[A. Pole]

Free trade was an "object of scorn" to KARL MAX; so was religion.

Really? Where did you get this idea? Karl Marx like free trade - he wanted capitalism to become a global system and world revolution at the end. He has seen freemarketeers as his helpers.

Free market ideology was object of scorn for to Charles Dickens. His books have a lot of funny sarcastic passages at the expense of freemarketeers. It was Dickens and people like him who prevented the Communist revolution in the West by encouraging preventive reforms.

Too bad Russian upper class did not pay attention.

[Nowhere Man]

Too bad Russian upper class did not pay attention.

True, I know it from my own family's history on my father's side. My great, great grandfather in Russia took part in the Bolshevik Revolutions of 1905 and by 1917, he was a Red Army general in one of the Soviets. From what my grandmother told me, his grandaughter, he was friends with Lenin and one of the inner circle when the USSR was founded, but that part needs to be verified if it can be. Heck, my grandmother's maiden name is a corruption of the word, "Bolshevik," in Russian. His son, however, he did say to him that it would be a good idea for him to get out of the mess over there and go to America, "you don't want part of this."

I do understand and have sympathies for both sides, I think what was done to the Tsar and his family was very cruel and inhuman, I think the Tsar did get bad advice from the people under him but the general population in Russia was having a hard time of it.

I love to use science fiction from time to time to illustrate my points so here goes: I remember Jedi Master Yoda in Episode I of Star Wars put it this way, "fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, and hate leads to more suffering." I think the Bolshevik Revolution is a good illustration of that along with a lot of other examples I could use.

[Toddsterpatriot]

Karl Marx like free trade - he wanted capitalism to become a global system and world revolution at the end.

Your buddy Karl thought free trade would lead to the revolution. Do you agree?

[nopardons]

Charles Dickens was a BLEEDING HEART LIBERAL and in real life ( outside of his books, dear ), an attention seeking, ego driven, pompous man, who treated his wife and children badly.

There is NOTHING in his works, that is particularly anti-freetrade and he had nothing whatsoever to do with preventing the Communist revolution in the West! HE WAD DEAD, WHEN THE BOLSHEVICS TOOK OVER RUSSIA!

You can lay a lot of things at Charlie's feet ( exposing the boarding schools which were really just warehouses for unwanted children, originating what we all think Christmas celebrations are, beginning THE CLIFF HANGER, and a few other things like that ), but "preventing a Communist revolution in the West, isn't one of them!

[redgolum]

I am currently reading a book ("Citizen") on the French Revolution. A big source of discontent by the urban population was free trade. By pulling down the barriers for things like cloth, the local guilds and artisans rapidly went broke.

While there were a lot of causes, the sudden economic turbulence caused in France by the complete restructuring of the economic system. Starving people don't care much about economic theory.