Just sad since few days thinking of how they were killed


If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.
Nicholas and Alexandra remained devoted to each other until the day they died. They were loving parents and completely loyal to their friends and to their members of staff. Unfortunately neither Nicholas nor Alexandra were anything near to be suited for ruling an empire.
Nicholas might've been a better monarch with a more savy and competent wife, Alexandra might've remained more grounded had she had a healthy son earlier, but we will never know. What we do know is that it was a happy family where the parents were willingly resorting to violence and oppression to try to save their empire something that in the end led to them all being brutally murdered. We also know that their deaths was only the start of 30 years of terror, oppression and the brutal deaths of millions of their fellow countrymen.
How ever oppressive the tsarist regime was, and it was guilty of horrible crimes, it pales in comparison with the crimes of Lenin and Stalin.
 
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Well, it wasn't the Communists who came up with the idea of deporting political opponents (as well as criminals) to Siberia.
The omnipresent and much feared secret police (White Terror) with it's network of informants and Commissars with extremely wide-ranging power, was something that was in place centuries before NKVD, KGB and FSB - their first symbol BTW was a broom.
The vast majority of Russians, peasants, were serfs with very limited rights and whose conditions in life were only a notch or two above being slaves. That was under the Romanovs. Serfdom was only abolished in the second half of the 1800's, without a system in place to replace it, which led to disaster in quite few places.
Also, Russia was an expansionist empire, especially in the Caucasus, through Transoxania towards Afghanistan and towards what is today western China were vast areas conquered by Russia, under the Romanovs. And people living in these areas objecting against being a part of the empire were not treated leniently!
The brutal oppression and political castration of a whole class in the society, the Boyars, was not something the Communist came up with either. They finished the job though, that's for sure!
The forced resettlements of hundreds of thousands of ordinary people at a time, for whatever purpose, was not the Communists idea either.
The frequent pogroms against Jews happened under the Romanovs, without the authorities doing much about, or for that caring much about it. ...
Based on your post, one might conclude the following. The Russian Empire had no right to expand or do anything else a classic empire would do, but you would understand and excuse the British Empire's expansionist moves in Caucasus and the Central Asia. At the same time, it is worth noting that your point of view is common.
 
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Based on your post, one might conclude the following. The Russian Empire had no right to expand or do anything else a classic empire would do, but you would understand and excuse the British Empire's expansionist moves in Caucasus and the Central Asia.

And you would be wrong to conclude that.

Every empire is by its very nature oppressive.
That doesn't mean that every empire is necessarily an evil through and through.
The more successful empires stay on because they somehow incorporate those whom they subjugate into the empire and maintain a stable rule that is good for business. Leading to a higher living standard and increased opportunities for the population as a whole. - Like the Roman empire. And no one will accuse the Romans for being great humanists...

To look at the Russian, Roman, British empires with modern eyes, is IMO silly.
We have to, the best of our abilities, look at them with contemporary eyes.

The Romanovs were not toppled by an external uprising, leading to an invasion of Russia, with the ultimate purpose of freeing the conquered territories.
The Romanovs were toppled by an internal uprising, that had been brewing for many years - and that's the context we have to study this, not execution, but lynching of the Imperial family.

So let's look at Russia anno 1900.
The vast majority of Russians had no political influence whatsoever.
The vast number of Russians lived in, even for the time, deep poverty. With little prospect of improving their life through hard work or even initiative, not even for their children. (The American dream.)
The vast majority had few rights and even less opportunity to exercise those rights.
Peasants were by now able to move freely around selling their work to the highest bidder, not that it meant much. They went from serf-like condition in the countryside to serf-life condition in the urban factories.
The vast majority received little or no schooling whatsoever. And what education they were taught can very much be boiled down to: Do as you are told, don't complain, endure and get your reward in Heaven.
There was nothing remotely resembling a social system in place. Such systems were being introduced elsewhere, but not in Russia.
That's just to mention some of the major problems.

