As the twig is (violently) bent . . .

As a twig is bent, so shall the tree grow.

In 1917, Vladimir Lenin and his Bolshevik revolutionaries  launched an armed insurrection to overthrow the fledgeling post-Czarist government of Russia; the Bolsheviks imposed a Communist dictatorship.
Lenin’s very forceful leadership extinguished what would have been a more democratic form of government. Up until the moment when the Bolsheviks grabbed control, there was a deliberative congress, composed of several political parties.
Lenin’s strong-man tactics nipped-in-the-bud that nascent Russian representative  congress. From the moment of Lenin and the Bolsheviks’ commandeering of the revolution, the emerging Soviet regime was fatefully routed into an tyrannical authoritarian path—in spite of the supposed “masses,” who would have--or so it was assumed according to Marxist doctrine-- established a “dictatorship of the proletariat.”

The dictatorship that became entrenched following Lenin’s bully tactics became an actual “dictatorship” controlled one man--Vladimir Lenin.
The subsequent development of the Soviet State never escaped dictatorial  control by (first) Lenin, then (second) Stalin, until Stalin died in 1953.

I recently watched an excellent documentary series on Amazon:
Red Chapters: Turning Points in the History of Communism.
This 6-part work of historical video includes, in its first two episodes, a very informative and concise explanation of the fatefully oppressive forces that were set in motion in St. Petersburg (Petrograd), beginning on the night of October 24, 1917.

At that nocturnal turning point, the Bolsheviks were absconding control of an emerging popular revolution. They wrested power from a multi-partied congress and dumped it into the hands of the dictator, Vladimir Lenin.
According to Red Chapters narrator Daniel Evans, on the fateful night of October 24, 1917 . . .

“Lenin’s left-wing delegates doubted the delegates’ resolve to oust (provisional government head Alexander) Kerensky.” . . .
“Paradoxically, Lenin did not want the Congress to vote for Soviet power. A ‘yes’ vote by the ballot box would translate into a coalition government, in which the Bolsheviks would be only one of many parties represented” (in that congress.) Lenin would not be the central figure. He might not even get into the cabinet . . . But if he seized power before the congress met, he could dictate the terms of government and open the way to a Bolshevik dictatorship.”
“Lenin harangued the party members to seize power.” 

Red Chapters scholar-contributor Orlando Figes clarifies:

“Everything suggests that what he (Lenin) wanted was a Bolshevik dictatorship from the start, and that’s precisely why it was so important for him to seize power before the congress opened, to provoke the other socialist parties to walking out in protest.”

Red Chapters narrator Daniel Evans continues their account of what happened on that fateful night:

“ (Julius) Martov, the leader of the Menshevik party, proposed the formation of a coalition Soviet government. His proposal was greeted with a great cheer, and passed without a vote.
But this was not the Soviet power Lenin had intended.”

Leon Trotsky, Lenin's #2 revolutionary intimidator, shouted down  Menshevik party leader Julius Martov. As Martov was taking leave of the assembly room, Trotsky commanded:
“Go where you belong, into the dustbin of history.”

Julius Martov headed for the back door. Here's the video overlay as Martov's face appears in the Red Chapters documentary:



Red Chapters Narrator Daniel Evans explains,

“Walking toward the door, Martov warned the remaining delegates, ‘One day, you will understand the crime in which you are taking part.’ ”

And it was indeed a crime, which would be cruelly perpetrated for several generations upon the entirety of the Russian people.
Ultimately, Lenin’s strong-arm tactics dictated the oppression by which  Kerensky, and later many others, were ousted. By the same means, Trotsky would also later be ostracized.  By 1938 fellow-dissident-leaders Liev Kamenev and Grigory Zinoviev would likewise be purged out by Stalin’s post-Lenin manipulations.
The Lenin-Stalin hegemony became the dark heart and soul of Soviet oppression in the USSR for many decades to come.

