https://espressostalinist.com/2012/03/13/lenin-on-the-kulaks/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenin's_Hanging_Order

http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Red_Terror

http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/modern-world-history-1918-to-1980/russia-1900-to-1939/the-red-terror/

http://spartacus-educational.com/RUSterror.htm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Terror

Lenin's so-called "Hanging Order" was discussed during a controversy about the BBC documentary Lenin's Secret Files (1997) based upon Robert Service's findings in Soviet archives. This is Service's English translation of the Russian original:

"Comrades! The insurrection of five kulak districts should be pitilessly suppressed. The interests of the whole revolution require this because 'the last decisive battle' with the kulaks is now under way everywhere. An example must be demonstrated.
Hang (and make sure that the hanging takes place in full view of the people) no fewer than one hundred known landlords, rich men, bloodsuckers.
Publish their names.
Seize all their grain from them.
Designate hostages in accordance with yesterday's telegram.
Do it in such a fashion that for hundreds of kilometres around the people might see, tremble, know, shout: "they are strangling, and will strangle to death, the bloodsucking kulaks".
Telegraph receipt and implementation.
Yours, Lenin.
Find some truly hard people"[7]

Stalin's genocide was far worse, but it was simply a continuation of what Lenin started.

Shadow Minister ; I know about this ; But check the Wikipedia entry on the Hanging Order again ; Yes the threat was an instrument of Terror ; but at the time of issuing (ie: before Stalin) to what extent was it followed through? Lenin specifically wanted "at least 100" targeted. I don't excuse the action - because I believe the death penalty is generally another form of murder. Especially where its a political weapon of Terror. But it puts it into perspective compared with what happened later under Stalin.

Tristan are you seriously putting up that the serial killer Lenin was OK because his successor killed a lot more people?
Fair enough, good point so when are you going to write demanding that people stop criticising Hitler because he killed less Russians than either of them.
How old are you Tristan, 10, 11?

J Bowyer ; What do you make of Churchill sinking the French fleet then? Or even the strategic bombing of Japan and Germany? Personally I prefer to remain 'morally pure'. Seriously I don't think you can legitimately put a 'price' on a human life. But I can see the other side as well. If put in their place maybe I would be forced to compromise my principles. Lenin was trying to save millions of lives threatened by starvation. Churchill saw that Hitler getting his hands on the French fleet could have turned the war. Ditto strategic bombing of Japan and Germany. There are strong moral arguments against as well. But at least try to be consistent!

SO what do you make of those other examples?

Tristan - The French fleet had to be sunk or their guns would have been turned on the Royal Navy. In hindsight of course, strategic bombing was a dud and should have been seen as such. Certainly by the British but mistakes are made and that is still being perpetrated by everyone. Lenin was a complete despot and the last thing that saved anyone from starvation was killing other people.
The Communist experiment was a complete and utter fail. China is now realising that but their Lenin equivalents will try all they can to morph into a new aristocracy before it is left to capitalism to sort it out.
Have a happy Christmas Mate and I apologise for being personal.

Thanks for the Christmas well-wishes. Its appreciated to keep that in mind this time of year. We'll have to agree to disagree on Lenin. Lenin turned to harsh measures in response to civil war, assassination attempts ; the threat of starvation, exposure to the freezing cold - and hundreds of thousands literally freezing or starving to death.

That said I didn't like his strategies. I would have been with Julius Martov and the Left-wing Mensheviks. Try and forge a compromise based on consolidating the bourgeois democratic revolution ; but perhaps going further by keeping the Red Army as an 'insurance policy'. Aim for a gradual transition to democratic socialism later down the track once democratic rights were consolidated with a democratic state... Sort of like what they tried in Austria. Except the Red Army would be the dominant military force - alongside liberal democratic institutions (the constituent assembly); hopefully bringing all the democratic forces onside....

Lenin's context was also trying to force an end to the First World War. Which is what makes the Civil War that followed such a tragedy. He wanted to deliver bread, land and peace. He only delivered on redistributing land. And his centralisation model led over the longer term to Stalinism. Rosa Luxemburg saw the threat ; but after she was murdered the Left of Social Democracy embraced the Third International and its 21 points.

Maybe you're right about strategic bombing... My mother always believed her father would not have survived Changi if not for Hiroshima. But firebombing causing perhaps over a million civilian deaths in Europe and Japan should be scrutinised. SO many people without any personal guilt for the war. Would the same kind of thing be thinkable today?