CPM General Secretary Sitaram Yechury unveiled a statue of revolutionary communist leader Vladimir Lenin at the party office in Tirunelveli, Tamil Nadu. This is one of the great ironies about communists in India that while they accuse others of mass murderers, they themselves idolise communist leaders known from mass murders.
Communist regimes across the world have seen mass killings of dissidents, and the rule of Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, popularly known as Vladimir Lenin, was no different. During the Communist Revolution, Lenin used slogans like “armed insurrection”, “mass terror”, and “the expropriation of gentry land”. During Lenin’s short rule in Russia, the country became a one-party communist state, governed by his Russian Communist Party, thereby eliminating any form of political opposition.
Lenin was responsible for the death of thousands of people during his regime. In 1918, many cities in Russia faced famine due to a chronic shortage of food grain. Lenin blamed this on kulaks or wealthier peasants. He accused that the richer peasants were hoarding the excess grain they had produced to increase its price. Therefore, he had issued an order enabling armed forces to forcefully confiscate food grain from producers and distribute in shortage hit cities. This had led to widespread violence, as the peasant groups clashed with armed forces. Lenin had sent a Telegram, which called for publicly hanging at least 100 kulaks, rich men, and bloodsuckers.
In September 1918, the Russian government officially inaugurated the Decree Red Terror, a period of political repression and mass killings of anti-communists. It is estimated that at least 1,00,000 people were killed during the Red Terror, while other estimates vary from 50,000 to 1,40,000. The Red Terror also had led to the Russian Civil War, which had resulted in an estimated 7,000,000–12,000,000 casualties, mostly civilians. The civil war was led by Red Army of the communists and White Army, a loose confederation of anti-communist forces. Lenin regularly participated in the violence by sending telegrams and messages.
Other than mass killings, the Lenin regime had also set up concentration camps and kept thousands of prisoners in those camps. Intellectuals considered to be anti-government were exiled to inhospitable regions or deported from Russia altogether. In 1922, Lenin had issued a decree for execution of anti-communist priests, resulting in the death of 14,000 to 20,000 people.
Lenin was extremely intolerant of political opponents, he used brutal methods to crush the anti-communist movement in Russia. He called for the public hanging of those opposed to forceful snatching and distribution of food grain. Basically, Lenin did everything that communists in India accuse Narendra Modi and other BJP leadership of doing, and Lenin is their idol.
