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This is like celebrating the beginning of the Sioux Wars. Yeah, in the end it opened up massive amounts of land that helped to springboard our country into an unparalleled level of growth, but at what cost?

Seriously, there is nothing to celebrate about the 1917 revolution. It only ended up plunging the world into a near century of war.

 Frazzled wrote:
Don't ask me, ask Iron Captain. He's the one arguing lots of people have to die to hook up the electric grid.

Must be a Matrix thing.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
To be clear, celebration of ending the Czar and Boyars, good. Bolsheviks, bad. Very very bad.

To quote Ferris Bueller, "I am against isms."

I don't agree that. Many many deaths could be avoided. The reason they died is a Stalin's paranoia. He killed all the revolutionaries to rule at his own and then started terror. There were some crimed commited by Lenin too, but was thinking of saving revolution, not making himself another tsar.

 Frazzled wrote:

 feeder wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:

Like bringing electricity and education to the poor?

Aye, the Bolsheviks did many things that were bad. But you can't make an omelette without breaking some eggs, and they did far more good than they ever did bad. Nobody in history is completely good. Virtually every government has committed atrocities (you as American should know that better than most), but overall, despite the atrocities they committed, the Bolsheviks were a force for good. Their good acts outweigh their bad ones.

"Sure, father and all my uncles were seized in the night by government agents with no explanation, but at least I have a lightbulb to learn to read by!

Communism, as practiced under Stalin and to a lesser extent his successors, resulted in the greatest genocide of the last 100 years. You can't handwave that away with some creature comforts and an improved literacy rate.

Exactly. For one brief moment the long suffering Russian people had a chance for a new and better way. The Bolsheviks ended that.

True. Still gonna "celebrate" with some 28mm Whites vs Reds Chain of Command.

 Freakazoitt wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:
Don't ask me, ask Iron Captain. He's the one arguing lots of people have to die to hook up the electric grid.

Must be a Matrix thing.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
To be clear, celebration of ending the Czar and Boyars, good. Bolsheviks, bad. Very very bad.

To quote Ferris Bueller, "I am against isms."

I don't agree that. Many many deaths could be avoided. The reason they died is a Stalin's paranoia. He killed all the revolutionaries to rule at his own and then started terror. There were some crimed commited by Lenin too, but was thinking of saving revolution, not making himself another tsar.

Which countries had communism without repression?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 feeder wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:

 feeder wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:

Like bringing electricity and education to the poor?

Aye, the Bolsheviks did many things that were bad. But you can't make an omelette without breaking some eggs, and they did far more good than they ever did bad. Nobody in history is completely good. Virtually every government has committed atrocities (you as American should know that better than most), but overall, despite the atrocities they committed, the Bolsheviks were a force for good. Their good acts outweigh their bad ones.

"Sure, father and all my uncles were seized in the night by government agents with no explanation, but at least I have a lightbulb to learn to read by!

Communism, as practiced under Stalin and to a lesser extent his successors, resulted in the greatest genocide of the last 100 years. You can't handwave that away with some creature comforts and an improved literacy rate.

Exactly. For one brief moment the long suffering Russian people had a chance for a new and better way. The Bolsheviks ended that.

True. Still gonna "celebrate" with some 28mm Whites vs Reds Chain of Command.

Don't forget the vodka!

 Frazzled wrote:
Its like a thread celebrating the birth of Nazism, except of course the slaughter is a magnitude greater.

At least Helicopter Pinochet™ had the right idea againsts the commies.

 whembly wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:
Its like a thread celebrating the birth of Nazism, except of course the slaughter is a magnitude greater.

At least Helicopter Pinochet™ had the right idea againsts the commies.

I had to google this term. It's a meme popular with the gakkier part of society. I thought you weren't down with the clown, I thought you Voted for the Stoner (tm) I am dissapoint. Feels bad man.

 feeder wrote:

 whembly wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:
Its like a thread celebrating the birth of Nazism, except of course the slaughter is a magnitude greater.

