Oh.
Wow.

WTH?

oh another milquetoast middle-aged white guy opinion writer. we certainly are bereft of those. was danny westneat busy today?

I tried to read the column in The Times but gave up. Yes, Lenin was a bad man. Was he as bad as Hitler? Probably. Was he as bad as the confederates that were memorialized in statues that we are now removing? Probably worse.

I subscribe to the times because I support local journalism, but this is basically just concern trolling by a newcomer who wants to make a name for himself in a largely liberal town.

Does he have a point? I suppose so. Should we take the statue down? I really can't get worked up about it either way. I will say that I don't think that anyone in Seattle regards that statue with any sort of reverence, unlike so many people in the south do with the confederate monuments. If anything, the irony of one of the fathers of Communism has a statue in a neighborhood that contains some of the most expensive real estate on the west coast. Fremont may not be the center of the universe, but it is certainly a temple to capitalism.

I'm sorry, but putting "secret police raids," and "mass torture, extrajudicial killings and public executions" in scare quotes is just too funny and is why we will need Marxist columnists forever "Ohhhh boo hoo, Lenin killed all these millions - don't you see what's more important is that the Structuralists separated the Diachronic from the Synchronic?" Give this man a raise!

Chuck, you're both pompous and dull.

I believe I got about a paragraph in and was convinced he was using a common Republican razor: It's only bad when it negatively impacts me! (By way of his family's suffering under Lenin.)
At which point I simply rolled my eyes and moved on.

Take some Logic 101 course - "while Hitler has become the great symbol of evil in history books, he too was less evil than Lenin" doesn't mean that "Hitler Wasn't as Bad as You Think" or "Seattle Times editorial board member defends Hitler".
Big part of my grand-grand family was killed in 30s. Just recently I learned why one of my aunts didn't look like the rest of the family - once her family was murdered by soviet "troikas" for having a cow - my grand-father took her into his house and made fake documents that she is his daughter.

@11 I have a hard time with ANY memorial for Lincoln, since he didn't rid America of traitors we have to deal with today, because he did not order the execution of everyone who served in the Confederacy, nor everyone who owned slaves. The proper reparations that the freed blacks of the Confederacy should have received was every acre of land owned by a Confederate traitor, and every man who served the Confederacy and their extended families (Excepting individuals who served the Union directly) as slaves until their death.

Trump's treason has shown us yet again that the only way to fight Fascism is to eliminate people like you, who will defend it, as long as it only attacks people you appose.

@13

Takes your meds Bob. The Confederates haven't been relevant in over 150 years and are largely forgotten aside from a few flags/statues which live rent free in your head obviously.

Absolute batshit hyperbolic take.

Yes yes more gibsmedat for our favorite minorities. That would have made things better, surely.

The word ‘weird’ is overused, but this is damn weird. All of it. I think Mr. Mudede is fighting weird with weirder. I mean, dude, did you READ that? Best impression of a muttering mad man waving his tighty whities over his head and barking ‘Kronstadt! Kronstadt!” I’ve ever seen. Is that the point? Mr. Voldzko’s Dunning-Kruger Affect erupted soon as he got off the plane from Georgia (which one?) and displayed his intellect with a 7th grade commentary on evil and eviler and a naked inability to recognize the irony of the Lenin statue. So Charles read it and thought, “Weird? I’ll show you weird! Hold my beer!” I’m really sorry Charles was never able to hold forth on Saturdays at the old Comet, the last of the disturbed patrons making good their escape and Charles standing there pointing at the heavens shouting, “No! Theory is REALLY important!”

"Theory really matters." But if theory and practice differ, theory loses (Yogi Berra?) So many things look good on paper. But their implementation just plain sucks. Repeatedly. We can argue about which version of socialism us better. But if they all seem to depend on suppressing alternative ideologies (whether by building a wall around themselves, blitzkrieging across the others or enforcing a one party state) they can't be very sound. Arguing about which version of bad leadership is pointless.

Hitler > Stalin >Lenin. Lenin didn't really have enough time to be as murderous as the other 2. Sure, he made a real effort, but he was an invalid by '21 and dead in '24.

Mehmed V reigned over the genocide of a million Armenians, where does he rank?

Lenin, Trotsky, and esp Stalin were monsters. Having a bonafide Marxist Leninist on our council, largely admired by people who don't remember 1989, nor taught the significance of those events in school (it was the End of History, after all!) does not mean we should not bother to take an interest in just how terrifying it was for people who were victims of the USSR's purges largely for political ideology from 1917 through the 50s (and Jews were not excluded as the USSR leaned into narratives about secret capitalist cabals), and were based on Lenin's interpretation of Marxism. Yes--their body count was higher before Hitler even got his shoes on and remains so--but pointing that out doesn't make for a Hitler apologist--but just someone who cares that history should not be filtered by "all the good things the USSR did." How bout you read a fucking book. Bloodlands would be a good start, if you can get through the first chapter.

It's okay to say "Lenin/Stalin did some bad things, but they had some good ideas". Twisted.

Face it, the statue has outlived its quirkiness, just as the other monuments outlived theirs--remember how we once mocked or even ignored confederate statues? By doing do white folks tolerated monuments to oppression, and handed a gift to the right, to breathe life into their movement. Now that Charles and his followers have forgotten the atrocities of Lenin and his successors....well, just ask a Ukrainian or a Georgian or a Chechen. Or a liberal in Seattle.

The unfortunate thing about West-splainers--that is, people who only see Marxist ideology through the lens of American communism, which, we should thank whoever will listen never came to power, do not understand how Lenin got the ball rolling and how Stalin finished the job. Can we talk about how COMINTERN supported Hitler in the 1930s? How Stalin and Hitler carved up eastern Europe, and how Stalin continued to do so, while the US turned a blind eye UNTIL it became expedient to get involved? Marx was a German philosopher, after all, and Hegel begot both Leninism and fascism--as the philosophical propagandist for Bismarck.

But criticize the Marxist cannon beyond "mistakes were made" makes one a fascist in their eyes, because in their view, they hold the keys as to what is the "correct" interpretation of history. Time and time again, liberals are equated with fascists, because liberals are a barrier to their utopia, and therefore, is the self issued social license for false equivalency. Marxists sense of entitlement for a relationship with liberals means that relationship only happens on their terms; if they are a barrier to the "historic inevitability" of communism, they are just like fascists. But don't take my word for it. Read all of the DSA member screeds on Twitter.

So glad the Times published the op-ed, even if the writer is hounded into obscurity, it will have been worth it to watch local Leninist fans twist in the wind of a long discredited ideology. Imagine this hounding being backed by state power. If you can, you may be on the road to understanding how objectionable Leninism is.

Lenin didn't even make the list here…https://about-history.com/list-of-dictatorships-by-death-toll-the-top-10-biggest-killers-in-history/

Not even mentioned here —> Who killed more: Hitler, Stalin, or Mao https://u.osu.edu/mclc/2018/02/08/who-killed-more-hitler-stalin-or-mao/

He ranks 8th here —> http://eskify.com/10-world-dictators-who-killed-the-most-people/

Mao seems to be the one I hope no one beats.

How many slaves died from 1620 to 1865 and how many of their descendants died prematurely as a result of simply being the descendants of slaves? Estimates range from 5-12 million. Where are those atrocities mentioned, either by the editorialist or his apologists?

What about my Mom? Now there was a tyrant!

Thank you, 2CV dear. I don't know much about the Kaiser, but the Soviets were a direct response to Tsarsim, which had had its boot on the throats of the citizens for centuries.

@28: So somehow, someone thought that just changing boots was a good idea?