many Russians see the Bolshevik Revolution as the start of a 70-year detour from their nation's path to becoming a developed, Western European-style state—"a normal country," as they like to say
The last hope of Russia avoiding the fate of falling to Marxist hands was probably when Tsar Alexander II was assassinated. His successor Alexander III was a autocrat reactionary and his son Nicholas II was the same except he did not have the force of personality to pull it off. As one historian described Russia during Nicholas II reign, "'autocracy without an autocrat".
Seriously, almost 100 years to determine folks pulled the trigger?
An interesting read. I wonder why the Russian Orthodox Church is not buying it. More reading required on my part.
I've always thought that Nicholas II would have been a very good constitutional monarch (as his cousin George V was); however, the Russian nobility was completely opposed to it.
In the 19th century western Europe was embracing democracy and had an ever-expanding middle class while Russia was still clinging to medieval feudalism. Russia effectively skipped the Industrial Revolution and eventually they had to pay the price for it.
This was a tragedy, but millions of other families died in similar ways, murdered by the commies.
And Nicholas and Alexandra arguably deserved their fates, though their children and servants of course did not.
Most of the other millions who died did absolutely nothing to deserve it.
It is an oddity of history that the generally most decent and well-meaning monarchs in their respective dynasties were often the ones who got it in the neck during revolutions. Charles I (somewhat of an outlier in the decency criteria, though), Louis XVI and Nicholas II.
The fall of Tsarist Russia begs the question- what is the mind set of the aristocracy that has doomed them to obsolescence? How is it that people in power cannot evaluate their own shortcomings and modify their behavior and policies in light of the work of history? We see this in a global financial aristocracy which has basically run the world’s economies over the cliff and suffer no remorse or ability to change policies. The same SOB’s are garnering bailouts and golden parachutes while retirements, jobs and homes are wiped out. No one has gone to prison. None of the guilty have been brought to the book. Both the Tea Party movement and the Occupy movements have been rendered impotent. Members of this forum seem to suffer from attention deficit disorder. We need to march, period.