The Soviet Union began with revolution, but the totalitarian nature of it and other regimes in the 20th century was previously unknown in previous annuls of recorded history. Of course people suffer in revolutions, but that is completely beside the point.
The government which followed the collapsed Tsarist state and its successor Provisional government practiced an intense hatred and oppression against its own people. It destroyed all kinds of resources and did untold environmental damage. It murdered tens of millions of people, the number of which will never be known. The Aral Sea has virtually disappeared due to Soviet contempt for the environment. It will take many generations for the former Soviet Union to recover from the hateful policies of its state.
And this we could not say was due solely to revolution.
Lisa,
I agree, the regime that followed the Russian revolution was despicable and possibly unprecedented. It had its own special patina of horror... well, there was a lot of atrocity going on in the 20th century, not all of it atrributable to communism, but much of it attributable to totalitarianism (I would argue that Pol Pot, for example, was not really a communist, but a tribal monster). I might not go as far as to say it was the worst in history...perhaps in recorded history, but not in glimpsed history... see Charles Mann's 1491 for a revised view of the Inca empire. But still, at least as ugly as it's gotten so far.
I would still argue, though, that the American Revolution was out of proportion to its cause...that the response was excessive in regard to the impetus, that if we'd stayed an English colony and turned out like Canada things wouldn't be THAT bad, and the loss of life and general upheaval would have been less. I would also argue that we wear blinders about the cost of our system. To the Native Americans, to the slaves, to the laborers, the unionizers, the coal miners mowed down in corporate massacres, the interned Japanese, and the possibily soon-to- be-rounded-up "illegal" Mexicans... was our approach as bad as Stalinism? Of course not. But there was a cost, a cost disproportionate to the gain, and mostly unsung. And I would repeat my earlier point that capitalism outsources its atrocities. So, we don't turn our guns on our own people as much. But what is the difference? People are people. Is it better that we pay death squads to wipe out entire Latin American villages/regions? That we undo democratic elections in other countries? That we support dictators who disappear their people and gas ethnic minorities? We're not great on the environment, but again we outsource the damage. What's happened to the environments of South America, the Middle East, and Africa as a result of our political and economic policies?
Capitalism is built on colonialism. Extraction is its root.
And certainly the growth of our country was utterly dependent on colonialism and on slavery. So I guess it depends on which side of the gun you're on in terms of how repressive you view a particular system. We're nicer to our own people. But an El Salvadoran villager's life is worth just as much as yours or mine.
Which system to live under? Well, I'll pick ours, of course. (Well, actually, I'd prefer the vacation packages and healthcare of Western Europe.) But in terms of worldwide damage done, we're probably a close second or third to Russia and China. Though I would also say that the responsibility for some of the damage is shared by the regimes and groups we've colluded with in other countries.
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