Free Republic

The Bolshevik plague that began in Russia was the greatest catastrophe in human history.Armed Bolsheviks seized the Winter Palace in Petrograd—now St. Petersburg—100 years ago this week and arrested ministers of Russia’s provisional government. They set in motion a chain of events that would kill millions and inflict a near-fatal wound on Western civilization. The revolutionaries’ capture of train stations, post offices and telegraphs took place as the city slept and resembled a changing of the guard. But when residents of the Russian capital awoke, they found they were living in a different universe.Although the Bolsheviks called for the abolition...

This year marks the hundredth anniversary of one of the worst mistakes ever made: the Communist revolution in Russia. Communist regimes went on to kill about 100 million people. Most died in famines after socialist tyrants forced people to practice inefficient collective farming. Millions of others were executed in political purges. Yet when the Russian Revolution happened, people both inside and outside Russia were excited. Crowds cheered Lenin. No longer would nobles rule; no longer would capitalists exploit workers. Now the people would prosper together. British journalist Theodore Rothstein wrote, "The undivided sway of the Imperialist nightmare is at an...