At least Helicopter Pinochet™ had the right idea againsts the commies.

I had to google this term. It's a meme popular with the gakkier part of society. I thought you weren't down with the clown, I thought you Voted for the Stoner (tm) I am dissapoint. Feels bad man.

I indeed voted for The Stoner™.

Pinochet was asked to intervene after the election of Allende by the parliment.

He did.

He ordered executions of many Chilean communists by throwing them out of helicopters. Pinochet himself commanded battlions (is that right terminologies) of helicopters.

Not sure what you meant by popular meme... had to google myself.

But, "Helicopter Pinochet" is an old old nickname.... such that, Frazzled is old enough to recognize.

Most National Celebrations are based in wars and the destruction of the opponents of a nation.

Many people in Spain call the Hispanity Day, the celebration of a genocide (Is the day Columbus discovered america). I disagree. But they have a point.

Personally, living in a country that was under Fascist-Rulership during 40 years just because it was convenient at the time for the democratic western goverments, because he was opposed to Marxism, I can't really see the Moral High Horse some western nations claim to have.

The only difference between Communism and the Portuguese and Spanish Fascim vs Nazism, is that the the Nazis lost the war.

 Freakazoitt wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:
You're arguing that to bring electricity and education, you have to have gulags? Can you explain the connection to me?

There is no connections. GULAG is a result of autoritarian rule, not ideology.

Indeed. There is no connection. Frazzled is making one up.
Electricity and education are two important of the myriad improvements that the Bolsheviks brought to Russia. The GULAG system was a tool of stalinist oppression. It is a great shame that the Soviet Union under Stalin became so authoritarian, and that Stalin was such a paranoid, murderous bastard, but you can't blame that on the Bolsheviks. They became victims of Stalin just like everyone else.

 feeder wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:

Like bringing electricity and education to the poor?

Aye, the Bolsheviks did many things that were bad. But you can't make an omelette without breaking some eggs, and they did far more good than they ever did bad. Nobody in history is completely good. Virtually every government has committed atrocities (you as American should know that better than most), but overall, despite the atrocities they committed, the Bolsheviks were a force for good. Their good acts outweigh their bad ones.

"Sure, father and all my uncles were seized in the night by government agents with no explanation, but at least I have a lightbulb to learn to read by!

Communism, as practiced under Stalin and to a lesser extent his successors, resulted in the greatest genocide of the last 100 years. You can't handwave that away with some creature comforts and an improved literacy rate.

Most of my family was killed off or exiled after the civil war, as everyone but my great-grandfather fought on the White side. Yet I still praise the Bolsheviks. The modernisation of Russia is a massive benefit. Sure, the civil war was incredibly nasty, but it paved the way to a prosperous future as a modern superpower. Sometimes, sacrifices must be brought for the greater good.

The American War of Independence was also very nasty. Many atrocities were committed by the Patriots. Loyalists, slaves and native Americans (who supported the government) were actively murdered and many had to flee the country. Yet you still celebrate that. It is the same thing. Why is it a problem if Russia does it? Typical Western hypocrisy, that is what it is.

 whembly wrote:

 feeder wrote:

 whembly wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:
Its like a thread celebrating the birth of Nazism, except of course the slaughter is a magnitude greater.

At least Helicopter Pinochet™ had the right idea againsts the commies.

I had to google this term. It's a meme popular with the gakkier part of society. I thought you weren't down with the clown, I thought you Voted for the Stoner (tm) I am dissapoint. Feels bad man.

I indeed voted for The Stoner™.

Pinochet was asked to intervene after the election of Allende by the parliment.

He did.

He ordered executions of many Chilean communists by throwing them out of helicopters. Pinochet himself commanded battlions (is that right terminologies) of helicopters.

Not sure what you meant by popular meme... had to google myself.

