The mental image is bad enough, thanks. :rolleyes:
Olentzero, your ‘refutation’ of Lenin’s own murderous orders boiled down to little more than, “You have to break some eggs to make an omelette.”
In fact, what really disturbed me about your ‘defense’ is that it looks and smells exactly like the very defense used by despots throughout the world, peppered with historical distortions (all the enemies of the state were foreigners and former members of the opressive classes) and class hatred.
You simply cannot ignore the fact that the people WERE rising up against the bolsheviks. The whole farce of ‘war communism’ was cooked up after the population began to rebel against the new decrees in massive numbers, forcing Lenin to withdraw many of them. The NEP that followed was not Lenin mellowing out and being kinder, it was Lenin being smart enough to recognize that he had screwed the economy so badly and killed so many people that he was in danger of losing power without some kind of reforms.
Lenin personally wrote orders that directly resulted in the exterminations of tens of thousands of people, and indirectly led to the starvation of millions. He was a monster.
Your defense of him makes you no better than the modern Nazis who go around denying the holocaust and claiming that Hitler was really misunderstood.
Would it be easier on the boards if I skipped the meltdown and just went straight to being banned? :rolleyes:
Look, I?ve been a revolutionary for a good fifteen years. Marxism makes sense to me, and having read a fair amount on the Russian Revolution, I see something positive in what they originally strove to create; I also believe I have a good understanding of what went wrong beyond simply howling ?Lenin was a monster and he laid the path for Stalin?.
Obviously some people believe I?m unable to adequately defend my views. Such is life. I certainly didn?t join this message board convinced I was going to convert “the unwashed” to revolutionary socialism. But it would be wrong to say the vitriol that gets poured out every single time the subject is brought up rolls off me like water off a duck?s back.
I like Magdalene as a poster and, like her, I feel we know each other somewhat personally since we attended Georgetown at the same time. Which is why her original post in this thread, seemingly coming out of nowhere, stung a lot more that she probably intended it to. Already sufficiently irritated by the usual junk I?m all too familiar with, I lost my temper. My attack was personal and a big mistake. I screwed up.
Magdalene, I?m sorry.
I, for one, would like to know of any truly socialist or communist state that did not abuse its power, either in trying to gain it or maintain it without killing or denying any of its citizens rights of human expression as defined by organisations such as Amnesty International, the European Convention on Human Rights, or the UN council for human rights.
If such a socitey existed I bet it was soon eaten up by the forces of frustration within itself.
I am not able to think of any state where equality truly exists or is even desirable, why the hell should a professor expect to be rewarded the same as a burger flipper.
That’s better. And I agree about the original, or at least public, intentions of the revolution and would have felt screwed when it went south. And I would’ve probably shot the Romanovs, too, if I had been unable to coöpt them. I mean, encourage them to emmigrate if I couldn’t persuade them to join in the rebuilding of the country in a positive manner. (whew! that was close!) They were in the way.
What? Revolutions are supposed to be pretty? Everybody’s supposed to say, “Yeah, you’re right. We really should share better?” This ain’t “Sesame Street.”
But Lenin did turn out to be a jerk. And should have poisoned Stalin when he had the chance. I mean, persuaded him to be nicer.
Ooh, Godwin’s Law twice in one thread! So do I win the argument by default?
I’m not sure Godwin’s Law applies to discussions of Major Dictators of the 20th Century.
Even if Trotsky completely opposed fascism?
Man, you guys are a tough bunch.
Well, Lenin himself supported something like that.
BTW, according to my professor, Bolshevism and Nazism-the way that the control of the people was carried out-were very similar. And he should know-he lived there for about 40 years maybe?
I believe the classical formulation of Godwin’s Law is that whoever makes the first comparison to Hitler or the Nazis loses the debate by default. But, in a discussion of MDot20C, comparisons to Hitler are inevitable:
“Lenin wasn’t as bad as Hitler.”
“Lenin was nothing like Hitler!”
“Lenin was worse than Hitler!”
“Lenin wasn’t as brutal as Hitler, but he was more brutal than Atatürk.”
And so on.
Obviously you’re not convinced that Stalinism is not Bolshevism. And it’s apparent that I’m not going to be able to convince you of even that, since you’re not willing to take my arguments into consideration.
Well, I guess that about fucking wraps it up, doesn’t it?
Olent:
No. We’re not even. And, if you were looking to find an example of my prickishness, you chose poorly or else you don’t recall the rest of the story.
Anyway, I’m glad to see you had the class to offer Magdalene an apology.
Nor do you seem to be interested in anyone else’s.
Lenin advocated most everything that Stalin did-the only thing Lenin didn’t do was to kill fellow communists, IIRC.
Irrelevant. According to Olentzero:
…and…
(edit where italicized for context)
I am. But the whole point of a debate, unless I’m entirely unclear on the concept, is to take another person’s arguments, try to point out where the faultly reasoning and/or assertions are, and try to clarify positions.
Have I not been doing that - instead just asserting “Lenin was not a monster” over and over, like it seems you have been doing? I’m curious.
I mean, of course, in my original thread in GD, not here in the Pit.
Oh, by the way, Scylla, what else besides the regrettable magdalene flame do you find despicable about my behavior here? Just curious.
I mean, of course, in my original thread in GD, not here in the Pit.
Prophecy fulfilled. Nice picture, by the way, Olentzero. Very classy.
Note: This post was made in my role persona of a free-market capitalist. It is not to be construed as an opinion of the SD or the SD staff.
If you’ll permit me to qualify after the fact, that was the only thing that qualified as “despicable” in my book.
My statement implied their were other despicable things as well, but that was not accurate writing on my part. Despicable is a pretty strong word, and while I think you’ve exercised poor judgement in addressing the criticism in this thread, and poor judgement in what let up to its creation, I don’t find that despicable.
Would you mind showing me what other Marxists I’m arguing with in this thread?
Glad your hat was off, UncleBeer. I was hoping it wasn’t too much to rouse the wrath of the Mods.
Innovators are always heaped with scorn. Is this or is this not the Pit? While I certainly do not defend one particular action in this thread, what’s the beef with returning the favor when someone heaps opprobrium on you?
Why is it that only the Mods are able to differentiate between the Pit and GD? If this were a Great Debates thread, Scylla, I would agree with you. This is the Pit: “If you gotta flame, do it here.” Sam gotta flame. I gotta flame. This is where it’s at, baby.
In creating the thread itself? Or in other aspects?