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a_blanqui_slate [none/use name, any] @hexbear.net

On Shooting a Tsesarevich

Apologies for posting.

I should say by way of introductory remarks, that while this is an effort post, it is an effort post on a shitposting website, and thus ab initio a shitpost and therefore be taken in the correct spirit of levity in which it is intended. Don't get my thread locked.

Recent discussion on here has touched on the moral status of the execution of the Romanov family by Bolsheviks ahead of the advancing White Army1. While not exactly of practical significance given how few of us have Royal Families locked up in our basement, it did reveal several significant, (sometimes severe) differences in the philosophical underpinnings of the posters on this website.

A Moral Communism

Moral status as such actually has very little to deal with communism/leftist (in the Marxian vein) in terms of it's internal mechanism. Marx, Engels, Lenin, and the rest of that intellectual lineage2. famously thought very little of moral philosophy. A communist is thus entirely at liberty to dismiss this entire discussion as idealism, and observe that within a Marxist framework, there are no 'good' and 'bad', merely a historically deterministic sequence of class antagonisms that will eventually resolve in favor of the proletariat and thus choosing to be a communist is merely choosing to throw one's hat in with the predetermined victors. This strand of amoral communism thus is not terribly interested in this discussion, and anyone here that adheres to that framework is excused from the discussion as having won the argument.

Given the rest of us do have moral considerations that prefigure our political beliefs, it's necessary for us to sketch out at least a scaffolding for what moral commonalities leftists share before going further, lest we fall into a morass of fundamentally incompatible frameworks stemming from different axiomatic premises. Speaking from my own personal position, I ascribe to leftist political positions as they offer me the greatest promise of granting a comfortable and dignified existence to the largest number of people possible. That in of itself does not make a moral axiom though, as achieving a large amount of something is valueless if the individual components don't themselves have value, and therefore, and a fundamental value informing my politics is the axiomatic value/sanctity of human life. So I am taking on as an assumption that generally speaking, want everyone to have dignified and comfortable lives3. If that position doesn't more or less describe you, you are also excused as having won the argument.

Justifying Shooting a Tsesarevich in my Pajamas

Which brings us to the Romanovs. In keeping with 3. above, and considering the minor children of royals not culpable for the systematic injustices perpetrated under the dictatorship of their parents, we'll limit our discussion here to the minors (Anastasia, and especially Alexei), though I think the general outline of the argument can be applied to pretty much all of the Tsar's issue. The entirety of the family, along with their retinue, were bulleted and bayoneted in Yekaterinburg about 10 days before white occupied the city. In attempting to defend the legacy of one of the most politically successful socialist projects in history4., this action has largely been justified on the left. Examining the commonly proposed justifications in light of our moral principles finds them universally lacking.

  1. It was necessary in order to safeguard the immediate success of the revolution against an individual with claim to the throne.

This argument goes that while we do value human life and dignity, our efforts to maximize these will sometimes require that certain human lives be forfeit, essentially turning this into a trolley problem5.. This argument differs in an important aspect from the trolley problem in that the trolley problem consists of single moment in time with clearly articulable and certain outcomes given at the outset. Leaving Alexei alive was in no way certain to doom the revolution to failure of significant struggle, as he could have been maintained in custody, and ascribing such outsized influence on the course of political affairs to the life of a sickly 13 year old is a profoundly anti-materialist approach to history. History is replete with challenges to establish socialist authority6., none of which stemmed from claimants to the Imperial thrown. Further, liquidating the Tsar, his children, and his brother did not exhaust the Romanov line, his cousin could and did proclaim himself Emperor-in-exile, and despite being old enough to actually head a restorationist intervention, none materialized. So the notion that killing Alexei was necessary fails to stand up to scrutiny 7.. It is also worth noting as an aside that the Romanovs were deeply unpopular, and to wit, were not the government the Bolshevik revolution occurred under, and supporters of the provisional government (domestic and international alike) formed the overwhelming contingent of the White forces, and the notion that a 14 year old tsarist claimant to the thrown would have had a meaningful impact on that colossal clusterfuck strains credulity.

  1. It prevented a longterm challenge to Boshevik control in a manner similar to Jacobite uprisings or the Bourbon Restoration.

Taking a more longterm view of the problem, it might be acknowledged that the Alexei presented no immediate threat justifying his liquidation, but, drawing from the history of pre-CIA regime changes, he presented a longterm likely/probable/plausible/possible threat in the form of an eventual challenge, and that acting in light of that possibility was justified if not strictly necessary. If we wish to examine this in light of our moral principles, we need to develop some notion of probability calculus; at what point is taking in innocent life now justified in order to avoid certain possible harms that have a certain probability of occurring. You can formalize this to ridiculous extents8., or you can take the legal systems more qualitative approach, of establish some standard of proof (you are, after all, justifying killing someone), where the execution is deemed justified if seems more likely than not/clearly and convincingly/beyond a reasonable doubt that it will prevent further, greater harm in the future. This lets you weaken the requirement that it is necessary to kill him to merely it is prudent to kill him. What is lacking though is any evidence that anyone has meaningfully carried out this process for any standard beyond plausible. The greatest extent to which this is established is that historically, there have been several restorationist insurrections, but no systematized historical study has been undertaken to quantify the risk of insurrection/coup in the presence or absence of an legitimate claimant.9.

