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The Russian revolution. ...In a nutshell. Leon Trotsky. Starring…. Vladimir Lenin. Joseph Stalin. …and a cast of murdered millions!. BUT FIRST…. It started with Czar Nicholas II, the shy inheritor of the 300-year-old Romanov dynasty, and his family….
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The Russian revolution ...In a nutshell
Leon Trotsky Starring… Vladimir Lenin Joseph Stalin …and a cast of murdered millions!
It started with Czar Nicholas II, the shy inheritor of the 300-year-old Romanov dynasty, and his family…
The czar and czarina had five lovely children: Olga, Tatiana, Maria, Anastasia and Aleksei
The czar’s wife, Alexandra Feodorovna, was born in Germany. She was the granddaughter of Queen Victoria of England and was related to her husband via two different family blood lines. It was common for European royal and noble families to intermarry…which caused some problems.
ROYAL BENEFITS As their countrymen starved, the Romanov family lived a lavish lifestyle. Like his father before him, Czar Nicholas presented the czarina with a magnificent Faberge egg each Easter. In today’s economy, the eggs would be valued at around $1.5 million.
The royal family enjoyed many happy hours in their summer home...
…and their cozy Winter Palace. (now the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg)
But not all was carefree & copacetic in the royal palace… Aleksei, the youngest of the imperial children, had a hereditary blood disorder called hemophilia, which prevents blood from clotting. Even a minor bump or bruise could cause the young prince to bleed to death.
Czarina Alexandra was desperate to find a cure for her beloved son. So when her closest friend mentioned a mysterious “monk” who had miraculously cured many of St. Petersburg’s most notable citizens, the czarina sent for him…
gRIGORIRASPUTIN Enter…
When Rasputin helped to quell one of Aleksie’s bleeds (some say by simply hypnotizing the lad to help him relax), he became a trusted member of the royal family’s inner circle. Alexandra believed that God himself spoke through this psychic and healer.
Other royal advisers and government officials weren’t so convinced. Rasputin became notorious for his seemingly insatiable appetites for alcohol and women. And some thought he had far too much influence over the czarina, especially after Nicholas went off to the front line to lead the Russian Army (on Rasputin’s advice).
In the eyes of many, Rasputin had become a threat to the Empire.
On the night of December 30, 1916, a small group of nobles and high-ranking government officials lured Rasputin to a Russian socialite’s palace. The group led him down to the cellar, where they served him cakes and red wine laced with enough cyanide to kill five men. Rasputin was unaffected.
One of the thwarted murderers then shot Rasputin through the back. The party fled the scene. But when one member returned to retrieve his coat, Rasputin lunged at him and attempted to strangle him. When the other men heard the struggle, they returned to the cellar, shot Rasputin again, then clubbed him.
After binding Rasputin’s limbs and wrapping him in a carpet, they threw him into the icy Neva River. Two days later, the body -- poisoned, shot four times, and beaten -- was recovered from the river. An autopsy established the cause of death was DROWNING.
досвидания*rasputin! (* pronounced “dah svee-dah-nee-yah”)
Things were not going well for the royal family, either.As the February Revolution of 1917 drew to a close, Czar Nicholas was forced to abdicate. He requested asylum in England but was denied.
The royal family was held under house arrest in a mansion in the Ural Mountains, where they lived in relative peace and ease for a year.
In April of 1918, the royal family was moved to Impatiev House, where they were put on soldiers’ rations and occupied their time trying to keep warm. But when counter-revolutionary Whites began attacks in Russia, the Bolsheviks worried that attempts would be made to free the czar and return him to power.
In the middle of the night of July 17, 1918, the royal family was awakened and told to get dressed. They were then led into the basement.
There, Nicholas was shot at close range by the leader of the secret Bolshevik police. The rest of the royal family were executed by blind-folded Hungarian soldiers who could not speak Russian.
With both the victims and the executioners blind-folded, a chaotic massacre followed. And since the girls had stashes of diamonds and gems sewn into their clothing, the bullets did not seem to penetrate. It took as many as 36 bayonet stabs to finally kill them.
The bodies were trundled into a remote forest, dumped into trenches, doused first with acid and then gasoline, and finally burned and buried.
Although the royal family’s remains were found and exhumed not long thereafter, there appeared to be no skeleton for young Aleksie or his sister Anastasia. Rumors – and hope – spread that they had somehow been spared.
In the years that followed, many women surfaced who claimed to be the lost Anastasia. The most famous was Anna Anderson, who claimed she had hidden among the bodies of her family members and was helped to escape by a compassionate guard. Anderson fought for recognition until her death in 1984.
But DNA tests performed on a surviving tumor sample 12 years after her death proved beyond a doubt that Anderson was an imposter. Anderson had been widely accepted by European royalty and some of America’s wealthiest socialites.
Joseph Stalin was named the Secretary General of the Communist Party in 1922. From that point on, he was the unquestioned leader of Russia until his death in 1953.
In the early 1920’s, Lenin suffered a series of three strokes which left him increasingly disabled. Some say the strokes were the result of an assassination attempt that left a bullet lodged in his neck.
Lenin died in 1924. His waxed, mummified, glass-encased body was put on display in a Red Square mausoleum in Moscow. It has been on display to the public there EVER SINCE!
Every year, preservation workers temporarily remove Lenin’s mummy from the mausoleum, painstakingly remove dust and mold, rewax his skin, and return him to his glass-encased coffin.
Every year, human rights organizations lead the charge to have Lenin’s body finally laid to rest. To date, they have been unsuccessful.
Stalin had Trotsky deported in 1929. After taking refuge in first France and then Norway, Trotsky made his way to Mexico.
In Mexico, he lived for some time with renowned artists FridaKahlo and her husband Diego Rivera. He soon became an unwelcomed guest after having an affair with his hostess.
In Mexico, Trotsky continued to write and speak out against Stalin’s corruption of the original socialist ideals of the Bolsheviks. As a result, Stalin launched two separate assassination attempts against him.
Trotsky survived the first attempt. But in the second, he was felled with an ice pick blow to the head. Although Trotsky was not instantly killed and, in fact, helped to subdue his attacker, he died a day later from blood loss and shock.
Joseph Stalin – the man of steel – ruled Russia until his death in 1953.
STALIN SPEAKS “A single death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic.” “People who cast the votes decide nothing. The people who count the votes decide everything.” “Ideas are far more powerful than guns. We don't let our people have guns. Why should we let them have ideas?”
“Education is a weapon whose effects depend on who holds it in his hands and at whom it is aimed.” “Death solves all problems: no man, no problem.”
конце (Pronounced: kah-NYEHTS)
