try and seek a little cheap oil for his friends in the big corporations. It's a dirty job and there is no one I'd rather see doing it. Hope he doesn't throw up on the new President's boots whilst he is licking them.
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Re: Are the bad guys on the move again?

Post by Byron Angel »

"There were no gulags or execution sheds in Lenin's regime" -

I must admit that you have an awesomely romantic view of the Great Soviet Revolution. Only 12 killed? Some by accident?
Notably missing from the "Eisenstein narrative": Felix Dzerzhinksy, the Cheka, The Lubjanka, the execution squads travelling the countryside, the little affair in Lyubinskaya.

Wow.

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Re: Are the bad guys on the move again?

Post by Vic Dale »

I think you have the time line muddled I have photos of the execution sheds used by the white terror in 1919.

One of the great tactics which Lenin employed during the months following the overthrow of the Czar was to make solidarity appeals to the troops sent by the Generals to halt the revolution. General Kornilov who had sent a great number of detachments, with the order to drown the revolution in blood during July 1917, complained that each time he sent a regiment to fight it went over to the revolution. He was arming the revolution!

Now why would a military commander who had found such success with solidarity appeals switch to execution sheds? The facts do not add up. The revolution was a success because of solidarity between workers and troops, between industrial workers and peasants. There is not a way on the planet that revolution can be forced upon an unwilling people.

The atrocities carried out by the Soviet Regime and for which I make no excuses, were carried out after Lenin's time and after Trotsky had been exiled. Lenin was dead by 1924, poisoned by one of Stalin's men and Trotsky was exiled in 1927. The Stalinist show trials put all of the original Revolutionary Central Committee before a firing squad. Under torture they were forced to denounce other members of the central committee, before being shot. Not a single one was left alive. This was during Stalin's time as General Secretary of the USSR, a time when bloody counter revolution had gripped Russia and expunged all of the democratic changes made by Lenin and Trotsky. So strong was the democracy built by Lenin, that Stalin was forced to execute the bulk of Russia's revolutionary youth and purge the army of revolutionary elements. So terrified was Stalin of this democracy that he kept the executions going long after all revolutionary spirit had been extinguished. That is the period known as the Red Terror.

Under Stalin, The USSR had become a dictatorship identical to Nazi Germany, though with one exception; Russia had not had a chance to build a capitalist class, so the state was forced to plan production. There were a great many cock-ups and terrible economic disasters, but ultimately it was shown the the USSR was able to outstrip the west in it's ability to produce, though not necessarily to innovate. Most of it's new productions were stolen from the USA and other nations, but the fact that production was planned, meant that a concept could be developed in a half or one third the time it took capitalism to get there.

The actual revolution in October 1917 was a truly whimpy affair. The cruiser Aurora fired her blank cartridge and the revolution began. Workers and soldiers of the Revolutionary Military Council were sent as armed detachments to seize the Winter Palace, but were intercepted disarmed and arrested by the superior numbers of the guards stationed there. More detachments were sent and they too were disarmed. This disarming went on into the night until finally the guards realised that they were now heavily out numbered and could not possibly hold so many people using armed force and meekly handed over their weapons laughing and in some cases crying because they had been such fools.

Consciousness is far more dangerous than a loaded gun, to a regime which has outlived it's use.

The Eisenstein film does not do justice at all to the comedy which was acted out that night.
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Re: Are the bad guys on the move again?

Post by Byron Angel »

Vic,

The time line is not muddled. It just started before you would personally have liked it to. The Red Terror was a entirely a creature of Lenin. In fact, if you want to take into account the lengthy and bloody assassination campaign prosecuted by the Bolsheviks starting at least a decade BEFORE the Great War even began, well, then it goes back even further. The history is plain, powerful and irrefutable.

It strikes me that you apparently can see only through your left eye.

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Re: Are the bad guys on the move again?

Post by Vic Dale »

Yes, the Red Terror started a decade before the outbreak of WWII. Now my understanding of the word decade might differ from yours. I use ten years.

That takes us back to 1929. Lenin was dead by 1924 and Trotsky having fought long and hard, had lost the battle against Stalin and was exiled in 1927. The purges began after Trotsky was exiled and the action was against members of the Central Committee who were all wiped out by Stalin. This action, the so called red terror, was unbridaled counter revolution.

