Yesterday was May 1st.

May 1st is a day of socialist celebration, smashing capitalism, general strikes, etc. Inconveniently it's also my grandfather's birthday. Instead of being part of the vanguard and leading the destruction of capitalism, I am forced to stay at home. It's not that bad though because my grandfather is the only person of my family that I respect and love. The bad thing is, is that I don't know how to show it probably because of some psychological thing that probably has to do with the fact that no one has ever loved me, I'm a social outcast, and numerous other factors but that's besides the point.

Well my family HATES me. They really, really hate me. I know that hate is a strong word but trust me, they HATE me.

I haven't spoken to my mother in months. We had a fight a few months ago. I verbally insulted her and I refuse to apologize. My family believes in these bullshit traditions and cultures. They're all complete nonsense. One of these is "your mother is always right. You have no right to insult your mother because she is your mother. Even if she isn't a good mother, she is still your mother and you must show respect." I don't believe in any of that nonsense. If you're an incompetent buffoon, I don't show you any respect.

When I was on speaking terms with my mother, she never approved of me. She always berated and insulted me. Nothing I ever did was ever good enough for her. She always focused on the negative aspects of my life and never on the positive. I'm glad that I don't speak to this cunt anymore. Sometimes I get so angry that I want to bash her fucking skull in. Unfortunately there are laws preventing me from doing such things.

My step-father is a fucking ASSHOLE. He tries to act all buddy-buddy but he's a fucking asshole. He's a hardcore capitalist. He's sexist, racist, etc. Basically he's the complete opposite of me. He's pretty much like our current President George Bush. A violent, incompetent bumblefuck that smiles a lot and acts friendly but deep down is just a stupid, sick, twisted fuck.

My grandmother is just old and her brain is failing. She's just not in touch with the modern world. She's nice and generous but she just can't act and can't comprehend modern things. Either she's too stubborn to adapt, or too old. The past is everything to her. She also likes to gossip and talk bullshit behind peoples backs. It's incredibly annoying because she has no one to gossip to except my mother and me and whenever she does this, it's never factual, it's never interesting, and it never has any significance whatsoever.

My grandfather... I don't have much negative things to say about him other than his annoying quirks. I only wish he was younger. He was very physically active just a few years ago. When I was a little kid, we would go to Manhattan, museums, zoos, etc. He took the responsibility of being a father to me and for most of my life I've been nothing but a burden to him. But he still loves me and defends me dearly.

So yes, it was my grandfather's birthday. It was supposed to be merry and cheer and whatnot but all the sudden the discussion somehow comes up to being anti-Lenin. Why did the discussion suddenly change? Obviously because I'm a fucking Communist. They do shit like this to piss me off and make themselves feel better.

My grandmother explained her basis for disliking Vladimir Lenin:
"He killed the Tsar's children."

That's it.

Yep.

That's pretty much it.

I will state my grandmother's arguments in quotations and the things I said afterwards. Obviously all of these are paraphrased because I didn't tape record the discussion.

"He executed the Tsar and killed his wife and children too. How can someone do something like that? Little, innocent children!"

First and foremost, Lenin did not execute the Tsar or his wife or his children. Lenin didn't even know about it until a bit later. The local Bolshevik official killed the Tsar and his family. The Tsar was in jail awaiting trial for crimes against the people. The White Army (the Tsar's army) was regaining territory and was going to attack the area where the Tsar was being held. This would have been a glorious victory for the White Army and a major morale boost. The party official, acting on good faith, executed the Tsar and his family to prevent this from happening.

Lenin is not responsible.

But I continued arguing about the children and whatnot. I told my grandmother that they deserved it. Sure many might disagree with me but bear with me. This is what I argued.

So they're supposed to just execute the Tsar and let his offspring live? And what would the children have done? You think they would be able to adapt to common life after living in a bourgeois palace all their lives? In my opinion, they would have grown up to be counter-revolutionaries to avenge the death of their father. Executing them at a young age prevented this from happening.

My grandmother then argued:
"Times under Lenin were worse than times under the Tsar."