What is worse is: There was no genuine wish from the top to implement major reforms, not until forced to do so.
That's a problem in an absolute monarchy!
Instead it's my clear impression that Tzar Nicholas was scared of the oppressed masses, and genuinely resented reformers, blaming reforms for the tragedies in his own family.
At the same time there was even less will among what you can call the peers of the Imperial family. I.e. the noble, ultra rich top class of society.
Instead they continued living their absurdly rich lives, closing their eyes for the fact that they had become anachronisms and were destined to go extinct.
Their behavior is typical of society based on slaves, they are indifferent to the plight of their slaves, while living in fear of the slaves, which means they oppress their slaves more and more.
That's how the Romanovs and those around them IMO saw their world. It was a Dance Macabre and the dance ended in a cellar...

If you are not willing to adapt and to conform to new condition, you will go extinct, it's only a question of when.
The Romanovs were neither willing, nor able to adapt.

I will even go so far as to say that people living in the Russian colonies were better off than the Russians themselves. They manly continued living more or less like they always had, with whatever flaws and advantages their societies offered.

Don't get me started on Victorian Britain!
It was a super capitalist society, where human suffering mattered much less than profit. (The Irish Potato Famine and the conditions of factory workers.)
It was also a society where not only the physical, but also the psychological distance between top and bottom increased.
However, at least the common man in Britain had long established rights and knew his rights. He could, albeit with considerable difficulty, rise by merit.
He could, and he knew he could, seek a better life for himself in the colonies or by immigrating.
There was a growing middle class, instilled with typical Christian values, like charity, moral norms and concern for your fellow human beings, even if that concern only went so far. - There was little of that in Russia.

In my unscientific opinion it was the growing middle class, and the growing wealth and influence of the middle class that saved Britain from a revolution during the 1800's, not the monarchy.

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I see you added a sentence, which I don't quite understand. Are you saying my opinion expressed in my previous post is shared by many? Or...?
 
No need to feel more sad about the tragic deaths of the Tsarevitch and the Grand-Princesses than about the tragic deaths of millions and millions of innocent men and women because there was an absurd World War which saw royal cousins' realms fighting against each other.
 
And you would be wrong to conclude that.

Every empire is by its very nature oppressive.
That doesn't mean that every empire is necessarily an evil through and through.
The more successful empires stay on because they somehow incorporate those whom they subjugate into the empire and maintain a stable rule that is good for business. Leading to a higher living standard and increased opportunities for the population as a whole. - Like the Roman empire. And no one will accuse the Romans for being great humanists... [snipped]
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I see you added a sentence, which I don't quite understand. Are you saying my opinion expressed in my previous post is shared by many? Or...?
Several teachers from USA and UK shared your point of view about the Russian Empire and the USSR. Such benevolent empires as France and the UK atoned their atrocities by surrendering their empires. Being Byzantine by nature, Russia remained/remains defiant/unapologetic.

Based on the current events, one can conclude that "American Dream" and the western middle class in question are coming to an end ... and Russia marks "an end to its "repeated fruitless attempts to become a part of Western civilization" over four centuries".
https://www.rferl.org/a/putin-advis...with-west-loneliness-isolation-/29155700.html
Original article
http://www.globalaffairs.ru/global-processes/Odinochestvo-polukrovki-14-19477
 
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I wouldn't discount the western middle class just yet, nor "the American dream".

The middle class is growing in Continental Europe, China, India, Brazil and so on. The places where the middle class has gone back or stagnated in recent years are USA and Britain.
The "American Dream" is very much alive in countries like China, India and Russia.

The consequences of the middle class breaking down as you predict, would be chaos. A chaos that would also very much affect Russia!

The larger the middle class is the more prosperous a nation is as a society, and also the more politically stable it is.
Look at 20th century history, when the middle class suffers or diminish in number, the societies become politically more unstable. And the wealth in the society become more unevenly distributed.

Russia is reverting to it's more traditional stance: On the outskirts of Europe. A part of Europe and yet distant from Europe.
The Western world made a huge mistake back in the 90's. In hindsight a kind of Marshall help to Russia would have been the best solution and the current situation where the west and Russia is facing off again would likely IMO have been avoided.
Instead we are now having a semi-paranoid Russia.

