The Communist revolution initiated a sequence of events that make communism the #1 cause of death ever. From purges, to famine, wars...
Deng Xiaoping's communism is a completely different thing.
Umm... I see that you were schooled in the Anglo-American tradition (classical Conservative, I guess Edmund Burke?).
Let me expand on that... the French Revolution was a mess, like any revolution, that's true.
A mess that:
- shattered MANY legal abuses (primarily stemming from divine right, feudalism, etc) in a lot of Europe, in about 3 major shocks (the initial one which led to the fall of the Holy Roman Empire, then 1848, then slowly to the abolition of any feudal remains around 1918)
- greatly expanded personal and collective freedoms in Europe, freedoms that weren't abolished even by the "tyranny"
- served as a model for a better society for many oppressed countries and regions in Europe (I come from one, Romania)
And it did not end in a tyranny. It went through mass executions, lead to an absolutist regime, back to a monarchy, then back to a democracy, then back to a monarchy, and then finally back to a democracy, for good. All of that was started and made possible by the French Revolution.
> The Communist revolution initiated a sequence of events that make communism the #1 cause of death ever. From purges, to famine, wars...
That's only if you look at global Communism like a single phenomenon and you consider say, monarchy, as a set of disjointed ideologies. Communism also brought great equality in countries that were some of the most unequal and abusive on the planet, it greatly accelerated women's rights to the point to this day, Eastern Europe (for example) has more equal political representation and more women in STEM than Western Europe.
You could argue that fear of Communism also led the West to adopt policies such as high taxes on high earners, that led to more equality during the post war era. Look at what's happening now when Communism is basically gone for good. The US is falling back into a Gilded Era.
1. Inequality has been constantly decreasing for most of the 20th century, worldwide.
2. Income redistribution has happened multiple times throughout history, and you can argue about the process and also about the results but it has happened repeatedly (French Revolution, Communist Revolution in Russia and all associated revolutions and coups, etc, etc).