Remains of the murdered Romanovs 'authentic'
dw.com
dw.com
"She considered the most important historical event in her lifetime to have been the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the execution of the Russian imperial family, a view shared by many fellow centenarians."
Goes to show just how impactful this act must have been.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oldest_people [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeanne_Calment
And the USSR itself was a communistic nation where the government even thinking you said the wrong thing was enough to get disappeared. And tens of millions citizens were killed by this government in its efforts to maintain itself. And then there was the fact that the economic system itself was failing as evidenced from decades of completely unnecessary shortages on pretty much everything. There was a joke within the Soviet Union that the only thing that's permanent within the union are temporary shortages. Of course, again, say such a joke to the wrong person and get disappeared.
Imagine living your entire life from birth to your sixties under such a system. I find it remarkable how little focus is given to things like lessons from the USSR as opposed to e.g. lessons from the Nazis.
For a list of Russian jokes (including the Soviet Union) see [1]. I got it from HN a while ago btw so I'm merely giving it back. Free quality entertainment, and also you can observe how subtle or multiple interpretable the jokes commonly are.
It’s well worth reading his other books on Russia, particularly Young Stalin as it covers the same time period and gives a good sense of the chaos and confusion of the revolution. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/22/books/review/the-romanovs...
Alexander III was Nicholas II's father. He died in 1894 of illness (I don't see any hint of assassination). The Alexander who was assassinated in 1881 was Nicholas II's grandfather, Alexander II. Which body got exhumed?
Tsar Nicholas II of Russia, Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany, and King George V of the United Kingdom were first cousins. Not to mention leaders of Norway, Denmark, and others.
Considering that, it's almost surprising how stable the time was.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willy%E2%80%93Nicky_correspond...
Even WW1 was stable compared to some of the all in brawls that plagued Europe, at least you knew who was on which side for the most part. By comparison look at the Thirty Years War: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirty_Years'_War#Involvement
I think that was an intentional feature of the system and they married off kids to gain power and leverage.
They had trials, but it really just came down to, 'The king is guilty of having been king.' The royal family is an existential threat to the new government.
They were not "shot as a consequence of". They were deliberately murdered under direct orders from Lenin, Dzerzhinsky, et al.
They were all brought together in a room and were shot and stabbed in a process that took about 20 minutes. Their bodies were then desecrated and disposed of.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Execution_of_the_Romanov_famil...
Just like basically everyone else at the time.
I may be missing your point but you don’t give any context to those sources.
Also, you’re saying “100 years earlier” as if that’s a long timespan in history. I know, the USA is not much older than that, but in Europe, 100 years is nothing.
And considering that ~40 years after the last Russian pogroms there was this thing called “the Holocaust”, I’m not really convinced that antisemitism was a thing of the past in Western Europe either.
The cited persecution of Catholics was and is still undoubtably, but it things happening around the turn of the 20th century in Britain really weren’t of the same nature as what was happening in Russia, not at all. British weren’t raping and killing Catholics in massive waves of concerted violence with state involvement and approval and that’s exactly what was happening in Russia around that time. 100 years is relatively short time but I definitely argue that a lot has changed and the level of violence is declining. Pinker has some good article on the subject of violence but which notably don’t say anything about violence toward small groups, though say a lot about the larger picture.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/steven-pinker-thi...
https://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/pinker07/pinker07_index.htm...
> Just like basically everyone else at the time.
Does this really matter? I mean, one probably should understand racism and anti-Semitism in the context of their times, but that doesn't excuse them; a racist and anti-Semite is a horrible leader even if surrounded by people with those same horrible qualities.
EDIT: Jeez, I hope the downvotes are because people find this off-topic or something, rather than because they disagree with the sentiment.
Would you find it fair if people of the future spat on your grave, and refer to you with the utmost contempt, because you were a meat eater?
"He was a horrible, disgusting meat-eater! He deserved to die!"
Half the people in this thread are ripping on Lenin because of the things he did, even though at the time they were mostly "lawful" since he wrote the law.