But, "Helicopter Pinochet" is an old old nickname.... such that, Frazzled is old enough to recognize.

While I'm sure you are being darkly humourous, extrajudicial killings are always a sign of an illegitimate system.

 Iron_Captain wrote:

 feeder wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:

Like bringing electricity and education to the poor?

Aye, the Bolsheviks did many things that were bad. But you can't make an omelette without breaking some eggs, and they did far more good than they ever did bad. Nobody in history is completely good. Virtually every government has committed atrocities (you as American should know that better than most), but overall, despite the atrocities they committed, the Bolsheviks were a force for good. Their good acts outweigh their bad ones.

"Sure, father and all my uncles were seized in the night by government agents with no explanation, but at least I have a lightbulb to learn to read by!

Communism, as practiced under Stalin and to a lesser extent his successors, resulted in the greatest genocide of the last 100 years. You can't handwave that away with some creature comforts and an improved literacy rate.

Most of my family was killed off or exiled after the civil war, as everyone but my great-grandfather fought on the White side. Yet I still praise the Bolsheviks. The modernisation of Russia is a massive benefit. Sure, the civil war was incredibly nasty, but it paved the way to a prosperous future as a modern superpower. Sometimes, sacrifices must be brought for the greater good.

Many people use this same argument to support Franquism. "Yeah, he did many things to improve Spain! Spain ended better than it was before"
You know what? Every f****ng nation did it in the same period. And many of them didn't needed a Authoritarian and genocidical goverment to do it. So no, they don't receive a free pass or a "Objetive revisionism" of their acts because "They did it for the greater good"

 Frazzled wrote:

 Freakazoitt wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:
Don't ask me, ask Iron Captain. He's the one arguing lots of people have to die to hook up the electric grid.

Must be a Matrix thing.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
To be clear, celebration of ending the Czar and Boyars, good. Bolsheviks, bad. Very very bad.

To quote Ferris Bueller, "I am against isms."

I don't agree that. Many many deaths could be avoided. The reason they died is a Stalin's paranoia. He killed all the revolutionaries to rule at his own and then started terror. There were some crimed commited by Lenin too, but was thinking of saving revolution, not making himself another tsar.

Which countries had communism without repression?

Which countries had capitalism without repression? You belong to the elite of capitalist society. It is easy for you to forget just how repressive capitalism is as a system. Just ask the poor kids in Bangladesh that are making your clothes. Or all of the miners that died easily preventable deaths while building your country into what it is today (with the elite getting all the profits and praise).
And that is without mentioning the more direct forms of oppression in all those capitalist states that did not have the luxury of being on the top of the global pecking order. Yeah, communism has turned into oppressive tyrannical systems in those countries where it was tried. But with capitalism has turned into this in even more countries.

 Galas wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:

 feeder wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:

Like bringing electricity and education to the poor?

Aye, the Bolsheviks did many things that were bad. But you can't make an omelette without breaking some eggs, and they did far more good than they ever did bad. Nobody in history is completely good. Virtually every government has committed atrocities (you as American should know that better than most), but overall, despite the atrocities they committed, the Bolsheviks were a force for good. Their good acts outweigh their bad ones.

"Sure, father and all my uncles were seized in the night by government agents with no explanation, but at least I have a lightbulb to learn to read by!

Communism, as practiced under Stalin and to a lesser extent his successors, resulted in the greatest genocide of the last 100 years. You can't handwave that away with some creature comforts and an improved literacy rate.

Most of my family was killed off or exiled after the civil war, as everyone but my great-grandfather fought on the White side. Yet I still praise the Bolsheviks. The modernisation of Russia is a massive benefit. Sure, the civil war was incredibly nasty, but it paved the way to a prosperous future as a modern superpower. Sometimes, sacrifices must be brought for the greater good.

