You will be mistaken to consider USSR before Stalin to be much milder. It did not have any reservations before expropriating crops from peasants and then killi

You will be mistaken to consider USSR before Stalin to be much milder. It did not have any reservations before expropriating crops from peasants and then killing said peasants with chemical weapons when they uprisen. Meanwhile in cities OGPU will happily shot you after a trial by three people, or even without one. Leo Trosky, who is still unfortunately sometimes considered as "Stalin done right", reasoned like this: Communists in power have to extract production from workers whether they like it or not, and maybe in the future the socialist state with advance to the condition where these workers will no longer feel expropriated. But until then, just use force.