It isn't preposterous to assume that most Russians at the time would choose the monarchy (as their dictators) instead of Lenin/etc (as their dictators), were they to have the benefit of hindsight and the freedom to pick

Yeah, if only people living at the time could make decisions not on their own experience but on whatever crumbs of information a poorly educated first world internet denizen could extract from Wikipedia and random conspiracy theory books. (the latter describes us both btw)

based on the death toll alone.

Again, this based on a preposterous assumption that your bullshit numbers are accurate and not comparable to Imperial Russia.

Yes, living under a monarchy was comparatively more free than being killed or having your entire family killed.

Besides being atrociously bad at the whole false dichotomies business, you just repeated your preposterous assumption of equivalence between being free and body count without adding anything to it.

Bolshevism killing a lot of the country's smartest people at the time is not "conspiracy bullshit".

I think it's mixed with ignorance as well, not just conspiracy bullshit. They were "smartest" in the first place because Imperial Russia intentionally limited lower classes from receiving the same education higher classes had. Naturally a small most educated part was also the one intent on keeping the old regime, although a lot of the country's smartest people joined Bolsheviks as well.