Personal ideas of morality aside, yes.
Well in that case, let's just canonize Stalin and Mao at the same time -- if we're going down the road of moral relativism, then the topics of "what crimes did person X commit?" are entirely subjective and therefore pointless.
Perhaps you're aware that Lenin did not, I repeat, did NOT, order their execution? It was a local activist of the Ural Soviet who feared their liberation by the closing Czechoslovak legion. Lenin wanted them kept safe and under house arrest, just as they had been since February.
Perhaps, though he didn't condemn Yakov Yurovsky whatsoever (unless you want to count a promotion to a comfortable position as some sort of slap on the wrist).
Of course people starved, most of the grain-producing areas of Russia were controlled by the Whites! Why do you think grain requisitioning was implemented in the first place?
Lenin, as well as Stalin after him, purposefully prevented food distribution from going to areas that he thought was politically rebellious in order to weaken their resolve. This happened after the civil war was over and there was enough food for everybody. (The question remains, though, as to why the Soviet leadership should receive a comfortably nutritious lifestyle if Marxism is intended to be classless. Seems like the very definition of class warfare.)
Also, have you read Service's biography? Or are you quoting someone who is quoting it?
No, I have not read it, and I am indeed basing this citation off of a second-hand source. If I am incorrect or taking it out of its intended context, then please set me straight. If I get the time I will try to acquire the biography and skim through it.
And finally, since when did unintentional starvation count as "murder?"
It doesn't, hence why I purposefully added the word "intentional."
No need to go there, they defined themselves by becoming terrorists and counter-revolutionaries. The Bolsheviks raised revolt in October to deliver power to the Soviet, not to themselves, it was the other parties who were so afraid of commanding real power that they withdrew, and betrayed themselves and their constituents by fighting against the Revolution in its time of greatest struggle with Capital. Such an act can only be expected to have disastrous and brutal consequences.
For one, I see no reason why peaceful opposition to the Reds (not counting the soldiers and terrorists in this category, obviously) should be executed. Are ideas so dangerous? Was freedom too much of a burden for the Soviets? Tell me, was Lenin justified in authorizing the Soviet war against Poland in order to spread the revolution to them? And in this sense, do you deny that Lenin was indeed very similar to Robespierre?
Two, the term "counter-revolutionaries" is irritatingly vague. As Lenin himself admitted that the masses were uselessly uneducated, he could've theoretically defined
every single peasant in Russia that didn't initiate their own communions as counter-revolutionary for not being enthusiastic communists. It wasn't useful to his interests to do so, but the point remains. And if you think I'm grasping for straws at this point, I point out that the Soviets had no interest in explicitly defining who exactly their enemies were; probably because that would jeopardize their self-given justifications for their mass executions,
I am first and foremost a historian, and I do my best to keep my politics out of that discipline. The truth speaks for itself, I merely encourage people to draw conclusions from the real facts, not from some caricature of history.
I would respect this statement, if you didn't immediately follow it with:
As a self-righteous paladin of capitalism, you have no moral ground to stand on, much less to rofl from.
I'm not a "paladin of capitalism," nor does that in any way discredit my point. Even many modern Marxists try to draw distance from Leninism because they thought it was a failure, not just capitalism. Beyond that, I'm not even sure I would call myself a capitalist; though I'm certainly not a Marxist.
Does that discredit me? So long as I can reasonably defend my arguments, I see no reason why it does.
The most grievous crime of the Tsars was its blatant and brutal oppression of all classes of people - including the capitalist bourgeoisie - to perpetuate its own autocracy and further its imperial ambitions, which is among the most terrible of crimes in history, committed by many an autocrat.
So exiling people to hellish prisons is not as bad as cementing your own political authority? Fascinating. Though this is a bit beside the point, as I'm curious as to how you can call this a "grievous crime" while defending the Leninists, who did the exact same thing. Perhaps you will quibble about the difference between "imperial ambitions" and "class liberation," though I have difficulty making this distinction, seeing as how Lenin was quite glad to destroy Poland's liberty (which it spent over 100 years trying to acquire) in the interest of his socio-economic goals.
Remember that in February the bourgeoisie and proletarians, liberals and socialists and anarchists, fought side by side to rid the nation of absolute monarchy.
Not necessarily because absolute monarchy is an inherent crime. It could've been because they just really personally despised Nicholas. (I don't blame them.) Not that this was certainly the case, though it might've been.
Nonetheless, the Poles that participated in the several anti-Romanov rebellions probably weren't very happy to be invaded by the Reds, so your point is moot.
I suppose Benjamin Harrison deserves to be counted as a mass-murderer too for all those starvation deaths in Texas during the 1890-91 recession?
