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Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty-RFE/RL
NEWSLINE Vol. 6, No. 75, Part 1,
22 April 2002
And the Other Side of the Story from "The Open Wound"
According to a poll conducted by the Public Opinion polling agency
among 1,500 respondents throughout Russia, nearly two-thirds of
respondents (63 percent) believe that Soviet state founder Vladimir
Lenin played a positive role in Russia's history while only 17 percent
of respondents believe otherwise, RBK and RosBalt reported on 20
April. The poll, conducted in the run-up to Lenin's birthday on 22
April, also indicated that those respondents with higher educations and
young people were the most negative regarding Lenin, 25 percent and
22 percent, respectively. VY
AND THE OTHER SIDE OF THE STORY--------
From "The Open Wound"
"With the October Revolution, there emerged what Vahakn N.
Dadrian writing on the Turkish genocide of the Armenians has called
'a subculture of massacre.' This culture of devastation and death was
government sponsored, on Lenin's orders. Though each individual
requisition and action of mass murder was not carried out on the basis
of an order signed directly by Lenin, this is beside the point. The
Soviet system of terror was not designed by Lenin to work in such a
manner. He publicly called on the peasants and average citizens to
arm themselves and to exterminate the kulaks and counter-
revolutionaries, exhorting '.....all toiling people and propertyless
peasants to unite immediately in a merciless struggle against the kulaks.'
Thus he is not absolved from responsibility, rather, to the contrary,
Lenin bears the ultimate burden of guilt for the ensuing atrocities. "
"In September 1918, a group of diplomats from Switzerland,
Denmark, and several other neutral states sent a protest to the Soviet
government complaining of the repression of those ".....whose only
crime is to belong to the middle classes, and whose extermination is
proclaimed by the leaders of the country in their own papers and in
their own speeches." The official reply, drafted by Chicherin, the
Soviet Commissar for Foreign Affairs, included the following:
"(W)e are engaged in a civil war......This counterrevolutionary
clique which utilizes foreign and Russian capital to force slavery and
war on the Russian people, this clique of Russian workers will
ruthlessly annihilate.......(A)gainst our enemies a ruthless war!....
(V)iolence in Russia is used only in the holy interests for the
liberation of the masses......" This fanatical disregard for human
rights and religions-like impertinence at the protest lodged by the
international community against the Lenin government reveal that
revolutionary mentality which Robert Melson has demonstrated
to be so fundamentally characteristic of genocidal regimes."
................Lenin issued a decree on July 28, 1918, establishing
a Commissariat for German Affairs in Saratov, the chief duty
of which was to 'battle the big farmers and the counter-
revolutionaries among the Volga Germans---which in the
estimation of the government was the majority of the group,
as Schleuning observes. The Commissariat was also to oversee
all requisitions in the area. Schleuning relates the history of the
attack on Nizhnaya Dobrinka....In the late summer of 1918: 'The
terrorized population was robbed, those who refused were shot
down, women and children were raped by the cruel beasts.
Several children died as a result of these shameful deeds.........
The rage of the German peasants exceeded all limits." He writes
on another village: "In Warenburg (Privalnoye) the colonists
armed themselves in January 1919. An act of desperation"
They were no match for the machine guns of the Reds. Fifty
were immediately executed, an additional forty were shot on
order of the Revolutionary court.
"Wormsbecher, the supposed leaders of the colonist uprising,
was hung up on the bell in the presence of the entire student
population, in from of his own children and wife. The corpse
remained there the entire day 'as a warning example.' His wife
fainted. The children screamed, their hearts shuddering. Horror
shook old and young."
Within 2 hours, the colony had to pay a contribution of
1,300,000 rubles. Anyone who didn't pay was threatened with
death. In fear of death, those who didn't have the money hurried
from house to house, attempting to borrow from acquaintances.
The property of those sentenced was confiscated, the women
and children of those executed were driven into the streets in the
middle of winter. The number of those who became homeless
and were left without protection is beyond counting...........
Page 18-19
Taken from "THE OPEN WOUND"
The Genocide of German Ethnic Minorities In Russia and the
Soviet Union, 1915-1949---And Beyond
By Samuel D. Sinner
Germans From Russia Collection (including Ukraine)
North Dakota State University Libraries
Fargo, North Dakota, 2000
And so this story was repeated thousands and thousands of times
throughout the Soviet Union and especially in Ukraine from 1918
through the artificial famines of 1921-1923 and 1932-1933 and
beyond.
Lenin needs to be held accountable for the consequences of his
real actions when history is written for the ages. When people
understand the real story it will be difficult for them to be positive
about one Mr. Vladimir Lenin. (Editor, ArtUkraine.com)
Information about the book, "The Open Wound."
http://www.lib.ndsu.nodak.edu/grhc/order/general/sinner.html
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