Russian Revolution: 100 years

[smoltchanov]

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....

[smoltchanov]

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. The whole reason why Russia had a revolution to communism in the first place was because it was less modernized.

Of course, but even in Tsar times there were more connections of country and it's people with Europe then later (during Stalin's reign for example). So, Russsia was an Empire, but less imperialist, then later on (sorry for pun)..

[smoltchanov]

A truest tragic time in history. While the tsar was bad he was no where near as bad as Lenin Stalin and all their crew. The next 70 years would be filled with terror and death and millions of Russians were deceived by the revolution. Over the time of communist rule, it would kill over 100 million innocent people from Central Europe to SE Asia. Today when looking back at the events of 1917, I'm very happy that we now live in a world where millions are free where they would otherwise be enslaved by the communist regime. Hopefully soon enough communism will collapse and freedom will prevail in places like Cuba China North Korea Laos and Vietnam

The numbers you are putting are totally out of your as* btw. I am not a big fan of communism in general but every ideology has killed people. US is one of the leading nations that there is, having unleashed worldwide violence which has killed millions for the sake of ideology, sometimes replacing democratic leaders with brutal killing dictators.

So, this is tall talk coming from 1 ideology which kills to another which kills a bit more. The Czar was terrible & as terrible as Communism is, I fail to see how it is even worse than a Czar ruling & crushing millions of working class people. I wish they had gone into a full functioning democracy & a less authoritarian direction without communism but to suddenly act like the West if pious & the Czar was okay, is preposterous.

One small difference: under tsar hundreds (may be - few thousands) "revolutionaries" were killed and somewhat more - sent to Siberia to relatively comfortable exile. Under Soviet regime (besides millions killed in civil war of 1917-1920) between 1 and 1.5 millions (by official data, unoffficial numbers are much higher) perished in GULAG only. Feel the difference. It's easy to speak about "virtues of revolutions" and "sins of capitilism" living where you are, but it smacks of hypocrisy at least.

[smoltchanov]

The February Revolution was the greatest event in Russian history. The October Revolution was the worst.

+100

[smoltchanov]

It's so frustrating in retrospect: you want to reach back in time, grab Kerensky etc by the lapels and shout "JUST END THE WAR BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE!"

The Entente/Allies were forcing him to stay in the war IIRC.

Kerensky unfortunately was too idealistic for his own good, and his early popularity blinded him to deep discontent later. He could have concluded a separate peace (there was no way the Entente could have 'forced him' to continue, but he was too concerned with maintaining Russia's international prestige and had convinced himself that his personal popularity would make the soldiers willing to fight on.

It's kind of crazy, looking at how the Bolsheviks seized power, at how easy it was for them. From what I read, almost any group of 60 or so armed men could have seized control of the government at that time in November; the Bolsheviks were just the first to take the opportunity.

I think that Kerensky's decision to continue the war left only two possibilities for Russia: Bolshevik takeover or takeover of a reactionary dictatorship under Kornilov. Kerensky's government couldn't survive the war's continuation.

Probably. But i doubt that even Kornilov (whom i greatly dislike) would do so much damage as Bolsheviks did

[smoltchanov]

A lot of people perpetuate that "Lenin wasn't as bad as Stalin" in order to still believe in communism. Lenin would have become as brutal as Stalin for the simple reason that it was the only way for the Communists to hold on to power.

In 1989-90, when given a free and fair choice, the people of Eastern Europe decisively rejected everything Lenin stood for.

And still - a lot of people in Russia idolizes Soviet Union and life, say, under Brezhnev.