Lenin imposed his dictatorial will by violent rejection of what would have been a nascent representative government. After Lenin’s death, Stalin continued and extended the pattern of tyranny; he wrested control of their dictatorial  party machine and established hundreds of gulag prisons where millions perished.
In the Russian revolution, Bolshevik violence begat a very long legacy of USSR violence and oppression.

Government reaps what government sows.
As the twig is violently bent, so shall the tree distortedly grow.
As societal control is established through tyrannical cruelty and violence, government tyranny expands accordingly--by the extension of force and violence.
The American revolution, on the other hand, brought forth a bi-cameral representative democracy with judicial oversight.

Liberty begat liberty. Lawful rule begat Rule of Law (not dictatorial tyranny.)
A nation reaps what it sows.
As the twig is bent, so shall the tree grow.
In Russia's case, Lenin's dictatorial tyranny brought forth an abusive system of imprisonment.

We Americans should help the Russians to overcome their past mistakes of Lenin and Stalin.

Glass half-Full

Nora's Amazing Life

The Russian revolution was not like our American one.

Just how different the two were can be understood if you read Nora's book about how she left the Soviet Union in 1922.

https://www.amazon.com/Weather-Heart-Childs-Journey-Revolutionary-ebook/dp/B00GT3BZ2E

The world's first communist revolution was imposed on Russia in 1917 by a group called Bolsheviks. Motivated and instructed by the theories of Karl Marx, these insurrectionists developed their tactics and strategies under the leadership of Vladimir Lenin.

A major component of their revolutionary plan was large-scale redistribution of Russian lands, businesses and all other assets. The disruptive effects of that communist reprogramming of an entire nation are glaringly evident in Nora Percival's first-person account.

To read about such things in history books, or in Dr. Zhivago, is one thing.

To read about it from the eyewitness perspective of a child is quite another.

One of Nora Percival's most traumatic losses during that time was the loss of her Mishka bear, a dearly beloved doll that we would think of as a teddy bear.

But a more significant trauma in the big picture of her life was the four-year separation from her father, at the age tender age of three. The disruption and displacement of their family ultimately demanded her mother's life--her mother, the delicate woman whose favorite activity was playing Chopin and Debussy on the piano.

Her father had been a successful factory-owner in czarist times. But his business prowess was a threat to the new regime. The revolutionary government was busy rearranging, according to Marxist-Leninist theory, the entire structure of land use, industry development and job assignment in the Russia of the 1920's. When Papa discerned the destructive program that would be imposed on his business and his life, he felt compelled to act in the best protective interests of his family; he left Russia, to establish a path in which his wife and daughter would later follow. By a round-the-world route, he wound up here in America.

His departure, and the family's suffering and deprivation under bureaucratic Bolshevik tyranny, are the stuff of Nora's amazing story, a truly historic memoir. Her account of the long, torturous trip from Russia to New York presents not only a clear picture of her personal triumph over adverse circumstances, but also a clear picture of the world-wide swell of immigration to America that happened during that era.

This final testament of Nora Lourie Percival's childhood odyssey, penned in the latter years of her 102-year life, is an amazing testimony of her personal triumph. But it is much more significant than a personal memoir. The book presents an historic, though contemporarily relevant, view of that very disruptive era of world history. Here's an authentic, insider account of the tribulations that compelled so many wayfarers to pass beneath Lady Liberty and then embark at Ellis Island to partake of our burgeoning American liberty.

Nora's writerly skills are precise and highly developed, nascent during a perilous youth in which reading three languages had become her best escape from the perpetual ordeal of fleeing post-revolutionary Russia. Having lost her little Mishka-bear, young Nora took refuge in reading. Her lyrical writing reflects an exceptional conversion of that childhood literacy into a phenomenal story in the annals of world history.

You should read it.

https://www.amazon.com/Weather-Heart-Childs-Journey-Revolutionary-ebook/dp/B00GT3BZ2E

Smoke