Many people use this same argument to support Franquism. "Yeah, he did many things to improve Spain! Spain ended better than it was before"
You know what? Every f****ng nation did it in the same period. And many of them didn't needed a Authoritarian and genocidical goverment to do it. So no, they don't receive a free pass or a "Objetive revisionism" of their acts because "They did it for the greater good"

And let me guess? All of those nations also happen to all have been stable democracies that belonged to the wealthiest nations in the world already? Improving your nation is easy when you have the means and no resistance. When you do not have the means and do have a lot of resistance, that is where you will have to spill blood to get what you want.
You can't compare the Bolsheviks to Franco. Franco was an ordinary military dictator who overthrew a democratic government that he didn't like, as happens so often in the world. The Bolsheviks were a popular resistance movement against one of the most authoritarian and despotic governments in the world. Spain didn't need the modernisation that Russia needed. Spain wasn't still a near-feudal society. In Spain people could actually read. In Russia, the old feudal order had to be brought down, just like it had been brought down in the rest of the world centuries before.

 Frazzled wrote:
Its like a thread celebrating the birth of Nazism, except of course the slaughter is a magnitude greater.

Thank you for parroting nazi propaganda.

Rosebuddy wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:
Its like a thread celebrating the birth of Nazism, except of course the slaughter is a magnitude greater.

Thank you for parroting nazi propaganda.

Lets be real, Frazzled isn't. He is critical of Nazism as well and saying the magnitude is greater is just depending on how we handle statistics and what to include etc. They were both pretty terrible in execution, even if the end goal was wildly different.

 sebster wrote:
I guy I used to know on-line had a few books history books published, he was always planning to write a history of Russia from the Tsars to the oligarchs called "Somehow it gets worse".

Seems like "Somehow it gets worse" is the perfect way to describe the future of this thread...

For being so focused on what Stalin and the Gulags contributed to the dark part of history, lets not forget that from the start Lenin and his Cheka weren't so 'friendly' either.

I am thinking Rosebuddy was joking and knows that Frazz is not a Nazi sympathizer...

I hope?

I hope so..

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:

 Freakazoitt wrote:

I saw a intresting documentary about that period when the Navy crews rebelled against communists because they felt the revolution was not true to its roots.

Probably, the Kronstadt uprising? One of the events that showed that the Bolsheviks went on the bloody path.

All revolutions end in failure. The American Revolution had the whisky rebellion, and the founding fathers' reaction to it was very hypocritical to say the least.

The French revolution was hijacked by Napoleon.

And the Russian revolution ended when Trotsky turned the guns on the sailors. From then on, it was a naked power grab.

Who knows what might have happened if Kerensky hadn't made the idiotic decision to launch another Russian offensive?

That's the uprising. The soviet Navy crews put up a fight against red army but in the end they took the costal fortresses and ships.

They gave them a good fight though.

 kronk wrote:
I am thinking Rosebuddy was joking and knows that Frazz is not a Nazi sympathizer...

I hope?

He doesn't need to have nazi sympathies to parrot, that is unwittingly repeat, their propaganda. It happens quite often that someone who has no personal interest in nazism repeats one of their talking points with regards to communism without knowing, because the West has spent many decades lying about communism. After all, communism is a bigger threat to the capitalist order than nazism is.

Its not spreading Nazi propaganda to say that a lot of people died in the name of communism. Yes, it depends on what you include in communism and the defenition. But academia is pretty secure in putting people like Stalin and Mao in a form of communism camp.

Or was Stalin's Communist Russia really Authoritarian Socialism. However, I'm not interested in a debate about "which was worse, Hitler's Nazis or Stalin's Communists" here.

As even Freakazoitt (or was it Iron Captain) said in this thread "Stalin was a dick to his people." (paraphrasing)

 kronk wrote:
Or was Stalin's Communist Russia really Authoritarian Socialism. However, I'm not interested in a debate about "which was worse, Hitler's Nazis or Stalin's Communists" here.