Well perhaps we leave it there; a plausible narrative that places Alexei as the cause of some harm is sufficient in our eyes to justify his liquidation. The problem with this is that it is such a liberal standard that it can be applied to nearly everyone. There are scores of documented peasant rebellions throughout history, so by the same standard it is plausible that any given peasant may be at risk for launching a peasant rebellion down the line and thus, by that same standard, we are justified in liquidating them. Universalizing from this generic peasant^.10. to all peasants. And thus our system named aimed an providing dignity and comfort is able to justify pretty much any atrocity.

  1. The moral culpability of for the executions lies at the feet of the Tsar who created the system and not the executioners themselves.

This argument goes that it was actually the Tsar that placed him in position to be killed by standing at the top of a monarchical system that has ruined and ended untold numbers of lives. Had the Tsar dismantled that system before it came to blows, Alexei would have lived a happily inbred life as a continental European curiosity.

This argument plays fast an lose with the notion of fault to an extent that borders on the absurd. Within getting into the morass that encompasses the legal notion of fault, I'll observe that the executioners where in total control of the situation, given the Romanovs were in the zone of immediate material influence, while the Bolshevik leaderships were at a more distant proximity, and Tsar Nicholas II at the head of the Imperial State was a fleeting memory, having greatly influenced the events that now overtook them, but having no control over them. The Bolshevik's in Ipatiev House or those in leadership in Moscow alone decided who in that house lived and died, they knew that, and they exercised that choice.

  1. Unpleasant things happen during a revolution and we accept that as soon as they begin.

This is true, but once again, it comes down to the notions of control and proximity. As a leftist, I acknowledge that the struggle for political power may involve the world becoming a worse place (as judged according to my moral principles outline above) due to my actions to make it a better one. This is an abstract acknowledgement. It may also result in me taking actions that I find unpleasant or repugnant11. If it is the moral principles that describe motivate my political struggle though, it is fundamentally self-defeating to exercise my control over my immediate surroundings to knowingly act in a manner that results in an immediate degradation of the world around me (once again, as judged by my moral standards). My actions in the here and now, must be justified according to my principles in the here and now and my actions in the here and now. If 10 minutes ago I was standing in Yekaterinburg and the Whites are closing in, and now I'm still standing in Yekaterinburg and the Whites are still closing in, but now there is a brand new pile of child corpses of my making, then I have made the world a worse place.

No tears for dead peasants

It is reasonable to ask why go to such great lengths to challenge the justifications for the murder of Alexei (which is so emotionally remote to me as to essentially be fictitious). To which I offer the following justifications.

  1. It's ridiculous and therefore funny.
  2. Because eventually some of us may be in positions to make decisions that make the world a substantially better or worse place for others, and I want it be very clear what stands before us when making those decisions. No, none of us are going to decide whether or not an heir lives or dies, but we are going to decide how to treat with those around us, and want everyone to pause before they exercise what little control they have in the world around them before making it a worse place, justifying it with a glib aphorism or some half-baked argument.

1. The fitness for humor here is not considered, as something can be both morally bad and the legitimate target of well-done comedy. Like 9/11.

2. I was promised ice cream if I didn't say 'ilk' here.

3. To wit, one of the main justifications for political violence on the left is that it is directed at those preventing others from enjoying dignity, comfort, or well, life.

4. Such as it is.

5. which we may dub the Yekaterinburg Streetcar Defense

6. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Rebellions_in_the_Soviet_Union

7. One could alternatively take the logical form of necessity as a conditional, ~P -> ~Q with P being "the legitimate claimant to the imperial thrown is killed" and "Q" being "the revolution is successful". Given the contra-factual nature of ~P, the truth value of this statement can't be evaluated directly, but given the analogous situation in China with PuYi, we can strongly infer that this conditional is in fact false and thus logical necessity is not present.

8. define xi to be each enumerated possible future in space X, p(xi) to be the probability of that future occurring, and h(xi) to be the number of lives ruined by Alexei in that future xi. Shoot kid if

9. To reach a preponderance of evidence standard you would need to establish P(Insurrection|Legitimate Claimant) > P(Insurrection), which the strictly materialist interpretation would hold P(Insurrection|Legitimate Claimant) = P(Insurrection).

10 Regular viewers will recognize this as universal generalization.

11 Orwell's description of the conditions of fighting in the Spanish civil war come to mind.

256 comments

  • this is that it is such a liberal standard that it can be applied to nearly everyone. There are scores of documented peasant rebellions throughout history, so by the same standard it is plausible that any given peasant may be at risk for launching a peasant rebellion down the line and thus, by that same standard, we are justified in liquidating them.