Stalin had been a Bolshevik during the time of Lenin's exile which ended after the February revolution in 1917 which threw out the czar. When Lenin got back to Russia he found that the then Bolshevik central committee was siding with Kerensky, who was to form the post czarist government and who was pro-capitalist. Lenin went berserk and berated them for not making a revolutionary stand. Stalin was among those Bolsheviks who had not stood their ground. They eventually gave in to Lenin who then led them on the path to revolution. In Petrograd station, Lenin made his declaration to a gathering of workers and the aims he put forward at that time were BREAD PEACE and LAND. In all of the time Kerensky was in power he had failed utterly to attempt to deal with any of these most pressing demands. Russian was still at war, Starvation was rife and the Land question, which kept the vast majority of Russian peasants landless had not even been looked at. It was on these three demands that the Bolsheviks under Lenin, led the workers to power.

In 1922 Stalin was made general Secretary of the Communist party and within the year, Lenin was having doubts about his abrasive character and began advising Trotsky that he looked like trouble. Lenin formed a block with Trotsky and the two agreed to mount a campaign against him and try to get him replaced. It is clear that by 1923 that Lenin did not hold the reins of power and neither did Trotsky. A year later Lenin was dead and Trotsky was becoming more and more isolated though he continued to fight Stalin. After three more years Stalin was able to exile Trotsky and then he began to liquidate all those whom he thought were standing in his way.

In order to force through his New Economic Policy (NEP) which would replace the policy devised by Lenin, Stalin had to cow the remaining members of the central committee and this he did, eventually arraigning them before show trial courts. It was the madness of the attempt to force industrialisation on Russia through a highly centralised organisation which caused a succession of economic disasters and famines to spread. In order to suppress opposition from the revolutionary youth he unleashed deaths squads and butchered his way to cooperation with his policy. More than 20 million were to die.

Millions died at the hands of Stalin, but that has nothing to do with Lenin or Trotsky, nor even the basic tenets of Bolshevism. Bolshevik means Men of the Majority and that majority was born of an internal conflict in the Russian Labour Party (RSDLP). Lenin said that everyone should pay for their paper and make regular financial contributions to the party funds before they should be allowed to speak, be members, or be considered for election to office. He was against chatterboxes who would not contribute. He also put forward a slate for the central committee which did not include many of these old chatterboxes and favoured the youth. A row developed and when it was put to the vote Lenin won. Trotsky at that time sided with the Mensheviks (Men of the Minority) and broke with Lenin. It is clear from this very early congress of the RSDLP that Bolshevik was to be associated with democracy.

Lenin was a democrat as was Trotsky and it was Trotsky who was left to fight against a vicious dictator in the form of Stalin. Stalin did not become a dictator until he had murdered the whole of the central committee, after Trotsky was exiled.
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Re: Are the bad guys on the move again?

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Vic Dale wrote: Lenin was a democrat as was Trotsky
I suppose that depends on how you define a democrat. Lenin was a ravolutionary holist and as such not a democrat as I would define it.
and it was Trotsky who was left to fight against a vicious dictator in the form of Stalin. Stalin did not become a dictator until he had murdered the whole of the central committee, after Trotsky was exiled.
I think Stalin was a dictator almost from the moment he bacame Secretary, as you say Lenin lost power gradually. To murder the whole of the central committee you have to be a dictator. To use the words of Mugabe and other revolutionaries before him, power comes from the barrel of a gun.
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Re: Are the bad guys on the move again?

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You would need to study the Life of Lenin and his work in the RSDLP to see how he struggled to democratise the movement and keep it democratic. The fight against the puppet Duma set up by the Czar was a totally democratic process and the basis of the revolution. It should be remembered that there were two revolutions in 1917. The February revolution deposed the Czar and installed Kerensky who tried to use the old puppet duma of the czar, which was clearly not democratic and was filled with old Czarist officers. The Bolsheviks had little or no influence during that time. The Bolsheviks won their support among workers and soldiers through an entirely open and democratic process

The Latin word Democracy means will of the people and the will of the people cannot be exercised on the basis of a single vote once in four or five years, from a preselected bunch of monkeys. That is demockery. The limitations of such a system for expressing the will of the people can be seen in the current situation in Egypt. A democratically elected president tried to use his period of rule to install himself and his cronies as permanent rulers. The army has stepped in to remove him and will try to hold new elections which rules Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood out of the equation. That will not be democratic either. Hitler gained power in precisely the same way, through the ballot box in a parliamentary election to the Reichstag. After election the machinations could begin in earnest and he was helped immensely by army officers, not least by Hindenburgh.

