Vladimir Mikhailovich Zenzinov Quotes
Contrary to the ordinary conception, the real revolution at that time [1917] was not made in the cities, but in the villages. The essential content of the Russian revolution was the tremendous, elemental process which took place among the peasants and resulted in the disruption of the landed estates, the expulsion of the landed proprietors, most of them belonging to the nobility, from their villages, and the forcible appropriation of all private and state lands by the peasants.
Zenzinov was often a critic of the Bolsheviks.
Vladimir Mikhailovich Zenzinov, 1880—1953, Russian Revolutionist & Author, “The Bolsheviks and the Peasant”, Foreign Affairs, October 1925
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In 1927 there was a Peasant Uprising in the Hunan Province of China. Young Mau went there and wrote a report.
Louis Napoleon had seized control of France and had very little popular support amongst the aristocracy and middle class. However, the Socialists leading the uprisings frightened them more than Louis Napoleon as the Socialists had the support of the peasants who resented the abuses of the aristocracy and many of the middle class. This was true class warfare and not at all what was possible in the United States when American conservatives would claim “class warfare” when there was a move for more progressive taxation. In Europe, class warfare really meant death and destruction, so for many who knew the history, the claim of “class warfare” was frightening and a large part of the “Red Scare” in the United States.
Stalin was then only 26 years old. This was more than a decade BEFORE the Russian Revolution and Stalin was a young left wing revolutionary planning how to bring about a revolution and how the society should operate thereafter. He was then much the youthful, intellectual, Georgian idealist.
Zenzinov was often a critic of the Bolsheviks.
Vladimir Lenin. See {640096} and {640094} for more on the Communist struggle with the Russian Peasants.
Vladimir Lenin
Those landlords who had killed peasants were sometimes executed as prior to the Peasant Uprising, there was no law enforcement against landlords in rural areas like Hunan. In 1927 there was a Peasant Uprising in the Hunan Province of China. Young Mau went there and wrote a report. Many years later when Mao was a major revolutionary leader, the landlords were often executed and not just humiliated.
There had been a Chinese Revolution in 1911, but although there were changes at the seat of government and in urban areas, the rural areas where most of the people lived changed little if at all. The revolution failed as a result of it became a revolution without reform.
This was published after he died.
Although he was a Marxist, he was also a democrat. He was one of the first leftists to criticize the Russian Revolution. The letter was widely published. There were few left wing intellectuals who would take Lenin on at the time but Gorter was one.
This is a very important historical, political quotation. The conservatives have since the Russian Revolution conflated socialism and communism. However, here in 1932 the leader of the American Socialist Party had already described the Communist Revolution in Russia as a failure of founding an acceptable modern state. Nonetheless, even into the 21st century many conservatives describe Thomas as a Communist. See {626692} for his distinction between Communism and Socialism. The difficulty of modern nation building was explained by Thomas and others but was really not accepted until the many attempts of the early 21st century, some supported by America like Iraq and Afghanistan and the Balkans and others like the “Arab Spring.” Then his early wisdom on this point became more appreciated.
Vladimir Lenin. Actually, when the peasants resisted collectivization the Russian State did use violence and intimidation. And Stalin later completely ignored this principle and brutalized the peasantry.
Vladimir Lenin. One of the claimed benefits of Capital Punishment has always been the inhibition of others, but it turned out that it was never very effective at that. However, prevention was Lenin’s major objective so he ordered public hanging instead of shooting—the usual method of execution at the time. This infamous quotation started the new Russian government off on a horrible record of civil and human rights. The people hanged were not particularly guilty of any crime. They were just people who had gotten, or whose family was, rich under the Czar. The disregard for rule of law was most dramatically evidenced by this Lenin order. Needless to say, rich people the world over, saw a great threat to their lives from this new state wanting to export its philosophy.
Vladimir Lenin. This is a very important historical quotations. It was made by Lenin soon after the 1917 Russian Revolution and surprisingly to most he declared that the exporting of the Communist Revolution was more important than the national interest of communist Russia. Many Western nations, including the U. S. sent troops to part of Russia on various pretexts and it appeared to many that the West was ganging up against Russian Communism and interfering with their internal affairs. However, in effect, the new Russian state, with the attitude expressed by this quotation, was declaring a type of revolutionary war on all the capitalist nations who saw this fledgling mess of a country as a potential threat. They were right.
The Whites were the old nobility and conservatives who, after the Czar had been deposed, fought a civil war for control of Russia against the Reds—the Bolsheviks. The Whites were allied with the Cossacks, a particularly vicious, and cruel groups of traditional cavalry who previously had done much of the Czar’s dirty work. They were responsible for most of the Anti-Semitic pogroms, and their affiliation with the Whites pushed most Jewish Russians to the Reds.
Vladimir Lenin. Most did not and the Communist government was brutal and murderous in forcing them into the Communist culture, outlook, and behavior. See {640096} for a description of some of the effort.
This was only 6 years after the Russian Revolution. Communist Russia had extended its influence to much of the world without firing a shot. To many, communism looked like the future. The Russian inability to make communism work economically in the next 70 years destroyed most of its influence.