I said:
No shit! But that's because times under Lenin were times under a civil fucking war. How can things possibly be good? The revolution started in 1917. It wasn't until 1922, I believe, did Russia finally regain all it's territory. Lenin died in '24 and was in poor health for the last few years of his life.

How were things supposed to be good?

I've been reading Lenin's Final Years which is a collection of speeches and writings by Lenin in the last 2-3 years of his life. He's been analyzing how Soviet Russia functions and stating it's flaws.

There are several things you have to take into account:
1. The Bolsheviks did not receive any international aid. All international aid went to the White Army. Great Britain and America were funding the White Army along with other anti-Bolshevik forces. By the way, people in America were jailed for speaking out against funding the White Army. Nice country we have here, eh? America is not a democracy. It never was, and it never will be.
2. There were minor improvements. For example, the literacy rate was improved, not by a lot but I think it was a significant amount. It did not please Lenin though. He was really pissed with the data. The economy, however, did not improve.
3. After a good amount of anti-Bolshevik forces were subdued, Lenin was working with the best of his ability to lower the funding to the military. Lenin didn't believe that a functioning Navy was necessary at the time except for this one battleship that was being built for several years but only because it could be sold to a foreign country for a good amount of money. The funding for the military was 10 million dollars. Lenin wanted to cut it down to 7 and use the other 3 for schools. After a democratic discussion that followed by democratic voting, the Party decision was that the funding for the military would go down to $8 million.
4. Russia was backwards as FUCK! Words cannot describe how bad Russia was. I want to curse the shit out of it because it was so bad. It was really fucking backwards as fuck!!!! It was poor as shit. It wasn't even industrialized. It was really, really, really fucking poor to begin with!
5. Russia was losing A LOT of money and people in the first World War. They lost a shitload of everything including territory. After the revolution, the country pulled out of the war. After the first World War, the Bolshevik forces made another war. They attacked Poland and several newly formed Ukrainian republics that allied with Poland. Their intent was to go through Poland to link up with German socialist revolutionaries and create socialism in Germany. Unfortunately this war failed.
6. Lenin created the New Economic Policy and introduced state-capitalism as an attempt to improve economic conditions. The Party would get more money and by using that money they would re-build, industrialize, and educate the country. After substantial improvements would have been made, state-capitalism would no longer be necessary and socialism would be built.

The conclusion?
Russia was piss-poor to begin with. How can economic advancements be made when the country was in ruin after the 2nd biggest war of the world, be in a huge civil war for 5 years, be in debt, and receive no foreign aid while the international community kept funding Lenin's opponents?

Fucking tell me right now how were advancements supposed to be made? Please tell me. I'll fucking build a time machine right now and tell Lenin.

IT WAS IMPOSSIBLE!

Lenin did everything that could have been done.

These were my arguments but of course it didn't change the opinion of anyone at the dinner table, especially that of my step-father. I have no clue where the fuck he heard this from but he firmly believes Lenin was going on luxurious vacations and sleeping with women in Italy where he got syphilis and died from that syphilis. He also believes Lenin was simply a German agent who was paid by Germans to go to Russia, start a revolution there, and pull Russia out of the war.

I can find no fucking information about this absurd theory anywhere. I Googled this shit and found a few places that talked about the syphilis thing but stated it was only a rumor. As for the latter, Lenin was hiding in Switzerland during the first World War because imperial Russia was arresting and executing everywhere that didn't approve of it's policy. Germany gave him safe passage into Russia. That is true. They knew that he wanted to pull out of the war. They didn't like Lenin or socialism, but they wanted Russia out of the war.

I PWNED MY GRANDMOTHER AFTEWARDS WITH SOMETHING BRILLIANT THAT YOU WILL GLADLY APPROVE OF! IT WAS REALLY WONDERFUL!

This is what I said:
You speak so illy of Lenin but when I was on speaking terms with my mother she told me that you hold Stalin in high regard. Your family was one of the few that was untouched by Stalin's despotic regime and purges. Do you know how many people Stalin killed? Especially your own Ukrainian people? You like Stalin even though he ruined everything and killed millions and millions of people, but you don't like Lenin simply because "he killed the Tsar's children"?

Massive pwnage right there. It's hard to argue with morons.