We absolutely should disgrace the horrible things people did in the past, so that to not do them over again.
vs
"he was a disgusting racist antisemite! those bolsheviks sent him where he belongs! shooting and stabbing the whole family to death, hell yeah xDDDDD"
Possibly, if that's the consensus of current mores, but I didn't say that; I said that a racist and an anti-Semite is a horrible leader.
> He deserved to die!
No, I definitely didn't say that. In fact, lostlogin explicitly disclaimed this position (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17556982):
> This doesn’t justify what happened to him, but certainly helps explain it.
(emphasis mine). There are plenty of horrible people out there, but, most (and possibly all) of the time, wishing death on them is equally horrible.
It seems to need stating each time, both the guys were terrible.
If you don't like the estimate of 85 and 100 million people killed under communism (other Russian leaders) according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number_of_deaths_in_the_Soviet... then please offer a counter offer more in line with your assertion. Whatever please stop offering off-the-cuff unsubstantiated views. They have zero value for others.
A good source is the Montefiore book on the Romanovs and is in my comments here. It’s worth reading.
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/22/books/review/the-romanovs...
Those Bolshevik soldiers sent the parasitical Romanovs to where they belonged - into the dustbin of history.
The world would probably have been a much better place without the Bolshevik, despite, and in full view of the many imperfections of the Tsarist rule.
Russia was at an average level of development in 1918. European parts of Russia (St Petersburg) where relatively modern, and while much of the rest of the country was rural and backwards
* there is no reason whatsoever to assume that it wouldn't have been developed with other forms of government in Russia, whether under a Tsar, or -- even better -- a modern western democracy.
* Bolsheviks retarded the development of Russia. All comparable western nations developed faster, practically all 'Soviet' technology was basically invented in the west. The Soviets had nothing to offer but violence.
For example (from [1]): "Russia's population growth rate from 1850 to 1910 was the fastest of all the major powers except for the United States."
Let me emphasise: I'm not saying that the Tsarist regime was particularly good, just a lot better than the Bolsheviks. If Russia had stayed Tsarist, or -- even better -- become a normal western democracy, it would have been much better than the Bolshevik rule.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Russia_(1855%E2%80%...
There's a lot of "if onlys" that could be said about the period between 1905 and Stalin's takeover. To stay Tsarist seems a peculiar focus.
Lenin was exported to Russia by Germany with the specific aim of causing a revolution. To mangle Churchill’s quote, Lenin was sent in as “plague bacillus”. Obviously he acted with a lot of local support, but German intervention wanted and helped fund the revolution to end the war on their Eastern Front.
In hindsight it wasn’t a very good strategy for Germany.
wasn’t a very good strategy for Germany
It did end the war in the East, and delayed the war for dominance in the East (which was seen as inevitable -- as it by the US left today, pace the mainstream press' demonisation of the Trump/Putin connection) by two decades. Even today Germany is wealthier than Russia despite having no natural resources.
The biggest victims of the Bolsheviks were the Russian people (and inhabitants of neighbouring states).
[1] https://history.stackexchange.com/questions/14608/did-the-ge...
I think comparing Germany to Russia today is missing the point. Europe self-destroyed through two world wars during the XX century. At the end of the XIX and for about 300 years before it pretty much dominated the world. Now it is a club of mid-size countries that have lost most of their international influence and military might.
The rising demography of developing countries being probably the second biggest factor.
There was a lot of it about. Churchill sent tanks into Glasgow in 1919; during this period Ireland also fought for its independence (and subsequent civil war).
The old authoritarianism was doomed but it absolutely wasn't going to go without bloodshed. Some of it still lies latent to the present day like a dormant virus.
Unfortunately, according to the Wikipedia article you posted, it's not that easy to verify:
> The written record taking the chain of command and the ultimate responsibility for the fate of the Romanovs back to Lenin was, from the beginning, either never made or carefully concealed.
...
> However, as of 2011, there has been no conclusive evidence that either Lenin or Sverdlov gave the order.