Fellow intellectual Lenin started killing them, Stalin finished the job. And no, the country didn't need them then and they don't need them now (see Russian his

Fellow intellectual Lenin started killing them, Stalin finished the job. And no, the country didn't need them then and they don't need them now (see Russian history of the twentieth century for more details). As Stalin has been quoted as saying "A single death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic"-- subsequent purges/famines following the revolution resulting in roughly 25% of the Russian population (without even counting WWII casualties) being killed, so it's not exactly a strong sell for "intellectuals sparking social changes".