For true democracy it is necessary to establish a bottom up structure whereby all officials are elected at local level and can only remain in their positions as long as they have the support of those who elected them. They should be subject to short term recall and lose their position in 24 hours if necessary. This applies to all officials. At District level the officials are delegates elected by the locals. These delegates form a District Committee (DC) and from among these members the executive committee will be elected. This in a nutshell is Democratic Centralism. It is essential that those elected to positions of authority have proved themselves by their work at local level and who continue to demonstrate good work at their local.

Delegates to the Annual National Congress are sent from each local and at that congress the central committee will be elected. The process usually followed for electing the Central Committee (CC) is for the outgoing CC to present a slate, of full CC members and alternates, in order to maintain continuity in the work of government. The slate can be rejected any number of times, until a slate which suits the general membership delegates can be formed. All members of the CC are subject to short term, 24 hour recall. Once the CC is elected, their leadership is followed in a disciplined manner unless and until a dissenter can accumulate support from at least two locals, which then starts discussion at DC level. Two DCs presenting disagreement with the CC is sufficient to force a recall Congress if the CC does not act in a way which settles the matter to the satisfaction of the disputing DCs. This prevents spurious disruption, but ensures that all genuine grievances are taken seriously. The CC will not wish to go through the tortuous process of re-election, so it will have to act.

The alternate members can be present at the CC meetings, so they can learn the ropes participate in discussions and follow developments, though they cannot vote. This is their preparation for being considered for the slate at a future congress. Alongside the CC, a control commission is elected. These delegates do not have any political powers, but are able to investigate all and any irregularities in procedure. They also audit the books. Since they have no axe to grind, they will exercise their powers to ensure the organisation runs properly.

One of the basic problems which can arise is stable groups on the CC. This is to be avoided at all costs and where such a group arises, steps must be taken to expose it and isolate it. Stable groups are poison to any democratic process - friends voting for each others ideas is not the way forward.

Lenin and Trotsky always said that Democratic Centralism was not written in stone and was not necessarily the perfect system. Ways should always be looked into to refine and hone the process. Different times and situations might throw up conditions under which Democratic Centralism would need to work in a different manner and it was in response to the civil war, sparked by disaffected rich landowning peasants and and ex-Czarist officers, that full democracy had to be suspended. The USSR had to operate under a war council with Lenin at the head and Trotsky as his leading assistant. The CC remained in place and democracy was continued through the party apparatus. This was later learned to be a mistake, because Stalin was made General Secretary and he began stirring up trouble, because of his abrasive manner when dealing with peoples who needed to be handled sensitively. Lenin saw this and warned Trotsky that he considered Stalin a disaster. "This cook will only create spicy meals." Was Lenin's verdict.

Immediately after the war Lenin and Trotsky embarked on the process of restoring democracy to the USSR and they knew that meant a fight with Stalin. They agreed to try and get Stalin replaced, but by 1923 he was too powerful, having drawn to his support all those army officers who no longer had a role, now the war had been won. He drew also those who liked power and privilege. Economic isolation of the USSR was taking it's toll and hunger and want were now the most pressing problems for the young socialist state. Measures had to be put into effect for properly distributing food and rebuilding production, but yet again Stalin took the heavy handed approach and at that particular time, the simplistic answers were more appealing than the detailed and complex propositions of Lenin and Trotsky. Stalin strengthened his position with the help of a cabal and Lenin and Trotsky became Isolated. Lenin died in 1924 and it is widely believed that Stalin had him poisoned. Trotsky was isolated and weaker members of the CC formed a stable group around Stalin, making it impossible for Trotsky to make a successful challenge. Those CC members would pay dearly for that error.

