The existing assumption of facts I have going into this is that from a period between 1918 and 1922 an estimated 50,000 to 200,000 people were executed by the Bolsheviks. What isnt clear to me is was this just mopping up what was left of the Whites and couter-revolutionaries, or was any dissent against the Bolsheviks liable to put you in the line of fire? Was the high death count justified or not? Thoughts?
Civil wars are messy. Accuracy of information becomes hard to verify. There were excesses that occurred, just like how there are fabrications that occurred. From what little I've read so far into the Civil War, in the beginning stages the Reds tended to be more merciful and normal in their treatment of their enemies whereas the Whites were barbaric, brutal, misanthropic, and prevaricators. As the civil war escalated, the Reds would begin to match the brutality of the Whites - as they realize they wouldn't be shown any mercy - yet were always outmatched in the inhumanity the Whites exhibited.
I'm rather positive that I share their thoughts that if peaceful transition was possible, it would be infinitely preferable to bloodshed. But history shows us that a path towards peaceful or democratic transition to socialism ends with the broken bodies of our dead martyrs.
You don't win by dying for your cause. You win by making the other poor bastards die for theirs.
best take I've seen all day. If you are willing to take a jab at another question: why do you think the Whites were so willing die for their cause? I doubt the majority of them were bougies so what did they think they were fighting for?
A mixture of status quo loyalty, misinformation, religious fervor, utilization of authority granted by the previous regime, force of arms, regional loyalties coinciding with which colour's in charge of them, promises of restoration of standards of living etc. Among the more loyalist members, it would also include loyalty to the old emplaced hierarchy, internalized ideological-pseudoscientific racism, restoration of material wealth, boons of material wealth, promises of rewards in the new order, etc.
By the time the Civil War was coming to a close and the Whites knew they were being snuffed out, many of them either fled into exile beyond the borders, embraced banditry, or simply left for home and tried to put it in the past while living in the victorious USSR.
Any reading you'd recommend to get caught up on the topic?
The trot fantasy writer, yes I know, China Mieville's "October" would be some nice light reading to introduce it in a more captivating manner. As a sort of prequel, John Reed's 10 days that shook the world can be concidered essential reading as a first-person primary source document.
There's also the section on it in short course on The History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks) by Stalin. I've also been told that The Crisis in Russia, by Arthur Ransome and Through the Russian Revolution, by Albert Rhys Williams are quite alright - even though they both had close ties to Trotsky throughout their lives - as their respective books were written roughly during and at the end of the civil war, therefore being considered primary sources. I was also recommended "A Short History of the Russian Revolution from 1905 to the present day" by R. Page Arnot, present day to Arnot being 1937. Even Kotkin's first Stalin book has a section on it that, as long as you filter it through the lens of critical reading, has an interesting perspective on the civil war while revealing Kotkin's own ideological failings of being a hypocrite.
Honestly you can't throw a fucking pebble into the pond of Russian civil war books without hitting either a reactionary or a trot.
Edit; I remembered I made something of another list before And I dug it up although it had more to do with the slice of history that dealt with the Poles. I'm sure there's some nice reads rattling around the great soviet encyclopedia though.
White Terror actually murdered more civilians, but for some reason some historians don't count the antisemitic mass murders committed by the Whites.
Consequences of a tough crackdown on groups and individuals that immediately threatened the maintenance of the USSR; it was a must to slam down, those caught in the quake were unfortunate byproducts. Herberg points out in regards to Stalin, and in passing Lenin, that none of the Western journalists or press shed a tear for the assassination of Bolsheviks, but they wept for those whites and counter-revolutionaries who were killed; one might say it is unfair, the difference of size, but it is the fate of everything, and everything must be done to preserve it.
What's done is done. Purges are going to be inevitable. Just look at what's happening in Burkina Faso. Sankara was betrayed by a man who he thought was his friend, so the current president Ibrahim Traore is now ruthlessly purging people who are plotting against him. Traore even referenced Sankara's betrayal in a recent interview and how he will not make the same mistake Sankara did.
One of the reasons why you shouldn’t commit war crimes is because it usually encourages the other side to say “fuck it. We ball too”. The Russian civil war was rather chaotic because decades were happening before the war even started and decades kept happening after the civil war.
Countries like china and Vietnam and Cuba were embroiled in civil wars too, but I think they were able to study from the USSR’s history as well as have more time to deepen communist ideology to keep them mostly disciplined and restraint compared to the red terror. In fact, Cuban revolutionaries tried to avoid a Cuban red terror after the war, but peasants and other workers were demanding Batista blood and carrying out executions so much that the government had to reign the fervor in by officially executing Batista soldiers.
If revolution happened in the imperial core tomorrow, I simply can't imagine the number would be that low
Look at the number of reactionaries that survived.
However many died = X.
The amount that needed to die = Y.
Y is > X and therefore no matter what actually happened it wasn’t far enough.
However many died = X. The amount that needed to die = Y. Y is < X and therefore no matter what actually happened it wasn’t far enough.
Rephrased: “[the amount that needed to die] is [less than] [however many died].” This contradicts your “wasn’t far enough” comment. You did mean either “>” or to switch the variables.
Remember the crocodile mouth wants the bigger number, and will be mad (false) if facing the wrong way!
My understanding is that according to the soviet archives 750,000 people were killed. i have no idea how they decided who to kill.
i have seen some journals and diaries at the time suggesting workers approved of the red terror and viewed it as protecting the soviet state and the rev from counter-revolutionaries. idk how seriously to take the scattered documents i've come across, but it sounds like the worker on the street may have had a different perception then than we do now about what it was, why it was being done, and whether it was justified. afaik the actual details, especially the amount of executions, was not public knowledge.
i imagine people who had been serfs or worked in horrible conditions, then fought in the civil war, then immediately seen Russia invaded by armies from every western power while communists outside Russia were hunted down, slaughtered, executed, forced in to exile, imprisoned, and so forth may have viewed the Red Terror very differently from us.
may have viewed the Red Terror very differently from us.
The headline image for the Red Terror page on Wikipedia is a large sign in Pertrograd that reads "Death to the bourgeois and their helpers. Long live the Red Terror." I think you're probably right about it being viewed as a force for good by the working class.
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It was a bit excessive, and they put far too much effort into quelling other socialists or anarchists, rather than the actual White Movement. The very first targets were the Socialist Revolutionaries! They killed people for being family of anarchists! These other revolutionaries were basically easy targets, often already in proximity to the Bolsheviks and generally not putting up much of a resistance, for a variety of reasons, including how many where more focused on fighting the Whites.
It wasn't all bad, after that first bit they mostly got on track killing the right people, and the vast majority of those killed were proper Whites. Yes, the death count was justified, and it really should have been higher, but they let a fair number of supporters of the previous regime alone to keep the government running. Still, the killings of socialists and anarchists sour me on the whole deal.
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/emma-goldman-alexander-berkman-bolsheviks-shooting-anarchists
There was an active civil war, foreign armies invaded, and anarchists and SRs took an active role in the fighting against the fledgling socialist state, not with protests but actually making common cause with the white armies.
I'm not saying that many weren't purged unnecessary. All I'm saying that the USSR lived in war time it's entire existence, and trying to paint it as vicious is a huge oversimplification.
The Socialist Revolutionaries who assassinated a German diplomat in an attempt to sabotage peace talks and keep the war with Germany going?
Come on.
