The posts of the WWI vs WWII thread inspired this…
Okay, one thing I’ve noticed is that people tend to view Lenin under a more favorable light nowadays because they are comparing him to Stalin.
Which isn’t a good idea-the ONLY thing Lenin didn’t do was kill fellow Bolsheviks.
A few facts:
Lenin’s older brother, Alexander Ulyanov, was hanged for a failed assassination plot against Tsar Alexander III. (perhaps Lenin had a grudge against Nicholas II for the fact that Nicky’s father hanged Lenin’s brother).
Lenin was known as a bully even in his early childhood to his younger brothers and sisters. Yeah, that may be a stretch, but I guess I just felt like pointing it out.
Lenin wasn’t even IN Russia when the Revolution started-he was in exile in Germany. The Revolution was started by peasant riots because of a food and fuel shortage, due to the war. Nicholas was forced to abdicate in favor of his brother, Mikhail, who abdicated in favor of the Provisional Government, under Alexander Kerensky.
Lenin seized power in October of 1917. He had been sent back to Russia by the Germans who wanted him to reek havoc with the country-because then Russia would be too distracted to fight the war.
D’oh! This probably should go in Great Debates…sorry!
(thought I WAS in Great Debates).
Some other points while I’m at it:
Lenin was not a peasant or a worker. He was a member of the bourgeoisie, which he claimed to hate-his father was a hereditary nobleman.
Lenin started the gulags and the man-made famines.
Right, like Nicholas II had completely clean hands. Aleksandr Ul’ianov wasn’t the only one hung for his political actions or sentiments.
Which is why they all enjoyed close and warm personal relationships with each other throughout their lives. :rolleyes:
To quote Lyndon Johnson: “And therefore, what?”
Which ultimately failed to deliver on any of its promises, most importantly the one to withdraw from the war. Popular sentiment was already beginning to swing against the Kerensky government by the time Lenin arrived back in Russia.
**
Didn’t you just say Russia was already experiencing
Sounds like the havoc was already present to me. As for fighting the war, the soldiers had been deserting the front for most of 1917, if not parts of 1916 as well. The majority of the population was against the war long before Lenin came on the scene and, as I mentioned before, they were dissatisfied with the Kerensky government’s reversal on its position of ending the war.
Lenin didn’t seize power. The Bolsheviks were given power by a working populace that hated the Tsar and no longer believed or trusted the Kerensky government.
Well, I felt that you were choosing one historical figure and dumping on him. I suppose there’s nothing wrong with that, it just came at me out of the blue.
What would you think if I started ranting about Ralph Waldo Emerson…I hear he was a drunk!…or Joan of Arc…she drowned a kitten once!…or Socrates…he beat his wife!
Looking at your UserName, I guess you have strong feelings about Tsar Nicholas II and his family. All right, fine…but I kinda admire Lenin, and I certainly have a lot of sympathy for his political positions and respect for his philosophy. So I thought I’d mock a Fascist just to keep things on an even keel.
That’s a great quote. Where’d you get that from, or more specifically, what did Johnson say that in response to?
Well, I think that’s an understatement, just as Guinastasia’s was an overstatement; the populace turned towards the Communists after the miserable failure of the Kerensky government and the rightist counter-coup (who the hell was that? Dammit, I need to hide my reference books somewhere in my desk at work); when the Mensheviks dithered and discussed, the Bolsheviks said, “Fuck this, we know what needs to get done” and pushed the Mensheviks out.
So, yes, Lenin seized power (though it was more Trotsky’s work) in pushing the Mensheviks out of the government; but by that time, the populace strongly supported the Bolsheviks (due to their anti-war, pro-bread political campaign).
I have no admiration for Lenin’s political philosophy, and I don’t know much about him as a person, but I do know what the facts were and distortion doesn’t help my fascist… er, Republican side at all.
Actually, the Bolsheviks were in the minority.
Nicholas’s regime pales in comparision to Lenin’s. And NICHOLAS didn’t hang Ulyanov, his FATHER did. Most people were exiled in Sibera during Nicholas’s time. And back then, exile in Siberia was not so bad-read the chapter Two Revolutionaries in Robert K. Massie’s Nicholas and Alexandra.
As far as the Kerensky government, I agree, I did throw in some overstatments…probably because it’s so long and complicated.