    This folds under scrutiny. Any given peasant may pose a threat of revolt, but a royal heir poses a specific threat, and of a much greater magnitude in both likelihood and severity that the two cases are not comparable. There existed specific powerful groups who had a vested interest in putting an heir to the throne back onto it, and the means to attempt to do so in bloody fashion.

    In this case, the specific qualities of the subject set them apart from the general population. I liken it to BRCA positivity. Yes, any given breast may cause cancer. However, it is not prudent to excuse every breast. It is prudent to excise one's breasts if one is double BRCA positive. One does not have to do this, but it is a reasonable response to a specific threat that can prevent greater harm in the future.

    • , but a royal heir poses a specific threat, and of a much greater magnitude in both likelihood

      I make specific reference to the fact that no one has shown their workings when making the claim that the likelihood of a revolt is higher in the presence of an heir or that the likelihood of a revolt being led by a nonheir is less than the likelihood of a revolt being led by an heir. BRCA positivity has a great deal of work behind it specifically quantifying the probabilities in question.

      There existed specific powerful groups who had a vested interest in putting an heir to the throne back onto it, and the means to attempt to do so in bloody fashion.

      This interest and possibility existed independent of Alexei. There was an entire extended Romanov tree to contend with, and there still in fact is. Not to mention the fact that there was no shortage of fake Romance running about whose cause they could appropriate.

      • BRCA positivity has a great deal of work behind it specifically quantifying the probabilities in question.

        The specific mechanism driving the elevated risk associated with an heir is hereditary monarchy. While I cannot produce a scholarly work examining the lineages, both actual and claimed, of the individuals advanced by rebel factions throughout, say, Eurasia from 1400-1900, I would assert that a cursory study confirms that individuals perceived to be legal heirs under the laws of their given title (and who subsequently are denied that throne) have a significantly higher correlation with driving civil war than those not holding such a position. The child and heir of the latest monarch, while not the only claimant who could be co-opted by a faction, is certainly one which would command the most legitimacy to the nation at that time.

        There was an entire extended Romanov tree to contend with, and there still in fact is.

        Were there Romanovs in a similarly vulnerable position that were spared intentionally, or were these individuals unreachable by the same forces that determined the risks of leaving the proximal Romanovs posed sufficient threat to be eliminated?

        It's doubtful to me that one could ever justify, with formal logic, that the Romanovs' deaths were necessary, but their killing was rooted soundly in an understanding of the propensity for monarchs and all who associate with them to engage in violence to preserve, even if not the rule of specific monarchs, the institution itself.

  • Alright I was probably gonna make a post about this if you weren't.

    First, I have to say that I'm very surprised at the reaction I've seen where a lot of people seem to regard me as a monster for not taking the event that seriously. So I think it's important to frame it in it's proper place.

    A lot of innocent people died on 9/11. You can say what you will about the bankers but you can't seriously claim that the firefighters or plane passengers deserved it. This event happened much more recently than the Romanovs, and there are people alive today with real injuries or trauma who could concievably see a post making fun of 9/11. You can say "America deserved 9/11" all day long, but did those specific Americans? I could just as easily say "The Romanovs deserved it" (though perhaps not those specific Romanovs). We can compare the scale of 9/11 to the scale of the Iraq war in the same way we can compare the scale of the dead Romanovs to the scale of WWI and so forth, and we can compare the cringey overreaction to 9/11 to the cringey overreaction to the Romanovs, given for example that Nicholas II was canonized as a saint not all that long ago. So I say that making fun of 9/11 makes you at least 1000 times more of a monster than making fun of the Romanov's deaths - and yet we (mostly) all do it and make fun of people who take it seriously. So let's put aside the absurd grandstanding of people calling me a monster or whatever and turn to a more levelheaded discussion of the moral philosophy.

    OP's approach is one that is concerned with justice and legal principles. They contend that it is necessary to establish an objective, scientific study to show that benefit can be derived from killing the Romanovs before it can ever be acceptable to kill them. But when should such a study have been produced? During the war, they were a little busy. Before the war, it's a little difficult to publish an objective, peer-reviewed paper discussing the merits and flaws of killing the currently living children of the royal family. In general, I find this view that you're not allowed to estimate probabilities in your head without doing a formal study to be unreasonable and unrealistic.

    OP then goes on to describe how if you say it's OK to murder the Romanovs then you also have to say it's OK to murder random peasants. As usual with responses to consequentialist approaches, this is extremely trite and can hardly be taken as a serious criticism.

    My framework for approaching these questions is quite different. I am only concerned with the consequences of each course of action, with cause and effect. I reject the notion of justice as an end of itself - though I recognize it can sometimes provide a guideline for producing better consequences.

    Of course, it is impossible to know beforehand what the consequences of each action will be, which means that you have to constantly rely on your best judgement. Estimation of the likelihood of various events must be made constantly, and often with limited information. If I had to produce scientific studies before saying that an event was probable, I'd be paralyzed with indecision and stuck doing nothing but trying to find and read through scientific studies about which grocery store I should shop at.

