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“… this was a predatory state which the Czar and a small group of noblemen and bureaucrats ruled for their own exclusive benefit...The ruling group owned all the wealth, enjoyed all the privileges and monopolized all the political power, and it did not intend to give up any of its prerogatives. It considered the peasants to be little better than animals...”

That is simply not true. Oh, the Czars and the upper classes certainly lived like, well, kings - but there was a burgeoning middle and upper-middle class of merchants and entrepreneurs. My own great grandfather inherited a small water distribution business around 1890 in what is today the southern Ukraine. By WW1, he had built it up to the point where it employed about 50 people, and used the profits to build (with his own hands and those of his older sons) 14 houses to rent out. By today’s standards, he was a multi-millionaire - but this was a man born poor as dirt, who didn’t have a lot of formal education, but who just worked his ass off (like people in this country have done for a couple hundred years). Oh, and he was Jewish - assuredly NOT part of the aristocratic class, not even within the Jewish community. He was also far from alone - so there WAS a lot of social and economic mobility that was starting up, and what killed it was WW1 and the Communist Revolution. I’m pretty convinced that had the Czar stayed in power, or if a reasonable government had come to power, that Russia would have prospered immensely - it already had an entrepreneurial class, and all it needed was peace and trade to do well.

But compared to even a world war, Communism is far more destructive. A war only destroys property (well, and a lot of people, too). But it doesn’t completely destroy the people of a country - they clean up, rebuild and educate the youngsters to be like them or better. But Communism destroys a nation’s soul, rots minds of its people. It not only destroys, it keeps on destroying even after you get rid of it. Like the Israelites in the desert after escaping slavery in Egypt, the generations that knew Communism have to die off to get rid of the mindset fostered in a corrosive system like that. This is why Russia and Ukraine are still poor - it will take them 20 more years to finally get rid of the Communist mindset.

Thank you for a very thoughtful reply. Sounds like your grandfather was quite a guy, and by extension, your grandmother as well (Behind every great man ...).

Remember, my quote was from a book. Comparing the quote to your comment I can’t keep from wondering if the great distance (in 1890) from southern Ukraine to Petrograd (St. Petersburg) and Moscow helped your family to prosper.

In the U.S. today people still prosper even though the left now controls all three branches of government. Give them time, they’ll ruin it. And the left also has control over most of the media, universities, schools by and large, big tech, and the entertainment industry.

The one part of the quote about considering the peasants to be little better than animals hits home to me. They call us “Deplorables”, “Nazis”, “White Supremacists”, etc., when most of us want liberty, freedom, and equality. The thing is, the lies are repeated so often by the media that many people actually believe them (Goebbels was right.) Some on the left, usually Hollywood types, want to send us to “re-education” camps. And many on the left want to financially ruin anyone who doesn’t fall in step with them.

The left is immensely powerful and their totalitarian tendencies are on the rise.