Thread by @MarinaMedvin

Amazing article. Must-read.

Did you know that Lenin hated capitalism so much that he ordered peasants selling produce to be shot.

newcriterion.com/issues/2019/10…

Lenin believed in dominance control through sheer terror.

“... for Lenin maximal violence was the default position. He was constantly rebuking subordinates for not using enough force, for restraining mobs from lynchings, and for hesitating to shoot randomly chosen hostages.”

“the first biographer with access to the secret Lenin archives, concluded that for Lenin violence was a goal in itself. He quotes Lenin in 1908 recommending ‘real, nationwide terror, which invigorates the country and through which the Great French Revolution achieved glory.’”

“Lenin constantly recommended that people be shot ‘without pity’ or ‘exterminated mercilessly’”

“I know of no other society, except those modeled on the one Lenin created, where schoolchildren were taught that mercy, kindness, and pity are vices. After all, these feelings might lead one to hesitate shooting a class enemy or denouncing one’s parents.”

American schools conceal that Lenin was nothing more than a glorified terrorist.

“The law should not abolish terror,” he insisted. “It should be substantiated and legalized in principle, without evasion or embellishment.”

Trotsky: “The terror of Tsarism was directed against the proletariat. . . . Our Extraordinary Commissions shoot landlords, capitalists, and generals . . . . Do you grasp this—distinction? For us Communists it is quite sufficient.”

“Lenin believed that state power had to be based on sheer terror, and so he also created the terrorist state... what is new, and uniquely horrible about the Soviets and their successors, is that they directed their fury at their own people.”

“Lenin pioneered and Stalin greatly expanded a policy in which arrests were entirely arbitrary: that is true terror. By the time of the Great Terror of 1936–38, millions of entirely innocent people were arrested, often by quota. Literally no one was safe.”

“They had practiced exquisite forms of torture and humiliation on prisoners—and on prisoners’ colleagues, friends, and families. ‘Member of a family of a traitor to the fatherland’ was itself a criminal category, and whole camps were set up for wives of ‘enemies of the people.’”

By the same author, more insight into Soviet communism. firstthings.com/article/2020/1…

“That question has bothered many students of revolutionary movements. Revolutions never succeed without the support of wealthy, liberal, educated society.’

In 1907, Ivan Pavlov published The Purification of Mankind, which divided humanity into ethical races. He discussed races “morally inferior to our animal predecessors,” which must be exterminated, children and all, by the morally superior race.

“... one anarchist group sought to establish equality by killing all educated people.“

“During the famine of 1891–92, when Tolstoy and Chekhov engaged in famine relief, Lenin advocated hoarding food to bring revolution closer (‘the worse, the better‘).”

“... ’The Party takes all the blame upon itself, so that terror is no longer murder, expropriation is no longer robbery.’”

“For the Landmarks contributors, liberals’ attachment to illiberal movements derived from a psychological complex favoring conformism.”

“Socialized to regard anything conservative as reprehensible—and still worse, as a social faux pas—they contrived ways to justify radical intolerance and violence as forced, understandable, and noble.“

“They had to, since the fundamental emotional premise of liberalism—hostility to those ignorant, bigoted, morally depraved people on the right—almost always proved more compelling than professed intellectual ­commitments.”

“Captivated by public opinion, they signed petitions they did not agree with and excused heinous acts, always observing the rule: Better to side with people a mile to one’s left than be associated with anyone an inch to one’s right.”

The author warns us not to rely on the pendulum swinging back.

“When a party is willing to push its power as far as it can go, it will keep going until it meets sufficient opposition.”

Back to Lenin.

Lenin was presented to Soviet children as the nation’s loving grandfather, not the terrorist that he was.

Lenin was also elevated to a deity. “Lenin lived. Lenin lives. Lenin will live on.” This phrase started every textbook.

Here’s my 1st grade textbook—

Cities in the US with standing Lenin statues: Seattle, Los Angeles, New York City, Las Vegas, Hutchinson, and Willimantic.

Lenin was a bloodthirsty terrorist who killed millions to achieve a Marxist utopia of terror and poverty.