Who was the more ruthless war time leader, Abraham Lincoln or V Lenin?

[Let's Get Free]

Is there anything Lenin did that Lincoln didn't do and vice versa?

[khad]

Oh come on, let's not play this "WHO'S A HARDER ASSED MOTHERFUCKER" game.

[Rafiq]

The entirety of what would become the allies didn't invade the United states, and to my knowledge few powers, if any (Britian?) aided the Confederates. It was a clear war, the Union against the reactionaries, nothing close to the chaos of Russia and the former territories of the empire. I don't know how Lenin could be considered ruthless. Sverdlov was president and Dzerzhinsky took care of the Terror. Trotsky was a commander of the red army too. All of the decisions made during the RSV were not necessarily Lenin's.

[l'Enfermé]

Lenin was just one member of a party that had hundreds of thousands of members, which made decisions more or less collectively until the 1920s.

[bad ideas actualised by alcohol]

Well, there are of corse letters Lenin wrote during that time, to for example Trotsky and Dzerzhinsky, that could bear the stamp of ruthlessness. But I see no problem with being ruthless in a time of chaos and war with major imperialist powers, I'd actually would blame him if he wasn't ruthless enough.

[Geiseric]

Even the CNT FAI, and the Makhnovists, had their own purges and summary executions of reactionaries, so the whole violence thing seems to be born out of absolute necessity, seeing as the actual revolution in 1917 was more or less peaceful.

Lincoln had to abolish Corpus Haebus though because of all the people he jailed and executed (like hundreds of native american rebels when he was president) so he was brutal in his own right. Look at Sherman's march through Georgia if you want an example of Total War.

[Comrade Samuel]

It's an apples to oranges comparison don't you think? I believe many here would agree that Lenin clearly was not hopeing to establish a new bourgeoise in Russia whereas Lincoln was trying to preserve the current one in the United States.

[Blake's Baby]

The entirety of what would become the allies didn't invade the United states, and to my knowledge few powers, if any (Britian?) aided the Confederates...

Britain and France (the two major colonial powers in the world) both supported the Confederacy. Russia and Prussia (a rising power, certainly) supported the Union. Not sure what Spain's view was, probably were just happy for the USA to tear itself apart.


It's an apples to oranges comparison don't you think? I believe many here would agree that Lenin clearly was not hopeing to establish a new bourgeoise in Russia whereas Lincoln was trying to preserve the current one in the United States.

Good point. Lincoln was more like Kerensky, and the Confederacy was more like Kornilov. Maybe.

[Rafiq]

Blake even then it had been almost a hundred years of American-bourgeois hegemony, a developed mode of production and state.

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[Lev Bronsteinovich]

Britain and France (the two major colonial powers in the world) both supported the Confederacy. Russia and Prussia (a rising power, certainly) supported the Union. Not sure what Spain's view was, probably were just happy for the USA to tear itself apart.



Good point. Lincoln was more like Kerensky, and the Confederacy was more like Kornilov. Maybe.
I think it is interesting to compare and contrast Lenin and Lincoln -- but the contexts were so very different for each. And Lincoln as President had much more power concentrated in his hand than Lenin. They were both uncompromising -- all to the better.

BTW, the CSA had great hopes pinned on Britain entering the war on their side. Obviously it didn't happen.

[Let's Get Free]

As for Felix Dzerzhinsky, a story goes that at one gathering in 1918, a note went to Dzerzhinsky, asking how many enemies of the revolution were currently jailed. Dzerzhinsky replied with a number of about 1,500. After reading it, Lenin put a cross next to the number and returned the paper to Dzerzhinsky who immediately stood up and left.

Nobody paid any attention to this sudden departure and only the following day did the result of this correspondence become known: Dzerzhinsky had all of the 1,500 inmates shot that very night, having interpreted Lenin’s cross as an execution order. Lenin apparently didn't mean it – a cross was his usual way of showing he’s read and considered the information. 1,500 people fell victim of Dzerzhinsky’s misinterpretation – something nobody dared criticize.

Now THAT was a ruthless dude.

[Rafiq]

I don't shed tears for enemies of the revolution.

Anyway, source (not that it matters)?

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[Ostrinski]

I've heard that story before too but never could find a source. Whether it is true or untrue is anyone's guess.

[Manic Impressive]

Britain and France (the two major colonial powers in the world) both supported the Confederacy. Russia and Prussia (a rising power, certainly) supported the Union. Not sure what Spain's view was, probably were just happy for the USA to tear itself apart.
I'm not sure you could really call British policy support. In reality they wanted both sides as weak as possible so a united states of America was not in their interests as they saw opportunity in sustained lower prices for cotton which an independent confederacy would bring. The confederacy thought that British and French would support them and even declare war on the USA, when this didn't happen they stopped large scale exports of cotton.

But neither Britain or France backed the Grey back nor did they officially recognize the confederacy. They did however, trade with both and sold munitions and logistical equipment to both. Although the UK and France would have preferred a Confederate victory they settled for the profits gained from neutrality. Not to mention that a war with the USA would have been extremely unpopular among the proles.

