Sunday, November 19, 2017

Not Mr Nice Guy

Lenin, Comrade Lenin, wasn't very successful with dealing with Stalin was he?
How many people did Lenin murder?
1920 - By the end of the year the White Russians have been defeated. Between one and two million middle and upper-class Russians have fled the country. About two million Red and White army soldiers have died from violence or disease. Both armies have engaged in massive human rights abuses, including the execution of large numbers of suspected enemies. [aka innocent people or at worst: ...people.]


About two million civilians have died during the war. They are soon joined by millions of others as the severe 'War Communism' polices introduced by Lenin during the conflict begin to bite.

Industry has been nationalised and placed under the control of administrators in Moscow. Workers' committees have been replaced by expert managers. [Crooks or morons obviously] The requisitioning of grain to feed the cities has led to famine in the countryside. Between 1921 and 1922 about five million Russians starve to death.

Industrial production has fallen. Inflation is on the rise. Freedom of speech has been curtailed. The promise of government by elected soviets has been betrayed. New discontent begins to brew.

Late in 1920, industrial workers start to strike and peasants begin to rise.

1921 - In February, sailors at the naval base at Kronshtadt (near Petrograd) rebel and is quickly put down, signals the Communists their policies need loosening. [loosening? WTF?]

Lenin argues for a New Economic Policy to wind back some of the measures introduced during the Civil War. The requisitioning of grain is halted and peasants are allowed to dispose of their produce as they wish. Small-scale industry is denationalised. The policy works. Industry and agriculture stabilise and recover. Standards of living improve. [To what extent are they thriving under cronyism and draconianism?] Here it comes:.....>

1922 - A period of political consolidation now begins. Potential rivals to the Communists are exiled. Lenin denounces the formation of factions within the Communist Party. Local soviets are brought to heal. The party is purged of its less committed members.

The Vecheka is abolished early in the year. It is replaced by the State Political Directorate (Gosudarstvennoe Politicheskoe Pravlenie - GPU) and integrated into the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs (Narodnyi Komissariat Vnutrennykh Del - NKVD). The NKVD is the forerunner of the KGB and will become infamous as the chief prosecutor of Joseph Stalin's reign of terror during the 1930s.

Lenin suffers a stroke on 26 May. A troika (triumvirate) composed of Stalin, Lev B. Kamenev and Grigorii V. Zinoviev assumes leadership. [Hurrah!]

Lenin recovers after three months and reasserts control. [Yahh.... Boo! Sucks!] On 15 December he suffers a second stroke. [Hurrah!]

On 30 December the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), a union of the Russian, Belarusian, Ukrainian and Transcaucasian republics, is established. While the constituent states have a degree of cultural autonomy, political authority resides in Moscow.

1923 - In letters that come to be known as his 'Last Testament', Lenin cautions the Communists about the danger of factions within the party "acquiring excessive importance" and precipitating a split. Lenin says that relations between Stalin and Trotsky present the greatest risk and that the party should take steps to avert any unexpected "indiscretion."

"Comrade Stalin, having become general secretary, has unlimited authority concentrated in his hands, and I am not sure whether he will always be capable of using that authority with sufficient caution," [Do you really think that?]

"Stalin is too rude and this defect, although quite tolerable in our midst and in dealing among us Communists, becomes intolerable in a general secretary. [Oh dear!]

"That is why I suggest the comrades think about a way of removing Stalin from that post and appointing another man in his stead who in all other respects differs from Comrade Stalin in having only one advantage, namely, that of being more tolerant, more loyal, more polite, and more considerate to the comrades, less capricious, etc.., [which comradwa, were Comradwiies?]

"This circumstance may appear to be a negligible detail. But I think ... it is not a detail, or it is a detail which can assume decisive importance."
However, the party takes no action. Stalin remains as General Secretary. [aka Tzar?]


Things get worse:

Lenin also criticises Stalin for using coercion to force non-Russian republics to join the Soviet Union, saying he has behaved like a "vulgar Great-Russian bully."

"I think that Stalin's haste and his infatuation with pure administration, together with his spite against the notorious 'nationalist-socialism' played a fatal role here," Lenin writes. "In politics spite generally plays the basest of roles."

The Testament also points to the need for an overhaul of the state bureaucracy.

"We took over the old machinery of state from the tsar and the bourgeoisie and that now, with the onset of peace [there is no peace] and the satisfaction of the minimum requirements against famine, all our work must be directed towards improving the administrative machinery," Lenin writes.

On 9 March Lenin suffers a third stroke that leaves him without the ability to speak. [Hurrah!]

1924 - Lenin dies from a fourth stroke on 21 January 1924 at Gorki, near Moscow. Hip Hip Hurrah!

http://www.moreorless.net.au/killers/lenin.html
Lenin the legacy:

We took over the old machinery of state from the Tsar and the bourgeoisie and that now, with the onset of peace, there is no peace...

But that never stopped Winston Churchill and Theodore Roosevelt from kissing Stalin's arse.


After a lifetime, to everyone's rejoicing Lenin's statue is toppled. Then it all starts again. Nobody not even the KGB has or had any idea how many people were killed.

What will the new system be like?
We can only assume it is not going to be as bad as it is now. But until wee find out what choice do we have?
We can choose death or existence if you call life as it is known these days existence.

Consider what can happen in Britain under Queen Elizabeth:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/291687724625094/permalink/356174854843047/

At least she is not Prince Andrew.

No comments:

Post a Comment