As even Freakazoitt (or was it Iron Captain) said in this thread "Stalin was a dick to his people." (paraphrasing)

Ah good old fashioned debates on definitions Stalin even got his own one, Stalinism. I don't think the debate has any inherent value (not to mention how you would even agree on breaking it down), both were bad as everyone seems to agree on.

 djones520 wrote:
This is like celebrating the beginning of the Sioux Wars. Yeah, in the end it opened up massive amounts of land that helped to springboard our country into an unparalleled level of growth, but at what cost?

Seriously, there is nothing to celebrate about the 1917 revolution. It only ended up plunging the world into a near century of war.

I would disagree that the Soviet Union caused a century of war. The first thing the SU did was to pull out of WW1, leaving it to the west to fight out. The first thing the west did was to invade the nascent SU to try and force it to continue in the war.

It takes two to tango.

 Kilkrazy wrote:


I would disagree that the Soviet Union caused a century of war. The first thing the SU did was to pull out of WW1, leaving it to the west to fight out. The first thing the west did was to invade the nascent SU to try and force it to continue in the war.

It takes two to tango.

To be fair, I never liked the kid that said "I'm taking my ball and going home if we don't play it my way!"

feth you, Scott. feth you and your goddam ball.

True, but it doesn't make that kid liable for the continuation of the game which a lot of people want to end.

WW1 was really what led to the century of war in the first place if reasoned like that. Germany would have lost either way and the events of that (in a really shortened version) led to WW2, which led to the antagonism between the two new superpowers that came out of WW2.

The SU pulling out of WW1 and the Allied invasion caused a lot of bad blood between the two parties that helped the above events along. But I wouldn't call 1917 a primary reason as Killkrazy says.

Nice intentions, shame about the famines.

 feeder wrote:

 whembly wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:
Its like a thread celebrating the birth of Nazism, except of course the slaughter is a magnitude greater.

At least Helicopter Pinochet™ had the right idea againsts the commies.

I had to google this term. It's a meme popular with the gakkier part of society. I thought you weren't down with the clown, I thought you Voted for the Stoner (tm) I am dissapoint. Feels bad man.

I don't know what that means but now I have the intro to Apocalypse Now in my head.






Automatically Appended Next Post:

Rosebuddy wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:
Its like a thread celebrating the birth of Nazism, except of course the slaughter is a magnitude greater.

Thank you for parroting nazi propaganda.

25-50mm dead in the USSR.
100mm in China
1/4 the population in Cambodia.
I am not the one celebrating the birth of the system that caused the most death for humanity since the Black Plague. Sure the Nazis tried but they scheduled too many good opponents in the worldwide John Deere Lowenbrau Guiness Ale Stolichnoya World Domination Bowl and got stomped.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Kilkrazy wrote:

 djones520 wrote:
This is like celebrating the beginning of the Sioux Wars. Yeah, in the end it opened up massive amounts of land that helped to springboard our country into an unparalleled level of growth, but at what cost?

Seriously, there is nothing to celebrate about the 1917 revolution. It only ended up plunging the world into a near century of war.

I would disagree that the Soviet Union caused a century of war. The first thing the SU did was to pull out of WW1, leaving it to the west to fight out. The first thing the west did was to invade the nascent SU to try and force it to continue in the war.

It takes two to tango.

The USSR then invaded the Balkans and got its ass kicked by Poland. Remember the Bolsheviks originally wanted worldwide revolution.
The Nazis were bad. The Communists were bad. Only Rasta Man was good.

 Future War Cultist wrote:
Nice intentions, shame about the famines.

Famines existed before 1917. The only European country to still suffer famine even in peacetime. The difference is that the bolsheviks cared about it and managed to eventually put a stop to it. They greatly modernised agriculture and made Russia self-sufficient in food. There haven't been any famines since.The tsar never even cared enough to try to solve the issue. He just wanted more golden eggs to give as presents to his family.
And that is the thing about the bolsheviks. They had nothing but good intentions. And while they had many failures and never reached their greatest ambition of a communist society (mostly thanks to Stalin), they did manage to fulfill a lot of their smaller goals. Russia was an illiterate society in 1917. Now, 100 years later is one of the best educated nations in the world and famed for many scientific achievements. All of these things are often conveniently forgotten in the west for the sake of anti-communist or anti-russian propaganda. But really, it is hard to comprehend just how much good the revolution did for Russia in the end.

