Let’s not forget the horrors spawned by Russia’s dictators

“How Stalin Hopes We Will Destroy America” is a 1951, 16-page anti-communism giveaway comic book published by Joe Lowe Co.

By Jim O’Neal

It is (almost) painful to watch otherwise bright and eloquent activists attempt to explain the basic tenets underpinning their infatuation with democratic-socialism. Even a casual reading of 20th century history should be more than enough to convince the naive of its fatal flaws. I sometimes wonder if philosopher George Santayana was anticipating this situation and trying to find a kind, diplomatic way to explain that “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

Yet socialism is back with a presidential election on the horizon (will Bernie Sanders run?) and another generation thirsty for change. The old warhorses of populism and capitalism will do battle again as advocates field their best warriors to convince others. My only hope is that we don’t have to repeat the tired, discredited concepts of Marxism, Leninism and communism that co-mingled with early 20th century socialism.

It is far too easy to pick from any number of fuzzy thinkers to make a compelling case to indict and convict them of naïveté, or to find a country in the Western Hemisphere that is disintegrating in front of our eyes (e.g. Venezuela). A bit more challenging is to link two historic names, familiar to all, who went from bad to disastrous.

Throughout the 20th century, renowned historians debated whether Vladimir Lenin’s successor – Joseph Stalin – was his rightful heir or simply an opportunistic usurper. After the collapse of the USSR in 1991, they finally had their answer. Evidence that had been locked away for decades in secret files eliminated any lingering doubts. The two dictators were like evil twins, starting with Lenin’s obsession to shoot, hang or destroy anyone who resisted the Bolsheviks agenda. The world’s experts agreed that Lenin spawned Joseph Stalin.

Lenin was born into a life of luxury, a normal child with a curiosity satisfied by reading. That phase of his life changed dramatically when his brother was hanged in 1887 after involvement in a plan to kill Czar Alexander III. Perhaps even worse was the family ostracism from polite society. Later, he would write, “The bourgeois will always be cowards and traitors.” He then dedicated his life to destroying the czarist system and its members.

Withdrawn and intensely focused, Lenin developed a maniacal passion for revolution that drove him to the brink of a nervous breakdown even after being exiled in Western Europe. He was a ruthless debater with the familiar “win at any cost” strategy that radicals invariably adopt. One of the Mensheviks summed it up nicely: “I hope there is no afterlife. Can you imagine arguing with Lenin after death? And then thereafter listening to his gutter abuse?”

From the moment of the Bolshevik coup in October 1917, he crushed any threat to his party’s hold on power, eliminating political parties, jailing opponents and unleashing terror using the political police.

In the aftermath of Lenin’s death in January 1924, Joseph Stalin – Secretary General of the Communist Party – emerged as the outright leader of the Soviet Union. Impatient with dictatorship, Stalin set out to forge a despotism in mass bloodshed. It included the forced collectivization of Soviet agriculture, the linchpin of the first five-year plan. He set draconian quotas for the confiscation of “surplus” food and violently repressed those he then exterminated. The consequent famine killed more than 5 million in Ukraine, Kazakhstan and the Northern Caucasus.

It is estimated that he was responsible for 50 million deaths. The rest of the story is available through dozens of books that chronicle his “Reign of Terror.”

To the well-intentioned, this is the road to socialism and then worse. It is an oft-traveled route that will ensure destruction of the many good things we enjoy. Travel at your own peril.

Intelligent Collector blogger JIM O’NEAL is an avid collector and history buff. He is president and CEO of Frito-Lay International [retired] and earlier served as chair and CEO of PepsiCo Restaurants International [KFC Pizza Hut and Taco Bell].

After Napoleon and Nazi Germany, Russia Lives with Paranoia of Conflict

A 1953 Russian propaganda poster showing Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin sold for $2,629 at a July 2016 Heritage auction.

By Jim O’Neal

Joseph Stalin died on March 5, 1953, after ruling the Soviet Union for 25 years and leading the country in its transformation into a major world power. Born Iosif Dzhugashvili in 1878, while in his 30s he took the name “Stalin” meaning “Man of Steel.” After studying at a theological seminary, he read the works of revolutionary socialist Karl Marx, which inspired him to join the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution.

He was a protégé of Vladimir Lenin and after Lenin’s death, Stalin earned a reputation as one of the most ruthless and brutal dictators in world history (“Ideas are more powerful than guns,” he once said. “We don’t let our people have guns. Why should we let them have ideas?”).

After an extended Cold War with the West, the Soviet Union started to unravel when its eighth and final leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, assumed control in 1988. He seemed eager to “destroy the apparat” – weaken the Stalinist structure of the Communist Party and the Soviet state. Only then could he take the bold economic steps to revamp a bankrupt system that was crumbling fast.

