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Viva la Revolución, Baby!
This year, and practically this month, marks the 100th anniversary of the Russian revolution that propelled socialism to power and cemented its grim reign over the Russian people and, ultimately, a significant fraction of the globe.
So here’s a question you might pose to your favorite Bernie supporter or “Antifa” sympathizer: “Practically speaking, what is the difference between fascists and socialists?”
The most obvious answer that comes to my mind is that the socialists killed far, far more people — scores of millions more — than the fascists ever did.
Just for perspective, some 20th-century body counts. (I’m always surprised how many educated people don’t know the sorry story of 20th-century experimentation with collectivism.)
- Nazis: 48,000,000
- Soviet Socialists: 58,000,000
- Chinese Communists: 73,000,000
Now throw in another 15,000,000 or so for all the “little” socialist tragedies, like Cambodia and Cuba and Ethiopia and Korea and Vietnam.
So that’s: Fascists 48,000,000; Socialists 145,000,000. Give or take.
Thank you, Mr. Marx, for what is undoubtedly the single worst idea in history.
Published in Politics
Like Weinstein’s “friends” didn’t know: there’s ignorance, and then there’ willful ignorance.
Socialists and communists tortured and murdered even more for the left reasons.
There, fixed that for ya…
Absolute abject failure of the Public Education System. Wait, is it a failure if you get the designed outcome?
Hell, that’s not a bug that’s a major feature.
First of all, the Russian government at the time of the November Revolution (using our calendar) was composed of social democrats [SRs] led by Alexander Karensky, who was vice-chairman of the Petrograd Soviet. Karensky and the socialist government wanted to continue the war against Germany. They also isolated themselves by not forming alliances with those to their right such as the Kadets. They also armed the workers of Leningrad to be a counterweight to the sailors at Kronstadt, Petrograd’s naval base.
Lenin was a Bolshevik who didn’t want to continue that war against Germany. The Germans ushered Lenin back to Russia in the famous sealed train where he promptly began making trouble for the socialist government.
Because Lenin was against the war – bread, peace and land was his slogan – he had the support of the sailors in the Petrograd Soviet. Peace and bread won over the workers of Petrograd whom Karensky had armed. And the Bolsheviks tossed aside the socialist government of Karensky.
There’s a lot of difference between social democrats and communists. World War I was very decisive in differentiating them. The breakup of the Second International also differentiated them.
Thanks for the comment. I’m not finding anything in it that contradicts what I wrote.
Hang On,
Of course, there is a difference between Bolsheviks and Mensheviks. The first difference is that Bolsheviks are willing to completely exploit a crisis and lie to take advantage of it. The people got no bread, peace, or land. The mass starvation began immediately after the Bolsheviks took over (as it always does) the war had nothing to do with it. The civil strife in Russia plus the famine caused many, many more deaths than the war. Finally, the collectivization of the farms meant that even the peasants lost their small plots of land where they would grow a few vegetables and potatoes. These small plots were vital insurance against the large cash crop failures that happened from time to time. Now with these gone mass starvation was greatly accelerated. The independently minded sailors were soon purged (murdered) when they protested against Bolsheviks and discovered that Bolsheviks didn’t give a damn about them but had just used them to attain power.
You are right that Mensheviks tend to be politically naive as they didn’t form a coalition with the right. However, they helped to raise absurd expectations that opened the door for the cruel and deceitful Bolsheviks. The Germans could have used poison gas to kill the Russians but sealed in the train was something much more deadly. It got Russia out of the war and now Germany only had one front to worry about.
Regards,
Jim
It was communists taking over from socialists.
You say potato….