A century ago, Vladimir Lenin, Leon Trotsky, and their henchmen — Beria, Stalin, et al. — betrayed the Russian people.
They took power in a coup, proclaiming “all power to the soviets,” the soviets being worker-controlled assemblies in manufacturing, transportation, and distribution — worker control of the economy, in other words.
Once in power, Lenin and the Bolsheviks immediately destroyed the soviets, centralizing control in their hands in Moscow.
They instituted the Cheka, the secret police, which murdered over 100,000 people during Lenin’s brief but brutal rule, which ended in 1924.
Lenin (and Trotsky) paved the way for Stalin, through suppression of the soviets, through suppression of independent trade unions, through suppression of political opposition, through suppression of free speech. To pretend that all was well under Lenin is willful ignorance. He paved the way for Stalin.
And there’s no reason to talk further about Stalin. The horrors he committed are well known and were the logical outcome of the dictatorial, one-man rule he inherited from Lenin.
Those who followed, and those who still follow, Lenin (and Stalin), with their patented b.s. — “trust us, we know what we’re doing; it’s for your own good; it’s historically inevitable” — have done more harm to real social emancipation (controlling one’s daily life) than the forces of reaction could ever have dreamed of.
Sharp and Pointed 