The West hailed Gorbachev as the tsar liberator, a political magician, or as Time magazine editorialized in January 1990: “The Copernicus, Darwin and Freud of communism all wrapped into one.” A year earlier, he was Time’s “Man of the Decade.” But in early 1990, Lithuania demanded outright independence and a crowd of 200,000 in the capital of Vilnius demonstrated to get the entire Lithuanian territory returned. This was quickly followed by an Azerbaijani Popular Front rally that escalated into a civil war along the Armenian-Azerbaijani border, with both sides clamoring for independence.

In August 1991, Latvia and Estonia declared restoration of full independence, followed by the Ukraine on Dec. 1. On Dec. 25, Christmas Day, Gorbachev resigned and the following day the Supreme Soviet voted itself and the Soviet Union out of existence.

I first met current Russian President Vladimir Putin in Saint Petersburg in 1992 when he was head of the Committee for External Relations, a group in the mayor’s office responsible for promoting international relations and foreign investment. We started shipping Lays potato chips from Warsaw and soon built a Frito-Lay plant near Moscow. I totally underestimated him and thought he was just another thug, a feeling that was reinforced when we started Pizza Hut in Moscow.

According to Henry Kissinger, Putin has always blamed Gorbachev for the dissolution of the Soviet Union due to his policies of glasnost (openness) and perestroika (reform). “The greatest geopolitical tragedy of the 20th century.” It has always been a mystery to me why they gave up so much when the United States and others were willing to negotiate a softer landing. I haven’t read Putin’s autobiography, but I suspect the Russians will never be satisfied until there is an east-west buffer zone along the Ukrainian border.

After Napoleon and then Nazi Germany, there is an inherent paranoia that will only be exacerbated if Poland ever joins NATO. As philosopher George Santayana so wisely observed, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

Intelligent Collector blogger JIM O’NEAL is an avid collector and history buff. He is president and CEO of Frito-Lay International [retired] and earlier served as chair and CEO of PepsiCo Restaurants International [KFC Pizza Hut and Taco Bell].

Journalist John Reed Witnessed 10 Days that Shook the World

This original photograph of Tsar Nicholas II, dated May 20, 1910, realized $16,730 at an April 2008 Heritage auction.

By Jim O’Neal

On Oct. 25, 1917, U.S. journalist John Reed was staying at the Hotel Astoria in Petrograd – the former grand city of the czars, Saint Petersburg. At 10 a.m., he awoke to bells ringing and trucks racing up and down the streets.

The trucks belonged to the Bolsheviks, a small left-wing revolutionary party headed by Vladimir Lenin. They were filled with soldiers who plastered up proclamations stating, “To the Citizens of Russia! The provisional government has been deposed. State power has passed to the Petrograd Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies … Long live the revolution of workers, soldiers and peasants.”

Actually, the provisional government of Alexander Kerensky had not been deposed, but an ever-impatient Lenin was partially right: That morning in Petrograd would change the face of a century – as the revolution “that shook the world” had begun.

The events of the next 10 days set in motion a seismic upheaval of an entire country and resulted in a massive communist empire. It should have been no surprise as the country had been ruled by omnipotent czars and governed by a corrupt and crumbling bureaucracy.

The bloodletting of WWI became the catalyst for the Russian Revolution as Tsar Nicholas II vainly tried to regain the prestige lost in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-05 and to reunite the people. It backfired and by the winter of 1917, Russia had millions of soldiers as casualties, prisoners of war and deserters.

Deserters returned home and began seizing land from the wealthy. Food shortages were rampant, workers began to riot, and soldiers – instead of shooting them – joined them by tying red ribbons to their bayonets.

Tsar Nicholas was forced to abdicate in March 1917, ending the 300-year rule of the Romanov dynasty. He and his entire family were exiled and then executed. A moderate provisional government was set up with a Constitutional Assembly and led by the 36-year-old Kerensky.

However, Kerensky launched an offensive against Germany with disastrous results. Rebellious troops commandeered trains to return home and began murdering landlords and pillaging the great estates. Factories ground to a halt and food shortages quickly spread everywhere.

Kerensky was unable to regain control and this gave the two men who would end up leading the 1917 revolution, Lenin and Leon Trotsky, the opening they needed. Both had been in exile for years in Siberia and Europe.

Kerensky wisely fled to avoid capture.

John Reed’s book Ten Days That Shook The World describes the events in great detail, but even he was an extraordinarily controversial figure who ended up charged with treason, fleeing the United States back to Russia, where he died of typhus in 1920.

He became one of those rare Americans who is buried in the Kremlin.

Jim O'NielIntelligent Collector blogger JIM O’NEAL is an avid collector and history buff. He is President and CEO of Frito-Lay International [retired] and earlier served as Chairman and CEO of PepsiCo Restaurants International [KFC Pizza Hut and Taco Bell].