Arrest-Photo Collage From Stalin Purges

[LetTimmySmoke]

The photos are from an NKVD firing range near Moscow, circa 1936-38. They are the mug shots of the detainees, shortly after being brought in.

[joshcryer]

1. Thanks for that, I find this history of Russia fascinating.

I feel for the freedom loving individuals who wanted to be truly free. Do you have a link to the source (that might have a google translatable page, etc), or any more?

[Adenoid_Hynkel]

2. Tsar, empress and children were gunned down 93 years ago today

Executed without trial. Say what you will about the monarchy and Nicholas and Alexandra (they were terrible in their own way, but didn't deserve that fate), the 5 children were total innocents - as were the 4 servants killed with them. And they all died especially brutally. The daughters who survived the first round of bullets were bayonetted, beaten and shot again.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_of_the_Romanov_family

These 11 were among the first victims of a totalitarian system whose body count would eventually reach into the millions. Most of these victims' stories or faces we'll never know.

And it was all done falsely in the name of an egalitarian society.

Lenin, Stalin and Trotsky were hypocritical monsters guilty of countless crimes against humanity. They also set the cause of labor workers' rights back by a century.
They were no better than the system they replaced, and in many ways, far worse.

[MattSh]

5. And like, the Romanovs were saints?

Nicholas II ruled from 1894 until his abdication on 15 March 1917. His reign saw Imperial Russia go from being one of the foremost great powers of the world to economic and military collapse. Critics nicknamed him Bloody Nicholas because of the Khodynka Tragedy, Bloody Sunday, the anti-Semitic pogroms, his execution of political opponents, and his pursuit of military campaigns on a hitherto unprecendented scale. Under his rule, Russia was defeated in the Russo-Japanese War, including the almost total annihilation of the Russian fleet at the Battle of Tsushima. As head of state, he approved the Russian mobilization of August 1914, which marked the first fatal step into World War I, a war in which 3.3 million Russians would be killed,<4> thus leading to the demise of the Romanov dynasty less than three years later.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsar_Nicholas_II

And a bonus, from your article...

The Bolsheviks had wanted to bring the tsar for a trial, but circumstances led to a quick decision to kill the whole family summarily. The Romanovs were being held by the Red Army in Yekaterinburg. As the civil war continued and the White Army (a loose alliance of anti-communist forces) were threatening to capture the city, the fear was that the Romanovs would have fallen into their hands. This was unacceptable to the Bolsheviks for two reasons: first, the tsar or any of his family members could provide a beacon to rally support to the White cause; second, the tsar or any of his family members if the tsar were dead, would be considered the legitimate ruler of Russia by the other European nations. This would have meant that he would have been able to negotiate for greater foreign intervention on behalf of the Whites. Soon after the family was executed, the city did in fact fall to the White Army.

So, in other words, if the adults were killed and the children survived, one of them likely would have been declared Tsar and the bloody stupidity of the Romanovs would have continued in their name, with or without Nicholas II himself.

[ck4829]

6. Ironically, if the Tsar wasn't such a tyrant, then this whole thing would never have happened

He tried to take territory from Japan, and Japan fought back. He lost... badly.

For this and all the other problems that Russia faced, he scapegoated the Jewish people for all of them. His propaganda alone resulted in the killings of thousands.

Pretty sure a lot of people got wise to that after a while.

Communists should be grateful to the Tsar for getting the ball rolling.

[LuvNewcastle]

3. Looking at these faces is like skimming

through the pages of a Dostoyevsky novel. The people's faces exude such character and emotion. All of them are at the end of their rope and they know it, yet they still show a certain strength and even defiance.

[pampango]

4. It's always inspiring to see the pictures of people affected by bad government policies. n/t