[anigbrowl]

I'm certainly not endorsing the longer-term development of the USSR following the civil war and am no fan of Stalin. I think it's unfair to characterize them as gangsters in their earlier period since their seizure of power has to be weighed against the casualties of World War 1, which was horrific.

People seem to forget that ~18 million people died and >20 million people were wounded in that conflict - understandably since we have far more footage of WW2 and subsequent conflicts compared to a rather hazy conception of trench warfare and primitive tanks for WW1. Compared to this the Russian revolutions of 1917 were near-bloodless affairs. High estimates for the Red Terror in the lead up to the Russian Civil War are about 200,000 (100k is more common), a small number in that historical context, but worse because of the number and nature of the atrocities committed.

On the other hand, the White Terror to which it was a response claimed some 300,000 lives but nobody seems to care about that, which is a pretty weird double standard if you ask me. Perhaps this is because people conflate the Red Terror with the later events of the Stalinist period rather than looking at it in its contemporary context.

Unfortunately, Putin is back to praising Stalinism. A free, democratic Russia would be really interesting.

On this I completely agree, but I have to note that the West's response to the emergence of a somewhat free and democratic Russia after the collapse of the USSR was to set it up with a rudimentary market economy and milk it for profit, while keeping defense budgets in the West at about the same levels (until the early 2000s, when they almost doubled). I think Putin's rise is a direct result of our failure to invest in helping Russia to build democratic institutions.

[thriftwy]

I think you are downplaying number of Red Terror victims by an order of magnitude.

Tambov uprising alone had 11 thousands people directly dead, many more indirectly due to hunger, etc. And that's just a tiny episode.

[anigbrowl]

I took the large estimate from this article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Terror

My point is not to downplay it but to say it should be considered in the context of everything else that was going on at that time. By all means question the historical estimates if you disagree with them, but I think you should be equally concerned by the death attributable to the anti-communist forces, no?

[thriftwy]

They lost, what's the big point of discussing them? But I'm pretty sure the numbers are off. During the war you will see similar numbers, but the bulk of Red victims were when the war in fact ended.