this post was submitted on 01 Mar 2026
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What are you referencing? Even in the most anti communist historical interpretations the vast amount of deaths are usually attributed to Stalin, not Lenin.
If we're talking about the holodomor..... That began in 1932, roughly 8 years after Lenin had already died.
I'm not claiming that there aren't any valid criticisms of the Russian revolution, however I think attributing all that criticism to Lenin is just historically inaccurate.
We also have to view history within the context of their own time when evaluating things like social morality. Was the Soviet revolution devoid of crimes against humanity, no. But I think it would be hard to argue that it wasn't a vast improvement compared to the literal tyrannical rule of the Romanov family.
Lenin is responsible for a huge amount of deaths during the revolution, during the civil war and after. This whole story of "Lenin was good and then Stalin corrupted the revolution" is actually rooted in the propaganda of Khrushchevs destalinisation. But if you read a good biography of Lenin, you will find out that was totally fine with all the political murders
I would say that the Romanov are the party who are largely responsible for the deaths during the revolution. Some kind of revolution was going to happen in Russia, and just reducing all the blame on Lenin ignores the context of the actual fractious nature of the revolution.
Again, I didn't say he was a nice guy. My claim was that it's straight up ahistorical to claim he murdered 9 million people.
What is a revolution if not a collection of political murders? Again, we have to view the revolution with context and measure them against their contemporaries. It's not as if the revolution happened to a ruling government that was unfamiliar with political murders themselves.
Would you like to remind me what kind of mass violence there was between February and October in 1917
Would you like to remind me what provisional government and elected legislature the Bolsheviks actually performed their revolution against?
My claim didn't say that the Bolsheviks didn't engage in mass violence..... Are you claiming that the Russian revolution can be boiled down to between February and October in 1917?
I was more referring to the Romanov history of utilizing secret police to do horrific amounts of violence.
No, your claim was that it wasn't the Bolsheviks who caused mass violence, despite the Bolsheviks being the entirely-unprompted trigger for the actual civil war after Russians had seemed content to decide things through democratic elections.
Okay, but the problem is that the Bolsheviks didn't revolt against the Tsar, but against the provisional government.
"I would say that the Romanov are the party who are largely responsible for the deaths during the revolution. "
The Bolsheviks anger didn't build in a vacuum, nor did it happen in 6 odd months the provisional government exists. That's ignoring over a hundred years of context.
Yeah. Again, would you like to remind me what power the Romanovs had when the Bolsheviks decided to start a civil war against a democratic government?
When the Bolsheviks triggered the civil war, what was the Romanov role in that? Existing while under house arrest?
I'm sure you have GREAT context for rebelling against a government that was born in a revolution and existed for a few months before the Bolsheviks decided they preferred to take power by force and dismiss democratically elected socialist legislators.
Again..... 6 months does not wipe away over a hundred years of history. The general public's lives did not significantly improve in less than a year.
Are you arguing that the Romanov family are completely disconnected from the Bolsheviks revolution?
Creating the environment in which it happened....?
Why did the Bolsheviks exist in the first place? How did they gather soo much support in such a small amount of time? Why were people still so angry....?
Oh, of course, thus making it completely understandable to coup a democratic government and start a civil war.
I'm arguing that the Bolshevik decision to start a civil fucking war with the government which replaced the Romanovs has very fucking little to do with the Romanovs, yes.
Because they believed in a narrow vanguard party that could be easily controlled by a small elite which would TOTALLY work for the people?
By vague platitudes and the promise of power to the Soviets; a promise they immediately reneged on?
Because their lives hadn't improved in six months, as you said?
When did I claim it was?
I think that's a reductionist view of the times.
They didn't majic their way into power..... They had an awful lot of miserable people with generations of anger behind them. Why did those people support the Bolsheviks?
I don't really think we're getting anywhere, especially when you are busy tilting at strawman arguments. I never said I supported the Bolsheviks revolution against the provincial government, just that I understand how it could happen, and that the environment created by generations of Romanov rule is largely to blame.
The simple fact that you aren't willing to acknowledge that is too far of a stretch for me to really validate engaging with you in any kind of reasonable debate.
Have a good one.
This you, buddy?
"It's reductionist to view the party which kicked off the civil war by couping the democratically elected government as kicking off the civil war 😭😭😭😭😭"
Does boot leather really taste that good?
Did you not fucking read the comment you're replying to?
lmao. You know that your comments are still up and readable, right?
Your argument quite literally started with "You can't really blame the Bolsheviks for the civil war, and besides, the government they rebelled against was no saint!", and when it was pointed out that the Bolsheviks were to blame for the civil war in the most literal, direct sense of causing a civil war, and that the government they actually rebelled against was the provisional government that actually rebelled against the Romanovs, you balk and try to backtrack.
Fuck off, tankie.
Maybe just do not try to downplay soviet crimes? They were not nice guys, they murdered a lot ot people and we really should not discuss about how many millions were slaughtered. Lenin was not a good man.
usually, claims to Lenin are about anarchists in a Finnish port
https://www.lavanguardia.com/historiayvida/historia-contemporanea/20210228/6259751/lenin-marineros-kronstadt.html
First of all, I don't really know of anyone calling Konstadt rebellion to be led by anarchist. They were ardent communist who became disillusioned over time due to poor working conditions.
Secondly, out of the 15k men who held the fort, it's thought that around 10k escaped to Finland during the fighting, all while killing around 10k soldiers of the red army.
I don't really think this really fits within the scope of the argument that Lenin murdered 9 million people.