    Let me use an example here. Should I kill a Nazi? Let's assume right now I can search online, find someone who is definitely a Nazi, and I can surprise them with a gun and have an almost certain chance of killing them. Well, based on notions of "justice" and "deserving," maybe I should (not sure what's stopping you, in that case). But if I look at the consequences of that action, it probably means spending a very long time in prison. However, if I have good reason to think that a specific Nazi is about to do an adventurism against innocent people, then my calculus might go in the other direction. The fact that the Nazi is a bad person is relevant only in how it factors into my calculus and helps me to predict their movements.

    When OP suggests that if you start doing calculations like that you'll end up murdering a bunch of random peasants, I think that's only because they don't have experience making calculations or understanding how they work. Obviously, if you murder a random peasant because they might start a revolution, you'll likely piss off a lot of other peasants and increase the chances of revolution, making it counter-productive and bad by virtually any framework (unless you're an accelerationist I guess?). Why doesn't this occur to OP?

    It seems to me that OP's worldview, whether consciously or subconsciously, is influenced by Christian mythology. The goal is to prove you're a good person so that you can defend yourself at the pearly gates. Meanwhile the devil is constantly tempting us to sin, we are naturally inclined towards evil acts, and so we cannot trust our own judgement to make exceptions to moral rules. If we murder the Romanov children, it is because deep down we want to murder children, and we're making rationalizations to release the demiurge.

    But I reject that framing. I say that I don't have some beastly urge to murder children that I'm repressing, and I think the same is true of the vast majority of people. I'm not concerned with proving myself at the pearly gates, I'm concerned with producing the best outcomes. I trust my own judgement, which I have cultivated, and I think doing so is unavoidable - even if you defer to others' judgement or to some principle, it is still your judgement that leads you there.

    If you want to argue that the specific choice of murdering the Romanov children was bad, based on what outcomes could be reasonably expected for the action to produce, that's a conversation we can have. But like you say, it's not like any of us have royal families in our basement so it's not the most relevant question, and what it really points to are the differences in our moral frameworks.

    • I find this view that you're not allowed to estimate probabilities in your head without doing a formal study to be unreasonable and unrealistic.

      You're absolutely allowed to estimate probabilities in your head without doing a formal study, but when the subject in question is murdering children, you have obligation to be methodical about that process, and to absolutely show your work. Otherwise your are absolutely engaging in the "I had reasonable belief that my life was in danger and thus I acted justifiably in using deadly force" game of modern American policing. Your best judgement after spending 30 seconds mulling over the issue is entirely insufficient. People often have bad judgement, and so when all you need to justify doing something is "someone's best judgement", you are setting yourself up for a world of trouble.

      As usual with responses to consequentialist approaches, this is extremely trite and can hardly be taken as a serious criticism.

      I'm getting tired of saying this to people, but show your work. I'm not claiming that you must murder a million peasants just because it's justified, I'm showing that this standard of reasoning lets you murder any peasant, and so you're then welcome to deploy this reasoning as a pretext for killing motivated by any other axe to grind. This is adequately demonstrated in history as evidence by what happened to 20,000 polish intellectuals when the soviets rolled through in 1941.

      I think that's only because they don't have experience making calculations or understanding how they work. Obviously, if you murder a random peasant because they might start a revolution, you'll likely piss off a lot of other peasants and increase the chances of revolution. Why doesn't this occur to OP?

      You say things like "likelihood" and "calculation", but given you can't point to any actual math or statistics, it seems to me like you're trying to borrow legitimacy and rigor from these fields, when in fact you really mean "judgements".

      likely piss off a lot of other peasants and increase the chances of revolution.

      Maybe all the other peasants hated this guy, so in my judgement (not calculation), it doesn't effect the chance of revolution. So in that case it's justified?

      It seems to me that OP's worldview, whether consciously or subconsciously, is influenced by Christian mythology.

      As a westerner, of course it is, and given that I imagine you're a westerner too, so is yours. But everything you say after this has no relation to or connection to my position, given that I don't think there is any such thing as a 'good' person or any need to justify oneself in the afterlife.

      • You're absolutely allowed to estimate probabilities in your head without doing a formal study, but when the subject in question is murdering children, you have obligation to be methodical about that process, and to absolutely show your work.

        If I just went out a murdered a child and claimed it was justified, I agree with you that I'd better have a damned good explanation for it when I could've just sat at home playing video games. But we're talking about this in the context of revolution. There were far more important things to consider, and it's in no way worth the time or energy to contemplete the moral philosophy and historical data for this decision when every day you're making decisions that affect the life or death of thousands, perhaps even millions of people. In the amount of time you might spend figuring out whether to kill them or not, you might be able to find a marginally better troop deployment that saves 100 people's lives. Expecting a full on scientific study in that context is pretty absurd imo.

        I'm getting tired of saying this to people, but show your work. I'm not claiming that you must murder a million peasants just because it's justified, I'm showing that this standard of reasoning lets you murder any peasant, and so you're then welcome to deploy this reasoning as a pretext for killing motivated by any other axe to grind.

