28 Feb 21
“For those who have invested their identities into cliches, the only counter-argument they have is ‘being offended’”
Stefan Molyneux
USSR’s “Great Terror,” or “Great Purge,” 1937-1939
Vladimir Ulyanov (Lenin) and his barbarous Bolsheviks ascended to power in Russia on the heels of the 1917-1923 “October Revolution.” Russia’s “last Czar,” Nicholas Romanov, his wife, and their five children were all subsequently arrested and brutally murdered by the Bolsheviks!
The term, “Bolshevik,” was coined by Lenin and his fellow anti-Czar revolutionaries from the Russian adjective, “greater,” indicating that they were the logical and predestined successors to Russia’s ancient succession of Czars. “Czar” or “Tzar” is simply the Russian translation of the Latin, “Caesar.”
Curiously, Lenin’s and his Communist successors’ idea of government was little more than a continuation of cruel Czarist rule, under a new “socialist” label!
With Lenin’s death in 1924, Joe Stalin emerged as head of state, murdering his way into power and ultimately declaring himself dictator in 1929.
During his life, Joe assumed over thirty “AKAs,” as had Lenin before him. Joe was involved with Marxism from an early age, and like many others attracted to the Marxist movement in Czarist Russia, changed names often in order to avoid being tracked. Joe’s birth-name was “Djugashvili.” “Stalin” loosely translates to “Man of Steel,” and Joe adopted the name as he rose to power, as a way of enhancing his reputation.
Stalin’s consolidation of personal power was penetrating and immediate!
At Stalin’s direction, Leon Trotsky, Stalin’s fellow revolutionary and ostensible “friend and comrade,” was expelled (along with many other “Party Founders”) from the “Central Committee” in 1927, and from the Communist Party altogether the same year. He was exiled to Turkey and eventually to Mexico. While living in exile in Mexico, Stalin’s NKVD hunted Trotsky down and murdered him in August of 1940.
Trotsky was a firebrand, and it was said of him by Leighton Rogers, an American bank employee stationed in Petrograd in 1917, that he “could stir-up revolution in a cemetery,” but “dying of old age” was not in the future of anyone whom Stalin decided he didn’t like, and he “didn’t like” millions!
Trotsky was just one of a million or more who were accused, imprisoned, tortured until they “confessed” to anti-Revolutionary thoughts, “tried” and shot shortly thereafter, along with their entire extended families and circles of friends!
It was demanded that Russians “turn-in” neighbors to the dreaded NKVD, even family members, who expressed “counter-revolutionary thoughts,” lest they themselves be accused of being part of a “conspiracy.”
The NKVD’s maniacal search for “hidden enemies” demanded that “enemies” either be found, or manufactured. Intellectuals, performing artists, business owners, the highly educated, ethnic minorities, and members of the clergy were particularly suspect.
Stalin’s political terror would also embrace many high-ranking generals, admirals, even upper-level party members, including renowned war hero, Mikhail Tukhachevsky, along with hundreds of thousands hapless lesser-knowns.
No one was safe!
Most were shot while standing in long ranks, along with other victims. However, “gas-vans” were used to murder many as they were ostensibly being transported to gulags.
Those not murdered immediately were sent to one of Stalin’s “Archipelago of Gulags,” where most subsequently died of starvation, exposure, etc. The vast majority imprisoned in gulags were never seen again!
In late 1938, Stalin decided to end the purge, since his Army’s and Navy’s officer corps had been essentially wiped-out, but arrests and executions thereafter decreased only slightly.
NKVD’s ruthless director, Nikolay Yezhov, who had been hand-picked by Stalin, is himself arrested and executed in 1939. His equally ruthless predecessor, Genrikh Yagoda, had been similarly arrested and executed a year earlier. They would hardly be the last to suffer this fate. There was no “job security,” even within the NKVD!
Today we see in a disturbing parallel.
The JRB Administration, with the full support of the leftist media, is ordering our entire cadre of flag-grade officers to “purge” the ranks of our military of all who are not in lock-step ideological conformity with the DNC’s Marxist political agenda. “Internal conspiracies” and “hidden enemies” must be flushed-out. “Rightish dissidents” must be “turned-in” by their comrades. They are apparently everywhere, so “Lists” must be made! Those who make “the List” are invariably labeled “extremists,” and must be identified, purged, harassed, disenfranchised.
And, most of our generals are only too happy to comply!
They are well-advised to look back on 1937, to where our current cadre of leftist politicians all trace their ancestry,
… and be careful what they wish for!
“After the game, the king and the pawn go back into the same box.”
Italian Proverb
/John
