Quote Originally Posted by HoreTore View Post
And you believe class struggle has less potential for murder than religion or racism? But you are wrong, of course, the russian civil war was also about ethnicity(cossacks, ukranians, caucasians) and religion(eastern orthodoxy, atheism).
If you're such an expert on Russian history, perhaps you could provide an example of a civil war massacre done by the Red Army to a specific ethnic/religious group?


Anyway, allow me to elaborate on the part you didn't understand fully:

You support Assad's regime. Your support is based on the fear of what you perceive the opposition to be, and the actions you believe they will take should they win. Correct?

The early slaughters of the USSR(the civil war dead) is a quite common criticism of the USSR. The argument against the USSR is the extremes they took against their enemies, mostly located in the south of Russia(north of the black sea - cossacks and ukranians).
Once again, where's your evidence? Especially when it comes to the Ukranians. Both Cossacks and Ukranians were deeply divided and both groups fought on both sides as well as against the German occupation of Ukraine. You're oversimplifying the situation without knowing all the facts. Repressions against both groups came much later (in the 1930s), and they had nothing to do with the civil war. Ukraine and the Don region (the cossack homeland) had large numbers of rich landed farmers, who didn't like Stalin's idea of collectivization. By that time the civil war was old news.


A proper Stalinist will reply by saying that the killings were completely justified. He will point to the Cossack loyalty to the Tsar and the curent(at the time) loyalty of the population in the areas in question to the White army.
Russian civil war has little to do with Stalin. He was a minor party figure at that time, he didn't make the policy. He was basically an opportunistic nobody who only sprung up as Lenin's physical condition began to deteriorate.

He will state, as is correct, that the White army had committed severe atrocities, including numerous pogroms, before and during the civil war. He will liken the white army to the later Nazi's(something I consider correct as well), and claim that if they had been victorious, they would've carried out far worse acts than Lenin did, and that these acts would be targeted against groups they identify with(workers and jews). In addition, they will point out that 20 years later, many of their descendants supported the Nazi invasion. Thus, the stalinist argues, the massacres of soldiers and civilians was entirely justified, as it prevented an even greater massacre than the one Lenin was responsible for.

In my opinion, this is a logical fallacy, a means becoming an end and a romantization of genocide. Do you see the similarity with your argument?
There is no similarity with my argument. None. I do not argue for the genocide of the rebels. I merely argue for not letting them win.