        And what about your framework? It's easy enough to justify harming others when your actions are based on "justice" and "deserving." On the previous point you mentioned that making snap decisions makes me sound like a police defender, but another police defender line is to argue that a killing was justified because the victim had done something wrong in the past, "They were no angel." I can point to countless cases in the historical record where violence was argued to be justified on the basis of the moral inferiority of the victims, while ignoring the consequences of said violence.

        In reality, anyone can act in bad faith in the context of any moral framework. There's shitty people who do shitty things and claim cover on the basis of "The ends justify the means" and there's shitty people who do shitty things and claim cover on the basis of "They deserved it." You can't throw out consequentialism just because some people invoke it in bad faith.

        You say things like "likelihood" and "calculation", but given you can't point to any actual math or statistics, it seems to me like you're trying to borrow legitimacy and rigor from these fields, when in fact you really mean "judgements".

        I use the words interchangeably, yes. Statisticians don't have a copyright on the word "likelihood," sorry.

        Maybe all the other peasants hated this guy, so in my judgement (not calculation), it doesn't effect the chance of revolution. So in that case it's justified?

        No, you have to make a full judgement of various factors. If you want to make the case for murdering peasants under a consequentialist framework then I expect you to put more effort into it than that if you want me to seriously engage the question.

        As a westerner, of course it is, and given that I imagine you're a westerner too, so is yours. But everything you say after this has no relation to or connection to my position, given that I don't think there is any such thing as a 'good' person or any need to justify oneself in the afterlife.

        It is relevant because I at least find the assumptions I mentioned necessary to understanding your position. I don't deny that my worldview is influenced by a Christian framework through lingering brainworms I've yet to uproot.

    • the differences in our moral frameworks.

      I actually don't think our moral frameworks are terribly dissimilar (you'll note my moral principles are framed in explicitly consequential terms). Where there is an appreciable gap though is our epistemic frameworks. You're using using an ambitious epistemology that gives wide latitude to meaningfully know how ones actions will effect the world, 10, 15, 50 years down the line, and thus they can call upon that knowledge to inform their moral decisions.

      My epistemology is much more deflationary. I don't believe we can meaningfully know how our action affect the world beyond a much narrower time horizon, on the order of weeks in the absence of very well understood and tested dynamical models, and thus we can't call on long-term future consequences to justify immediate actions. This belief of mine comes from my experience in numerically modelling nonlinear mathematically systems, where trying to nudge the output one way can result in it crashes catastrophically to the other.

  • I think the argument fails from the first poimy. You haven’t actually established that the children wouldn’t have lended credibility. It doesn’t matter if the chances of that were very small, it wasn’t impossible and it was certainly higher than a normal person. You kill ten for the possibility and chance to save millions because direct descendants can cause huge issues by working with foreign governments. Even though someone else ended up claiming that position, the Bolsheviks can’t see the future, only know what is probable. You claim we only know it’s probable what would happen. That justifies it. If it’s a 1% chance of that happening, it’s still justified with the number of lives potentially saved far outnumbering the deaths potentially gained.

    I also don’t think any of us are in a position to judge what was done during the first successful communist revolution in history but that’s a different argument

    • You haven’t actually established that the children wouldn’t have lended credibility.

      Surely the onus is on the people ordering and justifying the child murder to show this instead of the reverse.

      It doesn’t matter if the chances of that were very small, it wasn’t impossible and it was certainly higher than a normal person. You kill ten for the possibility and chance to save millions because direct descendants can cause huge issues by working with foreign governments.

      This is explicitly addressed, with my footnote 8 actually providing an equation for it. The thing if you are going to assert the murder is justified because the probability of some future risk crosses some necessary threshold (however small), you must show how you arrive at that probability by way of some objective method. Otherwise you're engaging in motivated reasoning.

      If it’s a 1% chance of that happening, it’s still justified with the number of lives potentially saved far outnumbering the deaths potentially gained.

      If 1% is the threshold for child murder, fine, show that it was in fact a 1% chance.

      • Do you think there is time to make some long drawn-out and unnecessary decisions during the revolution. One must act decisively and carry out said actions. If people sit around discussing this all day then the Bolsheviks wouldn’t have gotten anything done

  • They killed them kids because they believed they had to.

    Why did they believe that? History.

    If you don't want your kids killed simply do not participate in and reproduce the circumstances in which killing your kids would be believed to be the correct thing to do.

    Fucking skill issue. If I was born a Romanov my kids would be just fine on collective land.

    • They killed them kids because they believed they had to.

      I know they killed them because they believed they had to, the question is should they have believed they had to and the answer is no. "History" isn't some magic word that can justify any old atrocity. Why did the US invade Iraq? "History"? In order to actually justify things that are at cross-purposes with our nominal moral tenants, we have to actually do the work of justification.