Trotsky's fight with Stalin was one of Democracy Vs dictatorship and it was for this that Stalin reserved a special hatred for him. Stalin did not have the confidence in the people to be a democrat, whereas Lenin and Trotsky thrived on putting their ideas to the vote.

When Trotsky finally broke with the Third International, he formed the Fourth International and the founding document at it's first congress, warned against the creation of a one party state - under any conditions.

Stalin was a peasant, a bank robber who gained popularity among the Bolsheviks and among Bolshevik workers and soldiers, because of the way he boosted the party's funds. A man of action, not an armchair strategist. He was poorly educated and did not have the head for the simplest of political tactics. He would bluster his way through problems, in much the same manner as some past British Trade Union leaders would. This led to mistakes, the effects of which required extreme manipulation to overcome. Mistakes were never corrected and principals lasted only as long as they were expedient. In short, Stalin had no principals and never owned to an error. Best example of that is in the way he eulogised Lenin, cannonised him, yet trampled on everything he stood for and the way in which he destroyed the Chinese revolution by insisting the Communist Party fuse with the Kuomintang. This catastrophic blunder, which cost the lives of a million or more communists at the hands of Chiang Kia Shek was compounded five years later when he ordered the Communist party to fuse with the Nazi party and destroy the SPD, during his "Third Period" madness. The headsman's axe fell on the neck of many good communist youth. The Spanish revolution was deliberately destroyed by Stalin. By the mid-'30s he realised that the thing which would most easily destroy him would be a successful revolution elsewhere. Trotsky would be proved right.

Power turned Stalin into a monster and his ghastly machinations turned the USSR from a democratic socialist state into almost the mirror image of the Nazi terror. It was complete in very detail, with Jackboots, whips, barbed wire, concentration camps and mass executions. It was a long gradual process, which began in 1927 when Stalin was freed from all criticism with the exile of the hated Trotsky and by 1934 it was complete.
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Re: Are the bad guys on the move again?

Post by Byron Angel »

Vic, Where do you get this stuff????? It is so contrary to the historical record as to defy belief. It is total illusion.

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Re: Are the bad guys on the move again?

Post by Vic Dale »

I can give you a few titles.

1903, The Minutes of the Second Congress of the RSDLP which gives a blow by blow account of the democratic struggles within the party and which mark the birth of Boleshvism. Lenin's stand against Bourgeois tendencies actually drew out all of the opposition to him and the things he stood for. He managed to convince a majority as to the need for Democratic Centralism as the organising principle for building a Revolutionary party. It should be remembered that all of the participants at that Congress were revolutionaries, some were ready for action and others just wanted to talk and pontificate. 1903 is the verbatim report of that congress.

Theses and Resolutions of the First Four Congresses of the Third International. Again this is a factual representation of the items under discussion and shows the manner in which Lenin made his appeals to workers internationally and won their support. Whether or not you agree with him it is impossible to fault his logic and the ability to spot the flaws in any chauvinistic arguments.

The Transitional Program For A Socialist Revolution. Here Trotsky lays out the formula for building an International movement for socialist change world wide and for opposition to the dictatorship of Stalin, which by 1938 was absolute. It is possible to detect the similarities in the style between Lenin and Trotsky. Again he makes his appeal through the democratic process. He offers his wares and people can take them or leave them.

The Case Of Leon Trotsky. In 1937 the philosopher John Dewey went to Mexico to conduct hearings into the charges made against Leon Trotksy at the "Bloody Confession" trials in Moscow. Trotsky was on the stand for seven days and was interrogated for eight hours at a time. In order that his message be heard he spoke in English, which is very far from his native language. Whether you agree or disagree with his view point it is a testimony to the consistency and veracity of his defence. The testimony and the cross examination are intense and tortuous and there can be no doubt that Trotsky was speaking the truth, because of the way in which the intricate parts dovetailed. No politician in history has matched that and he was happy to do it because he knew exactly what he was talking about. Each time he was referred back to earlier testimony in order to test him he picked up the thread easily and accounted for himself and his comrades thoroughly and truthfully.

