No, on the contrary I'm making a distinction between many different communists (or revolutionaries). The revolutions in Russia were not unified and many had different beliefs. It was the atheist communists that came into power, not the communists in the 1905 revolution. The 1905 revolution was claimed by the Bolsheviks, but in reality it was a surge of anarchism throughout Russia with many scattered acts against the government. There was nothing united about it.
So they once fought under the guise of religion, until they determined it no longer best served their interests.
I think in cases like this quantity says a lot about quality.
Tyranny and oppression of the human mind is the worse crime committed by the Soviets, it's the same crime committed by countless regimes before them. Mass murder is simply the logical result of this tyranny.
What technology? In Russia all the dictators had to do was send people to Siberia. The czars could have easily done that with trains. Maybe another example was when Stalin killed 1/3 of the Ukrainian population by collectivizing their farms, or in other words, confiscating their food without returning it. I have never heard of incidents where gulags had to invent special gas chambers for efficient killing like the Nazis did.
The Trans-Siberian Railway wasn't even completed until 1913. But more than that, such organized oppression and surveillance required advancements in mechanized warfare and communications not really seen until the 1920's. It just wouldn't have been possible for the Tzars to keep surveillance on their rurual poplations in the same manner the soviets did. The tyrannical regimes of the 20th century wern't any worse than those of previous centuries...they were simply more capable.