  • No tears for dead peasants

    I was hoping you would go further on this, but didn't. So, :::spoiler without further ado,

    There were two "Reigns of Terror," if we would but remember it and consider it; the one wrought murder in hot passion, the other in heartless cold blood; the one lasted mere months, the other had lasted a thousand years; the one inflicted death upon ten thousand persons, the other upon a hundred millions; but our shudders are all for the "horrors" of the minor Terror, the momentary Terror, so to speak; whereas, what is the horror of swift death by the axe, compared with lifelong death from hunger, cold, insult, cruelty, and heart-break? What is swift death by lightning compared with death by slow fire at the stake? A city cemetery could contain the coffins filled by that brief Terror which we have all been so diligently taught to shiver at and mourn over; but all France could hardly contain the coffins filled by that older and real Terror -- that unspeakably bitter and awful Terror which none of us has been taught to see in its vastness or pity as it deserves.

    (sub Russia for France) :::

    • whataboutism

    • I actually agree with this, which is broadly speaking why I am a leftist, and this post is actually something of an attempt to prevent the systematized justification of horrors that capitalism has nearly perfected among it's adherents from going unchallenged on the left.

      Ask any well-read liberal about a particular horror of capitalism and they will easily be able to trot out some 30-second justification they have read or heard which to them resolves the issue conclusively. Think Stossel on sweatshops. In much the same way, you see leftists here gesturing vaguely at some "possibile future risk" from Alexei to justify shooting him as conclusive. In theory, we're supposed to be better than that.

      • The more I think about it, the more I believe that in and of itself, shooting the minor heirs was unnecessary. It wouldn't have been too hard to first separate them from their relatives who were about to be executed, lie about what happened, and then reeducate them like the Chinese did with Puyi. The Chinese example, though, was 30 years later, which may explain how they were less bloodthirsty both to their foes and to their renegades.

        The point I thought to make was that there's a lot more tears shed for Alexei Romanov than for any number of Vanyas that died that year.

        So while it's not a commendable action, it's an understandable action when done in the spur of the moment, where the Whites were a few days' march from getting there. And a drop in the bucket compared to the immensity of what was going on, and often a means of prying in sympathy for royalty who deserve none, at the expense of working people who deserve it all.

  • Firstly, I appreciate your taking the time to write out a legitimate effort post here.

    However I disagree with your argument on a number of levels. Firstly, I think the idea of applying any form of statistical analysis to a situation like this is deeply flawed. "What is the probability of a revolution succeeding" is not something a we can find equation for. No revolution in history has been launched based on a statistical calculation of probability, these type of decisions have to be based on what is essentially an educated guess. If I am wrong about this please enlighten me.

    That being said your point about doing diligence to study the issue I would agree with. Was that done in the case of the romanovs? Idk, I wasn't in the room where that decision was made. I'm not taking a completely hard stance on the issue bc I don't feel like I know enough, or in general am in a position to fairly judge the decision to kill the romanovs.

    My most important point though is that I couldn't care less. Even assuming that the decision to kill the romanov kids was completely unjustified, I want to ask why it's even discussed. Of all the millions of innocent people killed during the Russian revolution, world war 1 on the eastern front or in general during the rule of tsar Nicholas, why is it that these ones are paid so much more attention? Why point to a single grain of sand on a beach? The answer, plain and simple, is bourgeois propaganda. It is this bourgeois propaganda which attempts to demean the Soviet Union, by this trick of focus. It is also elitist and pro monarchist propaganda which elevates the lives of royals as being worth more than those of Jews, peasants, conscripts etc. It is very similar in form to American liberals raising hell about every bad thing the Chinese government does while ignoring the murderous imperialism of their own nation. It's not a1:1 comparison, but the point still stands that by focusing on certain bad things instead of others, whether intentionally or not we reinforce and promote bourgeois propaganda, as repeatedly in popular culture and media the killings of the romanovs are discussed on a personal level which almost no other victims of the era receive, this diminishing the value and possibly even dehumanizing all of the common people who died, and the broken families they left behind.

    To sum it up, were the Bolsheviks right to shoot the Romanovs including the kids? I'm not sure, if I had to guess I would say probably but I really don't know. That being said, I don't think that we should be spending time giving sympathy to these people or debating the morality of killing them, because doing so is counter productive. Lest I be misinterpreted, I don't accuse you of trying to promote bourgeois propaganda, your post seems sincere and intelligent. I just believe that it unintentionally reinforces bourgeois propaganda and diminishes the value of others killed during the Russian revolution.

    Ps: I know it was my shit post which started this little struggle session lol. My apologies

  • Maybe something to add… had the revolution failed, the blowback onto the Bolsheviks and their supporters would have been horrifically violent. The White forces would (maybe this is only possible and not a certainty, but it sure seems like a certainty to me) have slaughtered so many without any of the moral concerns we’re talking about here. And maybe executing the family would not have had an impact on the results anyway. But I guess I’m sympathetic to those who have to make these immediate decisions where failure means you are dead and millions suffer. Right or wrong, I’m not their historical judge.

