Stalin

In listening to a biography of Joseph Stalin that focused on his younger years, I was struck by the number of his fellow travelers he killed as a result of their activities.  This provides some evidence that collectivism is inherently self destructive.

He started his revolutionary career by robbing banks.  A political philosophy that doesn't recognize property rights can justify financing itself by theft.

What distinguished the Bolsheviks was that they believed that the revolution could best be implemented by a small, dedicated minority.  Perhaps this was the best way to overturn the then existing, Czarist political order.  Perhaps the paranoia that led to the terror served Stalin well in his earlier political career.  The Czar's political police took steps to infiltrate opposing political movements in Russia.  A movement might have success under such a system if it had a tendency toward false positives in detecting double agents, if it would reduce the number of false negatives.  You can never be sure whether someone is a double agent.  It might be better to guess incorrectly that someone was a double agent if that would reduce the chance that you might guess incorrectly that some other individual was loyal to you.

Once the dedicated minority came to power there would be no way to ensure that they would follow democratic principles.  This is not unique to the Bolshevik revolution.  In general the violent overthrow of one existing political order is more likely to lead to a less democratic government than a more democratic one.  The Bolsheviks believed that the best way to bring about the revolution was through a small, dedicated minority, and that was how they wished to govern as well once they came to power.

I don't think that it is likely that someone like Stalin will take charge of the U.S.  I believe that democracy is quite secure here.  The rich find that suppressing the relatively poor majority would cost more than it would be worth.  They will find it more in their interest to tolerate the redistribution that comes with democratic government.  In fact many of the rich are to the left of center politically.  This is because our country is so wealthy that the rich can easily find that other priorities, such as social policies, are much more important to them.