In 1911, after the collapse of the 1905 revolution and the long years of reaction which followed, Lenin was exiled and in the whole of Russia could count on no more than a handful of people - not enough to fill two stage coaches. He accepted his minority position and began the task of rebuilding. He had been there before.

When Trotsky was asked why he did not use his powers as head of the Red Army to stop Stalin, he replied that all he would have achieved would be to change the name of the dictator. He knew he had the power but refused to use it even at the risk to his own life and the lives of his family because he believed in democracy.

I do not ask anyone here to accept or believe in the principles of revolution, that takes a special type. I would ask that you try to understand the difference between a democrat who means it and the democrats who see democracy simply as a means of elevating themselves above the masses for personal gain. Lenin and Trotsky were the ones who insisted that they be subject to short term recall and were subject to the continual scrutiny and control of the people they represented. They were true democrats.
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Re: Are the bad guys on the move again?

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..... Let's leave Trotsky aside; he's not germaine to my point. With respect to Lenin you need to step back a bit from the nicely sanitized philosophizing and pontification and take a close hard look at what Lenin actually DID in the real world. Democracy was only meaningful when conducted on Lenin's particular terms. Lenin "democratically out-voted" the Duma courtesy of a regiment of Latvian mercenaries. The Czar had already abdicated months before Lenin's return to St Petersburg, but that was not good enough for Lenin, who had the entire Romanov imperial family exterminated "for reasons of state". It was Lenin who created the Cheka before the end of 1917. It was Lenin who sent the Cheka death squads into the countryside all across Russia to murder and terrorize the populace: the inconvenient intellectual opposition, the Russian Orthodox priesthood, the masses of striking factory workers, the peasants who objected to having their livelihoods seized, the Whites and their sympathizers, then the vast numbers of their own disaffected soldiers who had been dragooned into the Red Army for the Civil War, then the Kronstadt sailors of the Russian Navy (who had long been a hotbed of opposition to the czarist regime but who had suddenly somehow become dupes of conniving czarist officers). This is the same Lenin who, decades earlier had quite openly advocated the use of indiscriminate terror to further his social and political ambitions. He supported the massively accelerated assassination bloodbath from 1905; after his assumption of power, his signature has been found on countless extermination lists.

Notable historical figure? Without question. Revolutionary? Most certainly with all that it implies. Democrat? Hardly - only after all those with outspoken opposing opinions had been exterminated, and the remainder properly cowed and queued for the Potemkin election.


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Re: Are the bad guys on the move again?

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Byron Angel wrote: Notable historical figure? Without question. Revolutionary? Most certainly with all that it implies. Democrat? Hardly - only after all those with outspoken opposing opinions had been exterminated, and the remainder properly cowed and queued for the Potemkin election.
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Yes indeed.

Not that disimilar to another infamous ''socialist'' and ''revolutionary' on his way too seizing power a little later on - Adolf Hitler.
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Re: Are the bad guys on the move again?

Post by Vic Dale »

The Romanovs were put down because they were about to be liberated by thew whites. Had their dog survived it would have been put at the head of the white forces and more revolutionary workers would have died trying to stop them wrecking the revolution. On balance, if one worker and his family could be saved by bumping off the Czar and his family then there is no question that the czar and his tribe should get it in the head. The worker produces something the czar never did.

As for the Duma. It was a puppet controlled by the czar and filled with his old cronies. The workers elected their own own government body the Soviets, which means Workers Council. In Britain today a worker's revolution would not be able to use the bourgeois state apparatus for working out it's day to day affairs, the trade Unions would be the the body and since it is the general strike which precedes the proletarian revolution, the body of government is already functioning and waiting to replace the old order. If workers took control of the country and established the trade unions as their body of government, it would the height of cheek for anyone to try and reintroduce parliamentary democracy.

Parliamentary democracy permits an election every five years. Trade union democracy permits elections every year, so which is the more democratic? Having got a taste for democracy, the workers would not be willing to let go of that.

As for the Cheka, I think that if a state found people embedded in society who were bent on it's destruction, then that state would be found wanting if it did not do it' s damnedest to round them up and put them behind bars. Lenin did not favour the death penalty, but given the number of terrorist attacks, he said that in the event a terrorist was sentenced to death by the workers courts that execution should not be carried out unless another outrage occurred. He too knew the value of not creating martyrs for the enemy cause.