    As I’ve been reading more about the period under Stalin and the Great Terror, I’ve become a bit more detached from these questions of morality. I guess I’m getting more like who you describe in your intro. Yes, a lot of bad things happened and a lot of innocent people died. I can understand the context as much as possible. I can recognize the Soviets were forced to play the game on Impossible mode and thus circumstances forced them to have to make the best of bad choices, as well as make a lot of mistakes. But these questions of morality won’t bring these people or the USSR back to life. The only utility in studying the past of socialist projects is to understand the decisions they made, the situation around them, and try to apply that to the future.

    (That last paragraph only applies when I’m hashing things out with comrades. Dealing with people who still gommunism killed 100 billion people is a different story. I just don’t really engage the later anymore).

    • But I guess I’m sympathetic to those who have to make these immediate decisions where failure means you are dead and millions suffer. Right or wrong, I’m not their historical judge.

      This isn't really anything about the Tsar, as I say in my concluding remarks. This is really about making choices in our day-to-day lives and not making decisions to make the world a worse place just because you know there's a 60-second microwavable justification for it that you can fall back on.

  • Turns out one of the downsides of an autocratic hereditary power structure that brutally oppressed millions of people for hundreds of years is the heirs to said power structure are fair game when the oppressed rise up. Like it or not, royal heirs are a threat to any nascent socialist revolution and a figure for reactionaries to rally around.

    Also I just want to mention in this very time period the very same royal family had spent years feeding millions of people to machine guns and artillery, and no small number of civilians, including children, were victims of that war too.

    When our turn comes, we shall not make excuses for the terror.

    In other words:

    No half measures Walter

    • like it or not, royal heirs are a threat to any nascent socialist revolution and a figure for reactionaries to rally around.

      That threat is much smaller it seems to me when the legitimate claimant is 13 and in custody as opposed to a 42 year old veteran not in custody, so the Bolshevik's made their problems bigger as opposed to smaller by shooting him. Not to mention Anastasia has absolutely essentially no claim to the thrown but was merked as well.

      • That threat is much smaller it seems to me when the legitimate claimant is 13

        Plenty of monarchs have been crowned younger than that, it's an inherent part of monarchy as a system. The nobility recognizes this and has no trouble with eliminating heirs or potential claimants. But when the oppressed do the same people are up in arms about it

        in custody

        In the middle of a civil war that was still very much undecided. In a more favourable situation it would have been better to do what the Chinese communists did with the last emperor, who coincidentally was crowned when he was 2, by reeducating them. But the Bolsheviks didn't have that luxury.

        Anastasia has absolutely essentially no claim to the thrown

        Of course, Russia was never ruled by women

        Like it or not, moral or not, whatever, monarchs and their heirs are legitimate targets for revolutionaries. I won't cry over dead royals. Boo fucking hoo, they literally lived like kings and got what was coming to them.

  • 1 is completely unsubstantiated if you take a look at the trajectory of overthrown feudal dynasties throughout history. When a feudal dynasty gets overthrown, the current ruling monarch and heir apparent usually either get liquidated, whether by the usurpers or by their own hands, or get mutilated (castration, gouging eyes out) and forced into a monastery. In some feudal traditions like the Chinese, the usurper, after proclaiming a new dynasty and securing power, would go on to completely exterminate the previous imperial clan, the idea being that any potential relation could restore the previous dynasty, so they must be liquidated as well. Most feudal traditions are nowhere as brutal as the Chinese, and this observation undermines your argument. If there was no difference between an heir apparent and just some random descendant of a dynastic founder, more feudal traditions would adopt what the Chinese did because if the king's third cousin is as likely to restore the throne as the king's oldest son, then both the king's third cousin and oldest son need to be liquidated in order to tie up loose ends. But you see a difference in how the royal family of the overthrown dynasty are treated. The king, the king's brothers, and the male descendants of the king and king's brothers are usually liquidated, but beyond that, there isn't a consensus. This shows that even if they're all related to the previously reigning king, their legitimacy is not equal. And while the Chinese are very thorough, most feudal traditions don't care as much so the previous king's third cousin might still be liquidated under the Chinese feudal system but survive under a Russian feudal system. I guess the Bolshevik's could've castrated Alexei and turn him into Lenin's personal eunuch, thus blocking claimants to the throne since the heir apparent is still technically alive, but I seriously doubt you would agree with this lmao

    Given that previous overthrows of feudal dynasties treat the heir apparent very differently from the previous king's third male cousin, usually killing the heir apparent while sparing the previous king's third male cousin, and given that many attempted overthrows were ultimately thwarted because the heir apparent (or heir apparent's younger brothers) were able to rally loyalist forces and preserve or restore the ruling dynasty, the Bolsheviks didn't do anything out of the ordinary. The onus is not on "shooting a 13 year old in the face is good aktually" side to prove their case, but for the "shooting a 13 year old in the face is bad aktually" side to demonstrate how this particular instance differs from other cases.