Demands of the Kronstadt Rebellion
1. In view of the fact that the present soviets do not express the will of the workers and peasants, immediately to hold new elections by secret ballot, with freedom to carry on agitation beforehand for all workers and peasants. 2. To give freedom of speech and press to workers and peasants, to anarchists and left socialist parties. 3. To secure freedom of assembly for trade unions and peasant organisations. 4. To call a non-party conference of the workers, Red Army soldiers and sailors of Petrograd, Kronstadt and Petrograd province, no later than 10 March 1921. 5. To liberate all political prisoners of socialist parties, as well as workers, peasants, soldiers and sailors imprisoned in connection with the labour and peasant movements. 6. To elect a commission to review the cases of those being held in prisons and concentration camps. 7. To abolish all political departments, since no party should be given special privileges in the propagation of its ideas or receive the financial support of the state for such purposes. Instead, cultural and educational commissions should be established, locally elected and financed by the State. 8. To remove all road block detachments immediately. 9. To equalise the rations of all working people, with the exception of those employed in trades detrimental to health. 10. To abolish the Communist fighting detachments in all branches of the army, as well as the Communist guards kept on duty in factories and mills. Should such guard attachments be found necessary, they are to be appointed in the army from the ranks and in the factories and mills at the discretion of the workers. 11. To give peasants full freedom of action in regard to the land, and also the right to keep cattle, on condition that the peasants manage with their own means, that is, without employing hired labour. 12. To request all branches of the army, as well as our comrades the military cadets, to endorse our resolution. 13. To demand that the press give all our resolutions wide publicity. 14. To appoint an itinerant bureau of control. 15. To permit free handicraft production by one's own labour.
... would you like to remind me what the second point in the demands made by the sailors was?
Fucking what
Demanding freedom of speech doesn't really make you an anarchist?
"Both sides suffered casualties on par with the civil war's deadliest battles. The American consulate at Vyborg estimated 10,000 Bolsheviks dead, wounded, or missing, including 15 Congress delegates. Finland asked Russia to remove the bodies on the ice, fearing a public health hazard after the thaw. There are no reliable reports for rebel deaths, but one report estimated 600 dead, 1,000 wounded, and 2,500 imprisoned".....Faced with the prospect of summary executions, about 8,000 Kronstadt refugees (mostly soldiers)[200] crossed into Finland within a day of Kronstadt's fall, about half of the rebel forces.
Hey, I'm gonna be real with you, yeah? The 1917 Revolution wasn't just the Bolsheviks' doing, y'know? Loads of groups had a part in it. But the Bolsheviks took advantage of the whole situation to impose their own structure. And when anyone didn't see things their way, they had no problem killing 'em, just so no one would question their ideas.
I wonder why they were demanding freedom of speech for, specifically, left-socialist and anarchist groups?
They must have mentioned them for no particular reason. /s
That number offered by the American consulate isn't backed by Soviet archives, which cites ~3,400 dead of their own.
"Dead or wounded" is a much broader category than "Dead"
and...... Meaning they weren't a commune of just anarchist. Just a year before they were all congratulated by Trotsky himself for being such ardent communist. As I said in the first place they were disgruntled with the system, but that doesn't automatically make it an anarchist rebellion. No one claimed there weren't anarchist among them.... It was the early 1900s in Russia, you couldn't throw a stone without hitting an anarchist.
Ahh yes, the soviet's.... Famous for accurately archiving their casualties......
And this is the reason for your dramatic rebuttal, or are we just being pedantic now?
This you, buddy?
Oh, is that where we're at? Other than the speculations of the American embassy at the time, which would not have had much access to sources beyond the talk circulating amongst mid-level Soviet officials, who were unlikely to have been exceptionally loose-lipped around the Americans, whose numbers are we relying on now?
"Wow, you really think it's IMPORTANT that I tripled the number of dead???"
Yes.
The minute Lenin took power there was a food crisis in Russia and arranged for every scrap of grain taken from Ukraine. A series events unfolded over the coming years that would ultimately lead to the Holodomor under Stalin much later. It’s a long and complex tale that I’m sure some believe is fake news.
The Holodomor is only related to Lenin insofar as the system Lenin established with 'war communism' was not agriculturally robust, and the backpedaling of the NEP didn't outlast him.
All the major factors of it - the mass collectivization, the export of food from starving regions, the export of food from the Soviet Union itself, the deportation of 'kulaks' to Siberia, etc etc etc, were all Stalinist initiatives. Maybe you could argue that if Lenin had legitimately improved Soviet agriculture it wouldn't have happened, but other than that, I don't know that there's a strong argument for putting Lenin - shithead though he was - in with the causes of the Holodomor.
Lenin sent Stalin to Ukraine to do what was necessary to get the grain. Unless I’m misremembering.
I think your timeline is a little mixed up. To my memory Stalin wasn't involved with Ukraine at all (except passing through when he had his taste of military service against the Poles) during Lenin's lifetime. That was like, 1921 or so. Stalin was a bit-player at the time. Lenin died in 1924.
The Holodomor happened around 1932.
Lenin did cause food shortages by grain seizures, but, again, to my memory, Stalin was not a key part of that. And Lenin's grain seizures weren't focused on Ukraine, nor as idiotic and arbitrary as Stalin's. Just callous, feeding the Red Army during the Russian Civil War at the expense of the starvation of workers and peasants.
It’s possible, it’s been a good few years since I read up on it all.
I’ve got a copy of Red Famine on my nightstand so might give it a go again.
What my intention was to say though was that Lenin’s hands certainly weren’t clean in Ukraine and that the famines started early and lead up to Holodomor, started with Lenin as a result of his choices for the fledging Soviet and continued with Stalin with his hatred of Ukraine.
The Russian famine of 1921 was largely due to a drought combined with the aftermath of WW1 and the Russian revolution. You could argue that Lenin's policies didn't effectively combat the famine, but I think it would be hard to argue that he instigated it. Also, I think you are misremembering the timeline of the soviet's impact on Ukraine.