-
Richard Pipes, on the forceful Dismissal of the Constituent Assembly:
"The machine gun became for them the principal instrument of political persuasion."
-
Figes, on the forceful Dismissal of the Constituent Assembly:
The Blosheviks didn't know how to make the change from an "underground fighting organisation" to a "responsible party of national government."
-
Erich Wollenberg on scattered White resistance:
All the "white guards were raised on the extreme edges of Russia"
-
History of the CPSU, on the Cheka:
Justifies its use as simply "created to combat counter-revolution and sabotage"
-
Robert Service, on the implementation of War Communism:
It's failure highlighted the problems of communism in general, and was "not very successful by most standards"
-
David Christian, on how War Communism at least did its job:
Sees it as a success because it "did the job of supplying the towns and armies with just enough food to keep fighting"
-
Figes on War Communism:
"Policies of War Communism were seen by the Bolsheviks" not just as a means to win the war, but "as an instrument of struggle" against their enemies
-
Bernard Pares, on Red Terror:
"Ruthless terrorism was applied wherever the Bolshevist arm reached"
-
Volkogonov on Bolshevik use of Terror and coercion:
Lenin "regarded it as normal to build 'happiness' on blood, coercion, and the denial of freedom"
-
Figes on Bolshevik Terror:
"The Bolsheviks were forced to turn increasingly to terror to silence their political critics"
-
Sheila Fitzpatrick on reasons for Civil War victory:
Concerning the Bolshevik victory in Civil War, "it would be inadequate to explain that victory simply in terms of military strength and terror"
-
Revisionist Michael Lynch on the Kronstadt Rebellion:
"It was not the demands themselves that frightened the Bolsheviks; it was the people that drafted them... the great supporters of the Bolsheviks in 1917"
-
Fitzpatrick on the Kronstadt Rebellion:
It was "a symbolic parting of the ways between the working class and the Bolshevik Party"
-
R. Pipes, on the Bolshevik use of coercion:
It was "a reversion to the autocratic practises of Tsarist Russia"
-
Leonard Shapiro, on the Bolshevik regime:
"Bolshevism proved less a doctrine than a technique of action for the seizing and holding of power"
-
Robert Service, on the use of Terror by Lenin:
Lenin had "little foresight when he set up the centralised single-party state" and only created institutions such as the Cheka as emergencies arose.
-
Peter Kenez, on Lenin's response of Terror:
"It would be a mistake to imagine that" Bolshevik policies were simply "the consequence of cruel and unexpected events of the time".
|
|
