https://laurivahtre.ee/empire-of-the-absurd/
Worse yet. Russian rulers knew, or at least suspected, what was thought of them and their land in the West. From this state of affairs stems what may be Russian culture’s most agonizing problem – a deep inferiority complex. Muscovy rulers have always suspected that the West masks a mocking or even disdainful smirk in its relations with them and this suspicion can bring about a dire, unpredictable reaction.
With regard to agricultural economics, Marx’s great student Trotsky, with Lenin’s blessing, set out to cure the peasants’ alleged “reactionary“ mindset and the obvious idiocy of rural life by executing masses of peasants in Tambov province during Russia’s civil war. But all this was just a trivial prelude. Marx’s other great student, Stalin, raised the destruction of peasants from mass murder levels to outright genocide: in 1932-1933 a state created, deliberate famine killed 3.5 to 4 million Ukrainians; other data puts this number considerably higher. The result: Marx’s detested idiocy was replaced by a great Stalinist absurdity called kolkhoz economy.
