I recently read a history of the last days of the Romanovs. What struck me was the parallels to what we are currently experiencing. Given what happened, it is a little scary.
One theory the author put forward was that because there was so little blowback about the deaths of the Romanovs, it became a kind of litmus test for the later atrocities that happened under Communist rule in Russia and elsewhere. How much can we get away with, so to speak. Civil war had been raging though and the reality was that the people were just worn out and numb (seem familiar?). Coupled with massive disinformation, they were able to get away with it. It was one thing to execute the Tsar. The execution of his wife, maybe they could have gotten away with because she was never that popular and while she had been raised English, she was technically German and WW1 was still fresh. But had the populace learned about the murder of the kids, who were adored - the girls were the Princess Dianas' of their day - and how they were basically tortured to death and the way the bodies were treated post-mortem, that would not have been tolerated. Lenin knew it too, which was why he was so eager to distance himself and say it was the actions of a rogue' faction, but the evidence exists to show that was a load of BS. He was a coward who talked a good game but didn't want to take responsibility for the dirty deeds.
The Tsar regime wasn't angelic and criticism of it was valid, but had the people known what was going on, I don't think Russia would have gone down the path it did. At the time 85% of Russia was in the peasant class and the political class in St. Petersburg was clueless. Same type of disconnect you see today, but we have the advantage of being informed in a way the Russian populace of 100 years ago never could be.
I recently read a history of the last days of the Romanovs. What struck me was the parallels to what we are currently experiencing. Given what happened, it is a little scary.
One theory the author put forward was that because there was so little blowback about the deaths of the Romanovs, it became a kind of litmus test for the later atrocities that happened under Communist rule in Russia and elsewhere. How much can we get away with, so to speak. Civil war had been raging though and the reality was that the people were just worn out and numb (seem familiar?). Coupled with massive disinformation, they were able to get away with it. It was one thing to execute the Tsar. The execution of his wife, maybe they could have gotten away with because she was never that popular and while she had been raised English, she was technically German and WW1 was still fresh. But had the populace learned about the murder of the kids, who were adored - the girls were the Princess Dianas' of their day - and how they were basically tortured to death and the way the bodies were treated post-mortem, that would not have been tolerated. Lenin knew it too, which was why he was so eager to distance himself and say it was the actions of a rogue' faction, but the evidence exists to show that was a load of BS. He was a coward who talked a good game but didn't want to take responsibility for the dirty deeds.
The Tsar regime wasn't angelic and criticism of it was valid, but had the people known what was going on, I don't think Russia would have gone down the path it did. At the time 85% of Russia was in the peasant class and the political class in St. Petersburg was clueless. Same type of disconnect you see today, but we have the advantage of being informed in a way the Russian populace of 100 years ago never could be.