Czar Nicholas II Rehabilitated

[marianas_gamer]

Hmmm...............The Romanov's repressed?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7645776.stm

[joroas]

I'm not sure that they're happy to be rehabilitated, it's a bit late...........

[keeper]

Zombie aristocrats ... anyone know where we can buy those figs?

[archangel1]

Never knew the word 'rehabilitate' also meant 'to reinstall politically'.  One learns something new every day.

[Leapsnbounds]

 I don't believe it.  Czar Nicholas II was a tyrant and autocrat.  He authorized pogroms against the Jews throughout most of his reign.  He is not hero or saint, but a bigot and tyrant.  He deserved his fate.

[Ignatieff]

I agree, better as a BoB/Pulp character rather than a real one!


"Pah!"

[joroas]

He deserved his fate.

I can't believe anyone would think like that, and what about his wife, five kids, doctor and servants.  Did they deserve it too?

[twrchtrwyth]

He deserved his fate.

I can't believe anyone would think like that, and what about his wife, five kids, doctor and servants.  Did they deserve it too?

To be fair, he only said the Tzar deserved his fate. He didn't mention anyone else.

[1ngram]

Deserved it?.  It was considered a practical necessity.  To let them live could and probably would have resulted in more people rallying to the White cause and thus to the deaths of countless more red soldiers and civilians.  On balance better they should die than us.

Bad things happen in a war as the civilian populations of any town shelled or bombed in the Twentieth Century can testify.  The only argument that makesd any sense is that of military necessity.  Sometimes, like Dresden, its just revenge.

[Derek Beaufort]

I don't believe it.  Czar Nicholas II was a tyrant and autocrat.  He authorized pogroms against the Jews throughout most of his reign.  He is not hero or saint, but a bigot and tyrant.  He deserved his fate.

Oh really ? Good thing the red comrades freed Russia of his tyranny and half of Europe as well. They all deserved it, aristorcrats, intelectuals, wealthy farmers, millions of cossacks, basically every decent soul in Russia and Eastern Europe deserved to be killed, deported, his property confiscated, his children not allowed to go to university or practice their professions and so on. Because they were all part of the system, right ? They all stood by during the pogroms and allowed them to happen. Good thing comrades Sverdlov, Trotski and Uritski were there to bring justice to their people (no, guess what, I don't mean the Russian people).

Too bad Queen Victoria wasn't shot in a pit as well, because she authorised the concentration camps during the Boer Wars. Or every American president during the 19th century who presided over the genocyde against a people who, unlike the Jews, have actually disappeared as a civilization and have no one to demand compensation.

I suppose you think a people which was 90% illiterate and comprised hundreds of millions over 2 continents should have been led according to democratic principles and allowed to chose their leaders based on cool electoral campaigns featuring lots of free vodka. Imagine what great leaders would have arisen. Nicholas was not a good leader, he was weak, undecided and lacked the ruthlessness needed in his position, but he was a thoroughly decent man who unlike the communist regime actually had Russia's best interests at heart. That Russia was a Medieval society, it was not his fault and no measure of reforms would have transformed that country in a modern state within the reign of one man. FFS, it still hasn't happened...

Of course from a military point of view of the Reds his execution is highly understandable and I do not lament this in itself. Many leaders suffered the consequences of not being able to avert a revolution and this is in the nature of such conflicts. What amazes me and infuriates me is the kind of statement that this occurence has some kind of redeeming virtue as justice being brought to a tyrant. That mature people actually think the execution of an autocratic leader by a revolutionary regime of communist affiliation is an act of justice, especially when we know fully well what horrors and death toll the said revolutionary regime has to answer for, is mindboggling.

 

[Banderium]

What amazes me and infuriates me is the kind of statement that this occurence has some kind of redeeming virtue as justice being brought to a tyrant. That mature people actually think the execution of an autocratic leader by a revolutionary regime of communist affiliation is an act of justice

The execution of a "tyrant" is not a communist prerogative. Nicholas II wasn't the first/last ruler put to death by the (put an ideology name here) revolutionaries.
Ah, and the anticommunist kill the communist tyrants too.

[argsilverson]

I agree, better as a BoB/Pulp character rather than a real one!


"Pah!"

I second that!

[1ngram]

Much as I would like to emulate Derek's rant by telling him what a prick he is I don't think this forum is the place for either him or me to debate our political preferences.  I find Derek's reactionary garbage depressing as I sure he would my revolutionary sentiements.  Neither belong here.  Can the moderator scrub this thread clean please?

[Doomhippie]

It just shows that we have to put select our words very carefully. As to deserving to be shot or not I just love the good old Gandalf saying something like "Deserved death? Maybe. And many who die deserve to live. Can you give it to them? Then don't be too hasty in passing death sentences." Well, something like that anyway. Live and let live (hey, peace and love) is what I think. Let's not waste our strength on taking the moral highground.

[joroas]

“Deserves it! I daresay he does. Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement. For even the very wise cannot see all ends. I have not much hope that Gollum can be cured before he dies, but there is a chance of it. And he is bound up with the fate of the Ring. My heart tells me that he has some part to play yet, for good or ill, before the end; and when that comes, the pity of Bilbo may rule the fate of many – yours not least.” – Gandalf.