Click on title to link to the Leon Trotsky Internet Archive's Chapter Four of his definitive "The History Of The Russian Revolution" entitled "The Tzar and The Tzarina". That is the reality check. Enough said.
COMMENTARY
THE LESSONS OF REVOLUTION
Recent news out of Moscow is interesting, at least from a historic point. Apparently a researcher into the matter has come up with what may be the bodies of Alexei, teenage son and heir of the Nicolas II, the last Czar of All the Russia, and one of his sisters. Others have claimed to have found Nicolas, Alexandra and the other daughters elsewhere. As should be well known the Bolsheviks near Yekaterinaburg in the Urals executed the Czar and his wife and family as the White Guards were approaching their positions in the course of the Russian Civil War in 1918. The question directed toward leftists today, and the subject of this commentary, revolves around the ‘justice’/military necessity of executing the Czar and his family.
Leon Trotsky, in his three volume History of the Russian Revolution, spent one pithy and knowledgeable chapter on the Czar and Czarina, their wilful ignorance and other character defects. That pitiless expose said it all. Others, more sympathetic to the Czar and his coterie, have made the same observations with perhaps a little less venom. Seemingly revolutionary times bring forth not only new ideas and passions from previously passive and submerged sources in the depths of society but bring forth particularly obtuse and clueless leaders. Trotsky noted a very close similarity between Charles I and his Queen Henrietta in 17th century England, Louis XV and Marie Antoinette in 18th century France and Nicholas and Alexandra in 20th century Russia. So be it. Lenin, among others, always claimed that the two conditions for revolution were that the old regime could not rule in the old way and that the bulk of society refused to be ruled in the old way. Early 20th century Russia merely confirms this point.
The real question, and the one that liberals and social democrats have cried over for years, is whether the Czar and his family should have been executed. This question goes back a long way, again to the time of Charles I the first serious political regicide in modern history. The long and short of it is that yes under conditions of civil war where the opponent is composed of many elements who literally want to return to the old, in this case, czarist system (or a close approximation) then the live symbol is too tempting to be left alive. Tactically, from a purely military perspective, with the Whites coming out of the East literally right behind the retreating Bolsheviks this seems a no-brainer.
It should be noted that Trotsky was not happy when he heard of the executions. Not of the fact of the executions, but that he would not be able to be the prosecutor in a show trial against the Czar. I do not think he cried many tears over it though; he was too busy desperately defending the shrinking Soviet territory against those self same imperial defenders. I have often argued that Oliver Cromwell and his associates did not spend nearly enough time trying to neutralize Charles I’s sons, the later Charles II and James II. Not out of a personal interest in bloodthirstiness but military necessity. However, my argument is tempered in that case by the fact that was when modern revolutions were young and our forbears did not know better this little truism- If you are going to overthrow the king you better be prepared to go all the way. The Bolsheviks did 'good'.
COMMENTARY
THE LESSONS OF REVOLUTION
Recent news out of Moscow is interesting, at least from a historic point. Apparently a researcher into the matter has come up with what may be the bodies of Alexei, teenage son and heir of the Nicolas II, the last Czar of All the Russia, and one of his sisters. Others have claimed to have found Nicolas, Alexandra and the other daughters elsewhere. As should be well known the Bolsheviks near Yekaterinaburg in the Urals executed the Czar and his wife and family as the White Guards were approaching their positions in the course of the Russian Civil War in 1918. The question directed toward leftists today, and the subject of this commentary, revolves around the ‘justice’/military necessity of executing the Czar and his family.
Leon Trotsky, in his three volume History of the Russian Revolution, spent one pithy and knowledgeable chapter on the Czar and Czarina, their wilful ignorance and other character defects. That pitiless expose said it all. Others, more sympathetic to the Czar and his coterie, have made the same observations with perhaps a little less venom. Seemingly revolutionary times bring forth not only new ideas and passions from previously passive and submerged sources in the depths of society but bring forth particularly obtuse and clueless leaders. Trotsky noted a very close similarity between Charles I and his Queen Henrietta in 17th century England, Louis XV and Marie Antoinette in 18th century France and Nicholas and Alexandra in 20th century Russia. So be it. Lenin, among others, always claimed that the two conditions for revolution were that the old regime could not rule in the old way and that the bulk of society refused to be ruled in the old way. Early 20th century Russia merely confirms this point.
The real question, and the one that liberals and social democrats have cried over for years, is whether the Czar and his family should have been executed. This question goes back a long way, again to the time of Charles I the first serious political regicide in modern history. The long and short of it is that yes under conditions of civil war where the opponent is composed of many elements who literally want to return to the old, in this case, czarist system (or a close approximation) then the live symbol is too tempting to be left alive. Tactically, from a purely military perspective, with the Whites coming out of the East literally right behind the retreating Bolsheviks this seems a no-brainer.
It should be noted that Trotsky was not happy when he heard of the executions. Not of the fact of the executions, but that he would not be able to be the prosecutor in a show trial against the Czar. I do not think he cried many tears over it though; he was too busy desperately defending the shrinking Soviet territory against those self same imperial defenders. I have often argued that Oliver Cromwell and his associates did not spend nearly enough time trying to neutralize Charles I’s sons, the later Charles II and James II. Not out of a personal interest in bloodthirstiness but military necessity. However, my argument is tempered in that case by the fact that was when modern revolutions were young and our forbears did not know better this little truism- If you are going to overthrow the king you better be prepared to go all the way. The Bolsheviks did 'good'.
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