Since the early 1990s, there has been a 16-ft statue of Vladimir Lenin in the Fremont neighborhood in Seattle Washington. This has caused lots of controversy but mostly from conservative commentators. My question is, where is the liberal outrage? Vladimir Lenin was a mass murderer? Unlike most dictators, his death was followed by another mass murderer, Joseph Stalin, who would finance and support more mass murders including Mao Zedong, Kim Il Song, and Pol Pot.
One writer, David Joseph Volodzko, was fired from The Seattle Times for calling out the selective outrage of liberals who protested statues of Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, and Confederate officers for their role in slavery (a valid point), but allowed a statue of a genocidal dictator.
Volodzko wrote that in terms of psychology, Vladimir was worse than Hitler Stalin, and Mao Pol Pot. In an article, he pointed out that Hitler, Stalin, and Mao were brutally abused as children and all had narcissistic personality disorders, paranoid disorders and Hitler suffered from schizophrenia. In Hitler's sick mind he loved Germany, whereas Lenin had no problem murdering anyone that suited his purpose. He also pointed out that Stalin, who was brutally beaten by his father, suffered from extreme paranoid disorder.
In no way was Volodzko defending Adolf Hitler, but that was the reason he was fired (see David Volodzko, Seattle Times). He simply argued that the reason Vladimir Lenin did not put up the numbers of Stalin, Hitler, and Mao, was because he died earlier. Mass murder is mass murder. Just because the situation has someone killing fewer people or has a smaller number of people to murder, like Pol Pot, population doesn't make them any less despicable.
When Volodzko brought up his lost relatives during the “Red Terror”, an intern at the Seattle Times, justified their deaths, saying that violence was necessary. The intern was not alone. For some strange reason, there is a percentage of uninformed ignorant people on the left that believe Vladimir Lenin was a great man and that it was Stalin who ruined the Communist Utopia he was trying to create. The reality is that Stalin's evils would not have been possible without the help and direction of Vladimir Lenin.
While it is true that the Czarist system in Russia was the most exploitative system in the world at the time, things would only get worse for the people whom the Bolsheviks claimed to represent. After the mass uprising of the Russian people to overthrow the Czar there were countless groups seeking power. Some were social Democrats, like Alexander Kerensky, who despite his flaws like staying in World War I, and a summer offensive, believed in a coalition, representative democracy. He had this crazy idea that you could work with other people and even compromise. The left was not one coalition. Even the Mensheviks who were socialist and originally aligned with the Bolsheviks, thought Lenin was too extreme. To Vladimir Lenin and his supporters, it was a zero-sum game. Either you 100% supported him or you had to die. If you were not a peasant, meaning you owned any property, you had to die. There was no difference between a bakery owner and a large exploitive factory, it was all capitalism.
After the Bolsheviks seized power in 1918, during the Russian Civil War, and up until Lenin's death, a policy known as the “Red Terror” was in effect. This brutal campaign spared no one. Men, Women, children, old, and young, it didn't matter. The Bolsheviks set out on a campaign that rivaled any tyrannical group in history. Modeling the reign of terror of the French Revolution the Cheka (Soviet secret police) Set out to Massacre millions of Russians and all its surrounding Conquered territories.
With their mission statement “Death to the Bourgeoisie And its Lapdogs! Long live the Red Terrror!”, leaves no doubt that Vladimir Linen and the Bolsheviks knew exactly what they were doing. The Russian Civil War was a conflict between the “Reds” (Bolsheviks) and the “whites” , a loose, disorganized coalition of everyone else. As I said before, the Reds wiped out anyone that even might be a problem. Although there is no exact number, the estimates of people murdered range from 140,000 to 200,000. These are the people directly killed by the Reds. it doesn't include the mass starvation due to the famine caused by the stealing and seizure of grain wiping out farmers.
Thomas Jefferson, (one of the statues that gets knocked down) wrote a principle: “Better to let 100 guilty men go free than punish one innocent person”. Vladimir Lenin would be disgusted by this. In a speech on April 11, 1919, he was quoted: “I asked calmly and categorically which is better? To imprison scores or hundreds of instigators, guilty or innocent deliberate or unwitting or lose thousands of Red Army workers? The first is better. I don't care whether I am accused of committing every mortal sin and violating Liberties, I plead guilty, but the interest of the workers will be furthered.”
When Lenin talked about “the interest of the workers” he really meant the Bolshevik party. Vladimir Lenin never worked in a factory or on a farm a day in his life. Soviet workers and Farmers worked the same long hours they did under the Czar's regime. Farmers who resisted collectivization, seizure of their land, or owned anything, were called “Kulaks”. They were either killed or sent to concentration camps. Industrial workers who complained about the horrible treatment or failed to meet production quotas suffered the same fate. Peasants were forcibly mobilized and many died from starvation. After the Civil War was over Russia started a war with Poland. Millions of Red Army soldiers deserted due to lack of pay, exhaustion, and not being fed. The families of these soldiers were executed as well.
The Bolshevik Army used chemical weapons on peasants who tried to resist during the “Tabov Rebellion”. There are entire books filled with the atrocities ordered by Vladimir Lenin. Despite these cold hard facts, there's still a ridiculous narrative that Russia would have been a paradise had Stalin not taken over.
Ironically, most Americans who support Lenin or think he was misunderstood, would have been executed if they lived during that time. Lenin hated liberals and social democrats. There weren't any bloggers or influencers during his time. If you weren't one of the few members of the Bolshevik party who enjoyed wealth and privilege, you were a starving farmer or worked to death in a factory. That's if you were lucky enough not to be informed on by your neighbors and sent to a concentration camp. Secret police and brutal suppression of any possible liability was a trapping of Lenin’s regime long before Stalin took over.
The whitewashing of Lenin shows that they're dumbasses on both sides. When David Volodzko pointed out the ridiculous hypocrisy of supporting Lenin in one of the most liberal cities in the United States he lost his job. A few months ago I wrote an article titled “Liberals stop defending Hamas”. Now I'm saying “Liberals please stop defending Vladimir Lenin.”
Why on earth is there a 16ft statue of Lenin in Seattle anyway?!