Re: 25 Classic Books That Have Been Banned

Paul S Person wrote:

On Sat, 31 May 2025 16:19:40 -0400, William Hyde
<wthyde1953@gmail.com> wrote:
 

Paul S Person wrote:

On Sat, 31 May 2025 10:14:59 +0200, nospam@de-ster.demon.nl (J. J.
Lodder) wrote:
>
<snippo>
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Yes, always the same with religions.
When a minority the demand tolerance,
once on top they oppress,

>
Didn't the Bolsheviks follow the same pattern?

>
I don't think Lenin ever demanded mere toleration.  He did a pretty good
job of oppressing even when he was in the minority.

 He never complained of the Tsar's secret police? He never expressed a
wish for more freedom?

As part of his campaign the many evils of the Tsarist state were given in great detail, even exaggerated if that was possible, anything and everything was used in the cause.  But the cause was never toleration for his party, but the rule of his party.  This was fairly clear even when it seemed ludicrous to think that the bolsheviks could ever seize power.
He was limited in this he said, only because of his  "bourgeois mentality" which prevented him from certain actions.  He praised party members who could commit crimes that he could not have made himself do.
When he came to power, for example, he repaid debts accrued in the west, no doubt to the surprise of the creditors.

Well, perhaps not. "Russian Communist" might have been better that
"Bolshevik", as being more inclusive and perhaps extending further
back in time than Lenin's arrival in Moscow.

The Bolsheviks were always as small minority before the revolution. After that their ranks were swollen by Mensheviks and other leftists - by no means all of them, of course.
Perhaps the resulting mixed party is consistent with your above idea, but the Menshevik party was outlawed in the early 1920s, and one of Stalin's first show trials was of people accused of being Mensheviks.
Apparently the Mensheviks ruled Georgia for a time, winning an overwhelming majority of the vote in an election.  That must have made Stalin very mad indeed.
Georgia was invaded and the elected government overthrown, of course.
William Hyde