Although, I believe most people just wanted:
A parliament (Duma) responsible to the people
A constitution
Alexandra and her family to go to the Crimea for the rest of the war.
Possibly for Nicholas to abdicate in favor of his son, Alexei.
Rasputin out of the way
Yes, they wanted out of the war, but NOT the way Lenin went about it.
The right wing coup, was supposedly down by…oh, shit, what’s his name-Kornilov? Don’t quote me on that. It wasn’t necessarily a coup, but Kerensky was in over his head, trying to placate the Petrograd Soviet.
BTW, I’m pretty much a die hard liberal, but even I don’t like Lenin one bit. I think this is a prime example of how people tend to recolor things.
One thing to remember-Lenin didn’t give a shit about the people. He used them for his own aims. Whatever your opinion of Nicky and Kerensky, both were patriotic.
Lenin is the one who outlawed all religion and persecuted against all the priests.
I understand you like his ideas, but come on! I’m not just saying this because of my admiration for Nicholas. Please!
Ya big goof! Eto bu-dyet po-sled-nii i reshi-tel-ny boi…
John Corrado, I heard the story about it nigh on to ten years ago and the details are hazy. It may have been something about discussing escalation in Vietnam and is probably apocryphal. Hell, say I came up with it if you like. I’ve never been quoted before.
OK, back to the thread.
The right-wing coup (about which it was said that had it succeeded, ‘fascism’ would have been a Russian word) was indeed organized by Kornilov. Kerensky actually collaborated on it almost up until the day it was supposed to occur, when he realized that more than likely he would end up on the business end of the reactionaries’ bayonets alongside the revolutionaries he was trying to crush.
I an well aware that Aleksandr III hung Lenin’s older brother, not Nikolai II but my statement remains the same. The Tzars were a bloody-minded lot who were no cleaner than the picture you paint of Lenin.
Originally posted by Guinastasia
I am neither a liberal nor a patriot, so there goes that attempt at shaming me into renouncing Lenin.
As far as the matter of religion goes, the Russian state and the Eastern Orthodox Church were so closely tied it would have given any self-respecting card-carrying ACLU liberal fits. The priests weren’t ‘caught in the crossfire’, they benefited from the unity of church and state and weren’t about to let their cushy position disappear without a fight.
Lenin was a murderer and a thug. He instituted one-party control over the country, by killing anarchists and other opposition party members and closing all opposition publications, and by eventually banning all factions of the communist party.
He crushed the first worker’s revolts and executed the leaders.
He started the Gulag system, using trumped-up charges to convict dissenters and use them for slave labor. He was a proponent of using heavily publicised ‘show’ trials of dissenters, complete with death penalty, to keep the populace in line.
At the time of his death, he had become a dictator, in violation of his own earlier principles.
Before somebody drags my statements about the NEP in here and brands me a Leninite, I want to say that Lenin was a bad person but that Stalin was worse. Hell, nobody in memory can compare to Stalin. Stalin was worse than Hitler, if you reckon up bodies. Stalin also lived longer. Psychologically, the two were similar. But Lenin got it going. Lenin was not opposed to using force to further his political ends. Not to get preachy, but idealists need to be very strongly grounded in reality before they get a leadership role. If they aren’t, people die when the leaders determine the ends justify the means. BTW, I still think the NEP was a step in the right direction for Russia and I wish Lenin had gotten to pick a successor to continue down that road.
I didn’t mean to say that Lenin was as bad or worse than Stalin. No, he wasn’t. But that doesn’t make what he did any better.
Actually, Lenin wanted Leon Trotsky to be his sucessor.
And Olentzero-so, in order for Lenin to break up the power of the church, he banned ALL religion? (Jews, Muslims, Catholics, Protestants, etc?) That gave him the right to exploit the peasants, destroy churches and priceless historical artifacts and to murder priests and nuns?
To throw clergy and nuns down mine shafts and toss a few hand grenades in?
Religion wasn’t banned. The Soviet Union was created as an atheist state, which means that it allowed no official or governmental ties to any organized church.
Moreover, the intent was to remove the officiality of Christianity as state religion and allow greater freedom of worship to minority religions within Russia.