An interesting question is: Could Russia, that has always had a Tzar, no matter what they called themselves, be ready to reinstate the monarchy again? The monarchy also being a symbol of Russias past and greatness - while being a conveniently politically neutral figurehead.
 
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I think your answer to that question would be a firm no. Russia is a country that has too much corruption and is paranoid to the bone. The legacy of the Tsars has made sure that no family will ever inherit a throne again. Unless you want to count Putin, but that's a different story.

To the point of reinstating monarchies, I don't think it's ever a good idea. Monarchies in general are a dying breed and in many ways, rightfully so. If anything, we will see a decrease of constitutional monarchies over the coming decades/centuries.
 
Hmm, I think you are right that some monarchies will fall, but I also believe there is a very good chance that some monarchies will be reinstated.

We live in a time with increasing nationalism and with a nostalgic look at "a golden age."
A monarchy is a potent national and nationalistic symbol. Especially as there is also an increasing loathing of the politicians and certainly in regards to EU an increasing sense of distance between those in power in EU, and the population in the individual countries.
So it might be palatable to reinstate an institution that will serve as a national rallying point, rather than some president who comes from "the system."

- And I don't say that because I'm a monarchist. I'm a monarchist because I believe it works in my country. Had I lived in another country I might have been a republican, if I though that was best for that country.
 
I get where you´re going with this, but in this day and age, no citizen will ever just accept a figurehead family, with zero qualifications, as their head of state. What you see globally is the rise of fascism. That does not serve as a good starting point for any new monarchy. That might have worked in times when those more poweful could beat the ´´plebs´´ in obedience, but that is precisely what got the Romanovs killed.
 
I do not think any European monarchy will fall. And I hope to see some restored, especially the Portuguese monarchy.
 
I do not think any European monarchy will fall. And I hope to see some restored, especially the Portuguese monarchy.

Certainly doubt it. I think that monarchies can and do fail and I doubt if the Port monarchy will be restored. And certainly not the Tsars.
 
Veering off the topic ...

I wouldn't discount the western middle class just yet, nor "the American dream".

The middle class is growing in Continental Europe, China, India, Brazil and so on. The places where the middle class has gone back or stagnated in recent years are USA and Britain.
The "American Dream" is very much alive in countries like China, India and Russia.

The consequences of the middle class breaking down as you predict, would be chaos. A chaos that would also very much affect Russia!

The larger the middle class is the more prosperous a nation is as a society, and also the more politically stable it is.
Look at 20th century history, when the middle class suffers or diminish in number, the societies become politically more unstable. And the wealth in the society become more unevenly distributed.

Russia is reverting to it's more traditional stance: On the outskirts of Europe. A part of Europe and yet distant from Europe.
The Western world made a huge mistake back in the 90's. In hindsight a kind of Marshall help to Russia would have been the best solution and the current situation where the west and Russia is facing off again would likely IMO have been avoided.
Instead we are now having a semi-paranoid Russia.

An interesting question is: Could Russia, that has always had a Tzar, no matter what they called themselves, be ready to reinstate the monarchy again? The monarchy also being a symbol of Russias past and greatness - while being a conveniently politically neutral figurehead.
Having the 2000 histories, China and India have their own dreams. USSR tried to emulate the Scandinavian dream. Modern Russia has been working to formulate a new dream.
The NATO expansion is the biggest mistake the west has committed. The Marshall plan worked for Germany. It is impossible to determine whether or not the similar plan worked for Russia.
 
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ezguy: You really think kiling Louis XVI and his wife, Marie Antoinette, was ‘a proper way’ by decapitating them by guillitoine?
 
Having the 2000 histories, China and India have their own dreams. USSR tried to emulate the Scandinavian dream. Modern Russia has been working to formulate a new dream.
The NATO expansion is the biggest mistake the west has committed. The Marshall plan worked for Germany. It is impossible to determine whether or not the similar plan worked for Russia.


NATO is not a bad idea, not having is. Russian still remains a dark spot on the map. They have never come past heir past. Autocracy in one form or another. There is nothing Scandinavian about their system or lives.
 
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