 Frazzled wrote:

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Rosebuddy wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:
Its like a thread celebrating the birth of Nazism, except of course the slaughter is a magnitude greater.

Thank you for parroting nazi propaganda.

25-50mm dead in the USSR.
100mm in China
1/4 the population in Cambodia.
I am not the one celebrating the birth of the system that caused the most death for humanity since the Black Plague. Sure the Nazis tried but they scheduled too many good opponents in the worldwide John Deere Lowenbrau Guiness Ale Stolichnoya World Domination Bowl and got stomped.

50 million dead? That is like a third of the entire population... I call bs on those numbers. It is pure propaganda that can only be gotten to by blaming every single death on communism, even deaths that really aren't due to communism. And even then the numbers for the USSR are still way off, so it is more likely you or someone else just made that up for his little propaganda piece. If we treat capitalism in the same way as communism, then it is pretty certain that capitalism killed way more people than communism and fascism combined. After all, the vast majority of wars, famines, oppression and purges happen in capitalist countries, if only because of the fact that almost every country in the world is capitalist, including all the really gakky ones (North Korea is only the really exception here, but NK isn't really communist anymore either).

Rosebuddy wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:
Its like a thread celebrating the birth of Nazism, except of course the slaughter is a magnitude greater.

Thank you for parroting nazi propaganda.

"A magnitude greater" sounds a whole lot worse than "ten times as much" but I didn't know facts were nazi propoganda now.

Already brought up, but I feel bears repeating is the fact Communism beats Nazism in kill count by raw numbers (we have China to thank for that) and per capita deaths of it's own citizens (Pol Pot).

It's really weird how we had this lively debate going about with defenders of the actions taken by communists like Lenin and Stalin and everyone was doing ok but as soon as someone was accused of aligning, even unintentionally, with nazis the thread took a collective gasp.

 Scrabb wrote:

Rosebuddy wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:
Its like a thread celebrating the birth of Nazism, except of course the slaughter is a magnitude greater.

Thank you for parroting nazi propaganda.

"A magnitude greater" sounds a whole lot worse than "ten times as much" but I didn't know facts were nazi propoganda now.

Already brought up, but I feel bears repeating is the fact Communism beats Nazism in kill count by raw numbers (we have China to thank for that) and per capita deaths of it's own citizens (Pol Pot).

It's really weird how we had this lively debate going about with defenders of the actions taken by communists like Lenin and Stalin and everyone was doing ok but as soon as someone was accused of aligning, even unintentionally, with nazis the thread took a collective gasp.

That is easy to explain. Nazism is an ideology that deliberately sought to exterminate entire peoples and 'inferior races'. Communism is an ideology that seeks to improve life and establish equal rights for all people. Communism is an inherently good ideology that was abused by authoritarian regimes, just like all political ideologies, religions and ideas can be abused by leaders to justify and safeguard their power. Atrocities committed in authoritarian communist countries are little different from those committed in authoritarian capitalist countries. They should not be blamed on the ideology, but rather on the authoritarian regime. Nazism on the other hand is an inherently bad system. Atrocities committed under nazism are completely different from anything seen before or since. They were not just committed for the regular reasons that authoritarian regimes commit atrocities (to safeguard their power by eliminating their enemies). Nazism sought to destroy not just political enemies (though they did that as well) but to exterminate entire populations based on the belief that those populations were 'impure' and 'not worthy of life'. They committed their atrocities for no reason but pure hate. No communist or capitalist regime has ever done something quite that shocking.