[Ostrinski]

Yeah Britain got all of its cotton from the south so they were inclined to support the Confederacy militarily. They had actually gotten so far as to build a few warships for the CSA, but Lincoln sent a diplomacy team over and somehow some way convinced the British government not to aid the Confederacy.

[Geiseric]

As for Felix Dzerzhinsky, a story goes that at one gathering in 1918, a note went to Dzerzhinsky, asking how many enemies of the revolution were currently jailed. Dzerzhinsky replied with a number of about 1,500. After reading it, Lenin put a cross next to the number and returned the paper to Dzerzhinsky who immediately stood up and left.

Nobody paid any attention to this sudden departure and only the following day did the result of this correspondence become known: Dzerzhinsky had all of the 1,500 inmates shot that very night, having interpreted Lenin’s cross as an execution order. Lenin apparently didn't mean it – a cross was his usual way of showing he’s read and considered the information. 1,500 people fell victim of Dzerzhinsky’s misinterpretation – something nobody dared criticize.

Now THAT was a ruthless dude.

He doesn't have shit on Beria. Dzherinsky never raped anybody, nor did he do anything counter to the interests of the working class, untill the 1920s when he sided with Stalin on a lot of things like support for the N.E.P.

[goalkeeper]

I don't shed tears for enemies of the revolution.

Anyway, source (not that it matters)?

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No one is asking you to shed tears for Russians shot 100 years ago in the midst of one of the bloodiest civil wars in human history. But you must admit its a bit fucked up that 1500 can just be shot because of one guy misinterpreting something.

I don't know what source the other poster got that from, but I recall reading it in Orlando Figes' People's Tragedy

[Ostrinski]

Figes is one of the more anti-communist historians, but I wouldn't say he's a Richard Pipes or a Robert Conquest insofar as he's actually a legitimate historian in spite of his anti-communism and isn't just some anti-communist ideologue like the former two. Haven't read the work in question, though, but it very well could be true. Dzerzhinsky was one to make it very clear that he felt his ruthlessness was nothing to apologize for (not unlike Lenin or Trotsky, or Stalin for that matter).

Dzerzhinsky, though, was a man of the revolution even though he became a Stalinist in his later years. Like Lenin I feel like he was done a service by history in dying before the late-mid to late 20's.

Beria comparisons are nothing but silliness, he was no pedophile or rapist.

Interesting fact: before siding with Stalin in the 20's he was somewhat of an ultra-leftist on issues such as the national question, parliamentarianism, and unions, no doubt a vestige of his interractions with that colleague of his, Rosa Luxemburg (whom he kept a portrait of in his office during his tenure as head of the Cheka) when they were both in that very unflattering outfit, SDKPiL.

[Rafiq]

No one is asking you to shed tears for Russians shot 100 years ago in the midst of one of the bloodiest civil wars in human history. But you must admit its a bit fucked up that 1500 can just be shot because of one guy misinterpreting something.

I don't know what source the other poster got that from, but I recall reading it in Orlando Figes' People's Tragedy

They were not suspected counter revolutionaries, they were convicted enemies. Dzerzhinsky probably thought it was best to kill them. Leaving them in prison was too much a kindness.

Anyway, remember Bukharin sided with Stalin too. Stalin proved himself a traitor but Trotsky was an opportunist who I never would have trusted.

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[Geiseric]

They were not suspected counter revolutionaries, they were convicted enemies. Dzerzhinsky probably thought it was best to kill them. Leaving them in prison was too much a kindness.

Anyway, remember Bukharin sided with Stalin too. Stalin proved himself a traitor but Trotsky was an opportunist who I never would have trusted.

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you're dillusional, yeah trotsky was so opportunist for becoming part of the nomenklatura and restoring capitalism. OH WAIT no that was Stalin and the rest of the state bureaucracy, and Trotsky was murdered for fighting against them.

Also Beria to my knowlege was both a rapist and a pedophile, on top of personally murdering several thousand prisoners.

[skitty]

Don't know if 'ruthless' is a good fit for Lincoln. He was very intelligent and calculating. When it comes to cruelty he wasn't in the same league as the other people mentioned above.

[Ostrinski]

Lincoln is painted in a humane light in contemporary times but let's not forget forget that he was the commander-in-chief of (what developed into) a ruthless class war against the slave owning plantationists on behalf of the bourgeoisie, a conflict that killed at least 600,000 people.

He finalized the bourgeois revolution in the United States which paved the way for industrialization, working class political struggle, the movement for workplace unionization, etc.

The Union might not have been as cruel from a human perspective as the Bolsheviks were forced to be, but when you look at the civil wars in the United States and Russia/former Russian Empire from the perspective of class forces, the American civil war was almost as socially violent even if it wasn't as destructive in terms of human cost.

[Os Cangaceiros]

IIRC Lincoln signed off on the largest mass hanging in US history (it was of native americans and was unrelated to the civil war).

[Os Cangaceiros]

^actually that may not be right, as the incident I'm refering to took place in 1862, so it may have been related in some way to the civil war

[Ostrinski]

You never hear about the native American relationship to the civil war. I wonder if there's been any scholarship on the subject.