As a Russian, who lives in Russia now (though i lived part of my life in the West, including US), i can say that i absolutely hate this Russian revolution, which brought a very big amount of pain to russian people, and made Russia not a part of integrated Europe, but a big and bulky ideology-obsessed empire....
It was already that before.
Some people ended up in the same camps with the same guards with the Soviets as with the Tsarists.
Of course many more never came back from the Soviet camps and bad stuff was already happening well before Lenin died with anyone associated with Whites, Mensheviks, Socialist Revolutionaries, priests, religious groups, minority nationalities suspect to being rounded up and sent far away to never return.
Soviets also kept German and Japanese troops in forced labor camps for several years after hostilities ended. Historians estimate approximately 250,000 Japanese stationed in Manchuria died between 1945 and 1950 (Soviet estimated number - 50-60K). 100K Japanese troops were still in the Soviet Union at the end of 1948 working on the construction of the far eastern railway and other fun projects.
The commie / socialist defenders point to when the high level people were rounded up in 1937 however aside from a few lulls the flow of people rounded up for anti-revolutionary activities - was quite steady.
It is a disgusting episode in the history of the 20th century.
To hear people say that Marxism failed because of the extreme focus on the military miss the mark entirely. They think somehow it could have succeeded without disastrous results when it is against human nature in so many respects.