And let’s get some primary sources in if you’re going to accuse Lenin of throwing clergy down mineshafts accompanied by hand grenades. I know you don’t mean Lenin did this personally (although I entertain doubts about this). I mean, give me sources where you’ve read or seen Bolsheviks making statements that “we, in the capacity as members of the ruling political organization of Russia, did this to the clergy.” Or statements from witnesses.
You want to quote authors who wrote about Russians like Pipes or Hedrick Smith, give me the sources they used to substantiate their charges.
Okay, fine. I’m in the midst of trying to find the instances of clergy being assassinated, through any means. (I just used mines and grenades as an example.)
*As for finding the original sources, I will do my best, however, knowing what the Bolshies were like, it is highly doubtful they admitted it.
BTW, Lenin was the one behind the famous Red Terror of approx. 1918-1924. (officially 1918-1920, I believe).
As for Lenin, I’m looking up the instances in my History Q and A book, as well as The Fall of the Dynasties by Edmund Taylor. As well as looking up sites about the Orthodox church and Lenin. http://www.russian-orthodox-church.org.ru/hist_en.htm
Here might be a good one.
Okay, a few things: Why didn’t Kerensky pull out of the war?
Well, for one thing, there was TREMENDOUS pressure on the Russians from the other Allied powers, most notably Britain and the US. Russia was suffering EXTREME financial hardship at that time, and the Allies made it clear:
“No war, no loans”. Also, there was also a feeling of keeping their honor, in their promise to the Allies, and they also had to FIND a way to get peace. Lenin’s idea, of peace at any cost, HORRIFIED most Russians. To them, Brest-Litovsk was a disgrace.
Also, for most people, Lenin and his gang were too extreme.
According to Taylor, Lenin addressed the PG with the idea that the first act of the Bolsheviks would be to hang about 50 to 100 capitalists. Kerensky then replied, (and recieved applause from other people present) “You Bolsheviks, what are you? Socialists, or police of the old regime?” (Taylor, 295). And don’t get the idea that Kerensky was a rightest and that the Kornilov thing was his rightest coup or whatever. Kerensky was actually a Socialist Republican, I THINK(as far as that being the party he belonged to), and he had many socialist ideas. He himself abolished the death penalty in Russia. He only reluctantly agreed to put it back when Kornilov insisted. (at least in the army).
He saw that Kornilov was, by Kerensky’s standards, too authoritarian. Kornilov was supposedly planning a military coup, and Kerensky unfortunately had to ask the Petrograd Soviet for help. (And the Bolsheviks). That was a disaster.
(BTW, my information might be a little off, since I’m in a hurry right at this moment, but I can assure you I will continue my research!)
http://lcweb.loc.gov/exhibits/archives/eara.html
And if you think I’m just biased in favor of Nicholas, let me tell you something: I freely acknowledge that Nicky was an inadequate and unfit ruler. HOWEVER…as a PERSON, he was without a doubt, a good man, religious, compassionate, a an exceptional husband and father, kind, loyal, and honorable.
His faults lay in that he tended to be shy and unsure of himself.
Here’s some more stuff I’m just pulling from the net.
(Hijack-since Russian history is my major, I just LOVE to debate it…and it’s not just because of Nikolai II.)
speaking of, while Nicky may not have been a great ruler, why was it okay for Lenin to order the execution of the entire family, including Nicky’s son and DAUGHTERS, who really were innocent victims?
If the above were actually true, we’d have trouble explaining how it was that the elections to Russia’s Constituent Assembly, roughly contemporaneous with the Bolshevik coup, ended up NOT giving power to Lenin, but instead delivering a solid plurality to the Socialist Revolutionaries, a populist / pro-peasant party.
Why hasn’t anyone mentioned the freely-elected Constituent Assembly, which was supposed to write a new Constitution for Russia? Because Lenin and the Bolsheviks closed it down by force rather than surrender their monopoly on power to the SRs.
Saying that Lenin wasn’t as bad as Stalin is like saying that Saddam Hussein isn’t as bad as Hitler. Sure, it’s true. But all four are totalitarian dictators who kill, torture, and jail the opposition without a second thought. Yes, it is worse to kill 6 million people rather than 600,000 people. But, ahem, killing 600,000 people still puts you in the “History’s Greatest Monsters” hall of fame.