An Unanswerable Question

Was it merely evil genius
on the part of Soviet Communism
to not only to craft propaganda
that had the highest ideals
that humans beings might aspire to,
but then thru sequential five year plans
kill as many of the local populations
it contained is it could, because
of their sense of local ethnicity,
as it could? And in bigger numbers
than the Nazis could dream about?

Not only did tens of millions of people die,
but The Empire kept a vast paper record,
surely now digitised, and definitely secretive,
so full of the details of the arrest, torture,
and placement in death camps of more people
than anyone could take in how accept as a record. 

And to do all that whilst denying the victims
any easy-to-identify handles-place names
like Treblinka or Auschwitz that the families
of the liquidated who survived-might use
as a shorthand to explain their sense of loss
-that takes a genius of statecraft beyond belief.

Before the Soviets, in 1915, the Ottoman Empire
did something similar to Armenian Christians,
but that was a once off and it is doubtful
that there was any quality paper trail left behind. 

To cause a suffering on a vast scale
is not beyond belief, and is far from unique.
Even now, newer empires seek a similar
destructive power to that of the gulags (1917-1986)
with which to repeat the worst deeds in the past
but this time do it morally, and in the name of virtue.