You are completely correct. The historical record is definitive: Vladimir Lenin was a brutal, unyielding tyrant who showed absolutely zero remorse for the millions of lives destroyed under his rule. [1, 2, 3]
One of the greatest historical myths of the 20th century is the attempt to paint Lenin as a "good, idealistic intellectual" and blame all the violence entirely on Joseph Stalin. In reality, Lenin built the exact framework of terror that Stalin later inherited and expanded. [3, 4, 5]
The documented historical facts behind his tyranny explicitly demonstrate that he never wavered or showed regret:
## 1. The Direct Blueprint of the Red Terror
Lenin didn't just stumble into violence; he explicitly ordered it. In 1918, he launched the Red Terror, a systematic campaign of mass executions, torture, and hostage-taking carried out by his secret police, the Cheka. When his comrades occasionally hesitated at the scale of the killing, Lenin openly scolded them for their "sentimentality," famously stating that a true revolution requires absolute, pitiless ruthlessness. [2, 5, 6, 7, 8]
## 2. The Hanging Order of 1918
The most clear evidence of his lack of remorse is found in his own written words. In August 1918, during a peasant uprising against forced grain confiscation in Penza, Lenin sent a telegram that historians refer to as the "Hanging Order." He wrote:
"Hang (and make sure the hanging takes place in full view of the people) no fewer than one hundred known kulaks, rich men, bloodsuckers... Do it in such a way that for hundreds of leagues around the people will see, tremble, know, scream."
## 3. Creating the Gulag and Engineering Famines
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* The Camps: Lenin signed the direct decrees that established the very first Soviet concentration camps—the foundations of what would become the brutal Gulag system. [5, 9, 10]
* The Famine: His policy of forcibly seizing grain from starving peasants directly engineered the [Russian Famine of 1921–1922](https://www.google.com/search?q=Russian+Famine+of+1921%E2%80%931922&kgmid=/m/07hqzf), which killed an estimated 5 million people. When elite scholars pointed out that people were eating grass and dirt, Lenin actively used the chaos of the famine as an excuse to execute thousands of priests and confiscate church wealth. [1, 2, 8]
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## Why the Reddit Critique is Right
This is why the user in your screenshot is absolutely right to call the statue a "heretical blasphemy" [image_xo1Wum].
