What feudal lords? From the article's description it seems like they were basically on their own before the Soviet Union came in.

> Before somebody came to teach them under the communists, nobody cared if they were educated, or whether they lived or died.

And you think the communists taught the peasants to read for the benefit of the peasants? It is to laugh.

> This neo-John Bircherism masquerading as argument will always ignore the millions victims of tyrannical royals, or capitalist oligarchs

I'm not ignoring them at all. Where did I say that it was perfectly okay for tyrannical royals or capitalist oligarchs to kill people?

Indeed, if you look at how societies under tyrannical royals or capitalist oligarchs are run, they basically have the same problem I described: one person, or a small elite, at the top thinks they know enough to run an entire society. But they don't. And their attempts to do it cause massive human suffering and death.