The people Lenin was fighting were not the hapless innocents one might think, they were led by reactionary generals and admirals who had fastened on to ignorant peasant masses, whipping them to a reactionary blood lust, people they despised and had enslaved for so long. Hitler too used the peasant masses against workers organisations during the nazi terror of the '30s.
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Re: Are the bad guys on the move again?

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Vic Dale wrote:The Romanovs were put down because they were about to be liberated by thew whites. Had their dog survived it would have been put at the head of the white forces and more revolutionary workers would have died trying to stop them wrecking the revolution. On balance, if one worker and his family could be saved by bumping off the Czar and his family then there is no question that the czar and his tribe should get it in the head. The worker produces something the czar never did.

As for the Duma. It was a puppet controlled by the czar and filled with his old cronies. The workers elected their own own government body the Soviets, which means Workers Council. In Britain today a worker's revolution would not be able to use the bourgeois state apparatus for working out it's day to day affairs, the trade Unions would be the the body and since it is the general strike which precedes the proletarian revolution, the body of government is already functioning and waiting to replace the old order. If workers took control of the country and established the trade unions as their body of government, it would the height of cheek for anyone to try and reintroduce parliamentary democracy.

Parliamentary democracy permits an election every five years. Trade union democracy permits elections every year, so which is the more democratic? Having got a taste for democracy, the workers would not be willing to let go of that.

As for the Cheka, I think that if a state found people embedded in society who were bent on it's destruction, then that state would be found wanting if it did not do it' s damnedest to round them up and put them behind bars. Lenin did not favour the death penalty, but given the number of terrorist attacks, he said that in the event a terrorist was sentenced to death by the workers courts that execution should not be carried out unless another outrage occurred. He too knew the value of not creating martyrs for the enemy cause.

The people Lenin was fighting were not the hapless innocents one might think, they were led by reactionary generals and admirals who had fastened on to ignorant peasant masses, whipping them to a reactionary blood lust, people they despised and had enslaved for so long. Hitler too used the peasant masses against workers organisations during the nazi terror of the '30s.

..... You clearly have developed a real addiction to the Kool-Aid of the Left. The workers and peasants were the purported raison d'etre of the Bolshevik movement, until the factory workers decided to go on strike and the peasants complained too loudly about having their crops confiscated; then they rapidly morphed from raisons d'etre to counter-revolutionary enemies of the people. Likewise, when the sailors of Kronstadt complained that the Workers and Peasants Soviets were no longer reflecting the will of those they purported to represent, bingo - they too become enemies of the people and were summarily listed for extermination. All opponents of the Left are indiscriminately demonized, then every act perpetrated against them, no matter how heinous, becomes conveniently justifiable because it is declared to be done for "the good of the masses". Lenin and his Cheka chain-dogs didn't just put people behind bars, as you so carefully put it. They practiced indiscriminate mass terror and murder on an industrial scale far beyond anything ever perpetrated by any tsarist regime - something you take colossal pains to avoid acknowledging - all in the name of seizing and maintaining political power to pursue their irrational utopian communist dream. People of such a nature, prepared to commit any and every conceivable atrocity "for our own good", are the most terrifying individuals on earth to me. Case in point - Bill Ayres and Bernardine Dohrn, who quite matter of factly discussed the need to exterminate about 25 million American citizens after "the takeover" in order to re-orient public attitudes toward their new dream regime. Such creatures are cut from the very same ideological cloth as your hero, V I Lenin. I find such attitudes ethically indigestible and categorically incompatible with any notion of humanity.

Five year elections versus annual elections - which is more "democratic??? = an utterly irrational and nonsensical question groping for an emotional response. Why not ask whether hourly elections or thirty second elections are "more democratic" than annual elections? If you REALLY want to make elections more "democratic", offer those who disagree with your agenda an opportunity to vote upon it.

Labor unions as a replacement for prudent civil government? Only in the fevered imagination of a fanatical revolutionary fixated upon overthrowing the existing order and casting about for some sort of pro tem replacement "authority". One might as well ask the local football team. The very idea is so profoundly stupid as to defy belief.


This is my last post on this topic. Have a nice day.


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