Shaking the World Part 2

As I noted in a previous blog, I have been engaged in John Reed's Ten Days that Shook the World. It is Reed's account of the Russian Revolution at the point which Lenin and the Bolsheveki party took over in 1917.

I came across a quote that has had me thinking- Dielo Naroda, a socialist-revolutionary stated- "A revolutioin is a rising of all people, But here, what have we? Nothing but a handful of poor fools decieved..." His comment of course refering to those that began to side with Soviet Communists.

Yet as I read through, it seems to me that, at the time, Lenin seemed to have the answers. After the overthrow of the Tsar, the people lived squalor, they had no voice, they had nothing. They're decisions were not out of true conviction, but hopelessness. They needed a leader who would live their hopes in to a reality. They wanted and end to the revolution it self and Lenin seemed to be the peace talker, someone who bring the rich and the poor together.

The people of Russia would later learn that Vladimir Lenin and the leaders that followed were some of the worst- but who could blame them then?

I think our lives follow similar patterns. It seems that in dire moments, the best decisions, are really the worst. So what does that say for our politics? Our faith? Our convictions? Are we doomed to repeat history? We don't have to. We elect our leaders and our lives to what seems to give us hope. The problem is- Good leaders make poor judgements, bad leaders help us point out our frustrations and we tag along with bad leaders b/c they comfort us with promises they'll never fulfill. As individuals, we lose hope in change for the better and make decisions that are comfortable rather than revolutionary.

"Change comes hard, Change comes slow, But change does come."-(A Certain Wise Man).