this post was submitted on 06 Mar 2025
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There's a lot wrong, and a lot out of order.
The Bolsheviks did not incite revolution, the brutal Tsars did, along with World War I. The Bolsheviks were a revolutionary party and were organizing the working class into worker councils called Soviets, and had created a second government alongside the liberal government.
During the events leading up to the October revolution, the liberal government had been essentially abandoned by the workers, and the Tsar was already were more of a figure head. The Bolsheviks won the Soviet elections, and lost the liberal elections, though the workers largely didn't care about that government, and the party that won happened to have had a major realignment shortly before the election yet the workers did not all know about that (pre-internet).
After the elections, Lenin and the Bolsheviks, along with the Soviets, stormed the Tsar and ousted him and the Liberal government that was more vestigial than anything else. Then came the Russian Civil War, the invasion from a dozen Capitalist countries to try to reinstate the Tsar, then the NEP (a market-focused economy temporarily for uplifting the productive forces), then Lenin's unfortunate death.
All in all, you're generally wrong with what you wrote, not only the order but also the character of events, and I don't think Wikipedia is going to be enough to know what actually happened. Again, I suggest reading Blackshirts and Reds.
I began by reading Britannica. I am aware of my black and white thinking and this manifests in me frequently being against everyone and everything.
Naturally this is unfair. I will proceed reading Britannica now.
Yes, that is certainly an anticommunist take on the Revolution, and it leaves out key details like the Socialist Revolutionaries having a major party split right before the election, as well as that the working class had largely abandoned the constituent assembly, as well as the nature of Soviet Democracy, which is what allowed the workers to elect the bolsheviks in the first place. You also see nonsense words like "totalitarianism" as well.
You would do better to read the book October by China Mieville than you would reading a UK-based encyclopedia with a vested interest in anticommunism. Rather, what you originally complained about, ie not believing there to be anticommunist institutions impacting education and popular media, is fully on display.
Finally, it also fails to mention that the Workers did not want to continue Capitalism, the Provisional Government had to be overthrown in the first place anyways. The Socialist Revolutionaries were also wanting to do that until the major party split, where the right-wing faction retained the name.
I am quite rigid in regards to dis/trusting Britannica and other free and accessible online sources ( e.g. Wikipedia).
In my opinion, if your data, theory, or story cannot survive public scrutiny on the open internet, then the quality of your material probably doesn't meet my standards.
Only trusting western, mainstream sources that are generally friendly to the Capitalist order is pretty low in terms of standards. Purely trusting biased sources isn't a good thing.
Moreover, the basic facts weren't wrong, I pointed out how Britannica intentionally leaves out key details, and emotionally charges the facts it does represent. You're only getting a small portion of the overall history and are deliberately refusing to look into actual sources, just summaries from biased individuals.
Why don't you want to read October, by China Mieville? As far as I know it's seen as very in-depth and well-sourced, the worst you would be doing is getting a better understanding of events.
All of that still doesn't address that Socialism was by far better for Russia than Tsarism or Capitalism, life expectancies doubled, democratic control was dramatically expanded, literacy rates went from low 30s to 99.9%, famine was ended, and disparity was lowered while GDP raised dramatically and consistently. Even if we ignored the events of the Revolution, the working class won out dramatically.
I regret to inform you that despite my own political preferences I am not going to approve of any government where the political opponents are oppressed.
A kind, benevolent, and merciful dictator will never (until proven otherwise) be good in my eyes.
You must disapprove of Capitalism to a greater degree than Socialism, then, because Capitalism oppresses the working class, who far outnumber the Capitalists. All systems oppress political opponents, what matters is which class is uplifted and which is oppressed, until class is eliminated as a concept. Moreover, the USSR wasn't a dictatorshio, but a democracy, you can read Soviet Democacy for more on how the Soviet model worked. It's even listed as a source on the Wikipedia article for Soviet Democracy, so that should pass your bias checks.
Kronstadt rebellion (mentioned in the wikipedia article) seems to be highlighting that this model was in fact oppressing: socialists and anarchists.
Kronstadt was lead by Stepan Petrichenko, a Tsarist that tried to join the White Army, failed, then lead a mutiny and managed to successfully join the Tsarists afterwards. The fact that a Tsarist-led rebellion occured in the middle of a bloody civil war against the Socialists doesn't mean the Anarchists were oppressed, just people deliberately holding the civil war hostage so they could get preferential treatment.
You'll also know that the Soviets were the only supporters of the Spanish Anarchists, sending many arms to help fight the fascists. The Soviets disagreed with Anarchists, but often fought alongside them.
You really need to actually dig into subjects before bringing them up as though you are familiar from simple wikipedia blurbs, because otherwise you end up defending the fascist Tsarists.