Lenin's Brutality

“Every year, thousands of people flock to the cold and dreary Red Square in Moscow, Russia.” Located there is something remarkably peculiar. In a cold, damp, and dark mausoleum lies Vladimir Lenin’s lifeless, preserved body. Frozen in time because of science, the body has been an attraction to many throughout the decades. While traveling thousands of miles to see the body of a man who was long dead may seem strange, the actions of Lenin makes it stranger. Although he was certainly an influential man, changing the political landscape of Russia forever and creating a global superpower, Lenin has a darker side. While the genocide of his successor, Joseph Stalin, live in infamy, Lenin is often overlooked for his evil. Lenin brutally killed thousands
While Lenin rose to power on the ideals of fighting for the people, he committed heinous crimes against anyone who he considered was a threat to his new government. In doing so, Lenin started the Red Terror, a period of time where the new government attempted to find anti- communist or pro- monarchy citizens, often killing or enslaving those that they found. A task force that was known as the Cheka was put in place for that goal. The Cheka, a task force whose name has no formal translation, hunted down citizens who Lenin considered a threat to his regime. As the government had many that opposed the communist government, the police force created terror throughout much of the Russian population. Although the exact numbers of executions and deaths from the Red Terror is not known, some historians think that as many as half a million were killed by the Cheka. Yet, executions were not the only horrors that the Red Terror spread throughout Russia. Many members of opposition parties were sent to labor camps, which would become known in the Western world as concentration camps. The civilians unfortunate enough to be sent there were forced to work in horrendous conditions. Because of the poor working environment, many died in the labor camps. Lenin also essentially abolished Russia’s religious freedom, often persecuting minority groups such as the Orthodox Church, Catholics,
Yet most everyone can agree that his impact on Russia was very large, whether for better or for worse. Surprisingly, the place that he is considered as the biggest hero would be in Russia, where his body was preserved and on display in Moscow ever since his death. Many Russians often thought of Lenin as a father figure, even while the rest of the world considered him to be a villain. Back in 2011, there was talk that Russia would remove the body from where it lay in Red Square. This agrees with what a large number of the Russian population thinks, but some think that the body needs to remain where it is. One of these people, Walter Rogers, is a man who writes for the news organization Christian Science Monitor. He argues that “Interring Lenin beside his mother in St. Petersburg may paper over, but will not expunge the bloody Bolshevik past. Shakespeare reminds us that ‘the evil men do lives after them.’ Modern Russia would dishonor communism’s victims if Lenin’s corpse is smuggled out of town on a moonless night (Heilbrunn, 3).” This controversy over where Lenin’s body remains shows how many disagree about how Lenin should be remembered. And while Russia may be struggling to come to terms with who Lenin really was, the rest of the world seems to be more decisive. According to Ellie Zolfagharifard from the UK Daily Mail, a survey found “the opinions of almost 7,000