I would agree with that! It really speaks to the power of the doctrinal system that people can believe that Lenin was a murderer, much less a mass murderer.
It is important to point out, I think, that the various posters in this thread are not idle observers, but have taken a side on the Russian Civil War. Not one person has so much as made a token condemnation of the imperialist intervention in Russia, which, as I have pointed out to no effect, was the sole reason for the massive loss of life. In other words, those who condemn Lenin are really taking the side of the White Guards. And, whatever you think of Bolshevik actions during the war, it is beyond doubt that the White Guards were orders of magnitude more brutal.
You all are, in effect, taking the side of the Entente powers, taking the side of the Japanese, British, French and American invaders, along with the nine other capitalist states that gave material support to the White Guards.
A point to note is that workers around the world knew instinctively what side the Bolsheviks were on. Were it not for British and American workers refusing to load war munitions, and the agitation against the intervention, the Bolsheviks probably would have lost.
You are taking the side of the pogromist generals who wanted to wipe out the workers’ institutions, slaughter all the communists, and re-institute the monarchy. You are solidarizing with Kolchak, Denikin, Kornilov, et.al. At least have the integrity to be open about your allegiance.
As I browsed back through this thread, I noticed a few things. The first is that nobody has attempted to defend the ludicrous charge that the Bolsheviks were responsible for the famine in the Volga. This is probably wise on the part of the anti-Bolsheviks, since it obviously a monstrous position to take. The war took every last resource of the state just in fighting to defend itself. Added to this was a drought in the Volga which led to a massive famine. The Bolsheviks tried desperately to deal with the situation, but there was little they could do, fighting off an invasion, surrounded by hostile powers, under siege. It was the imperialists who used the famine as a weapon.
In addition, the fact that people were executed during a civil war hardly amounts to mass murder. Communists are against the death penalty except for this one situation, because during a civil war imprisonment is no deterrent, as each side expects to win. The Bolsheviks did carry out summary executions, as every army has done. Those who claim that the Bolsheviks were more brutal than other armies on this score simply don’t know anything about war.
It seems to me that the only plausible charge of murder that can be levelled at the bolsheviks is regarding the Red Terror. On this score, conflicting numbers have been put forward. The spartacus site gives figures of between 800 and 6,300 executions were carried out during the terror. Rummell gives as a “low” figure 1,800,000, an obvious falsification. Even if legitimate figures for the red terror are given, and these are counted as crimes, it hardly makes Lenin into a mass murderer on the scale of a Pol Pot or George Bush.
What was the Red Terror? The spartacus site actually gives a partially truthful account. It was the result of sabateurs and counter-revolutionary forces waging their own campaigns of terror against the workers and revolutionary soldiers. The spartacus site, though, laughably refers to the people killed as “socialists.” In fact, these “socialists” had gone over to the side of the White Guard quite openly fighting for bourgeois power. The Bolsheviks were compelled to resort to repressive measures.
Here is the thing–Marxists are honest. We call things by their right names. When a Marxist is carrying out a campaign of terror against the enemy, she says so, straight up. When we say we want to bring the working class to power, we say straight up that this is the dictatorship of the proletariat. On the other hand, when the imperialists carry out their own campaigns of terror, be it in Nicaragua, Vietnam, Congo, Angola, Korea, and around the world, they call it “counter-insurgency,” or “resistance,” or “pacification,” or anything except for what it actually is. When the U.S. was slaughtering Vietnamese peasants, for example, and herding them into concentration camps, they called the camps “strategic hamlets,” and put signs over the gates reading “welcome to freedom.”
Communists are opposed to individual terror. When carried out by individuals, it only tends to isolate the working class and accrue more repressive powers to the state. When the working class comes to power, however, it must use its position to inspire fear in the defeated enemy.
I certainly wouldn’t justify wanton terror used to pacify an entire population. But, when it is used in the service of the revolutionary working class, and is aimed at the exploiters, then it is fully justified.