    • Given that previous overthrows of feudal dynasties treat the heir apparent very differently from the previous king's third male cousin, usually killing the heir apparent while sparing the previous king's third male cousin, and given that many attempted overthrows were ultimately thwarted because the heir apparent (or heir apparent's younger brothers) were able to rally loyalist forces and preserve or restore the ruling dynasty, the Bolsheviks didn't do anything out of the ordinary

      If you want this to be the justification for killing killing the kids, you have to show that this is in fact true, and not just gesture at it. Napoleon II following the deposition of Napoleon? Lived in luxury with Napoleons enemies. Napoleon III, the less legitimate claimant, a nephew? Seized power. His son? Moved to England and died a soldier. Edward the V? Yeah he got iced by his uncle. Mexico had to fight off a royalist usurpation by a guy who had a claim that was 300 years removed from the throne. There's a start, but you're welcome to conduct the more exhaustive study that is going to be required to reach the level required to justify shooting a kid. In any event, they stand in stark contrast to the rest of the monarchs deposed in the 20th century, who themselves (not just their heirs) got to sit around and grow senile in exile.

  • Okay, this is going to be my final post about this subject. Sorry for jumping all over the place in your thread.

    I changed my mind. I'm now of the opinion that they probably shouldn't have killed Alexei. But my change of opinion has less to do with your arguments per se but from reading his biography on Wikipedia although I guess if it wasn't for your post, I wouldn't have bothered to do the bare minimum and read the Wikipedia article.

    It hinges on his hemophilia. It's bad, really bad. I thought it was "he can die from getting pushed down a flight of stairs" bad, but it's actually "he almost died from riding a carriage because the vibrations caused internal bleeding" bad. That's how bad it is. The average life expectancy for hemophilia in general pre modern treatment is 10 years old, so he is already beating the odds. The other distant members of his family with this disease, all inherited from Queen Victoria, didn't make it past their 30s, and those that made it to adulthood have a less severe version of the disease. My point being is he ain't making it to adulthood no matter how good treatment is, and from the Wikipedia article, he made peace with this fact to a certain extent.

    His profound disability also removes him from being a viable monarchical rallying point imo. I made an earlier comment about how a lot of feudal lines of secession is vibe based, and this goes both ways. Despite being the heir apparent, he loses vibe points for being so sickly and so easy to die. Alexei could legitimately die from busting a nut (if he could almost die from a nosebleed, I'm going to say that having blood that's not able to clot properly suddenly flooding into a body extremity will lead to complications). He probably can't even have penetrative sex properly without suffering from some internal bleeding or severe bruising, so this means no issue and no descendants. He might as well be infertile, which is a complete dealbreaker against any claimant, even the heir apparent. And this is assuming he could even make it past puberty.

    More importantly, his disability is a state-kept secret with few people knowing the true extend of his disability. Most people knew he suffered from some debilitating illness, but nowhere near to the extend that he would constantly be almost dying even with 24 hour surveillance. This means that even if the Whites got a hold of him, they would almost certainly lack the medical training (and compassion since reactionaries tend to be unempathetic thugs) to take care of him. He would almost certainly have died before the Civil War ended, except instead of dying from getting shot in the head while being in a wheelchair, he would've died because some reactionary loser manhandled Alexei and caused him to bleed out from his wrists. In his final days, he got a hemorrhage in his groin from coughing too much. Hell, there was a decent chance he wouldn't have made it past 1918 anyways, making his execution completely pointless.

    This is my current assessment. Shooting some 13 year old disabled kid in a wheelchair in the head is not a good look, especially after you failed to kill him despite shooting and bayoneting some immobile kid whose blood can't even clot properly. Not shooting him in the head is a viable option since he's already close to death's door anyways, and there's no need to rush things. The big brain move would've been to give Alexei to the Whites "for his safe-keeping" and wait for his inevitable death although it would've been tricky to give them Alexei but kill the rest of the imperial family.

    • (with apologies for the

      cliche) this deserves to be higher up. He would have been no more of a martyr if left alive and recaptured by the Whites. He probably would have died anyways if the original plan was carried out and it got to the point of trying the royal family in court.

      The royal family's reproduction, above all else, is it's own gravedigger.

    • morality is a real thing that's shaped by (and in turn shapes) material conditions. it can be different in different epochs as things change - for example, capitalism introducing factory work started to unravel old patriarchal morality and led to the first successful womens movements. things like very cheap plant-based food and textiles and climate concerns are chopping away at carnist morality. class war dissolves the edifice of bourgeois morality like calvinist brainworms about one's "station" being a sign of god's favor (which of course makes it hard to question the rich). etc etc

      You are plainly conflating sociological morality with actual morality. Yes, the idea of morality and the social construction of moral sensibilities have a massive impact on society, but that does not mean there is any objective "good" or "bad" that influences the material world (and therefore would itself be physical).

      • I'm going to jump in here because I've been thinking about this for a while - morality does exist that is neither arbitrary nor transhistorical, there is an objective morality that arises for each particular class, from the specific historical material conditions of that particular class.

        The proper morality of a class can be derived objectively from what is both necessary for them to sanction as moral actions to maintain their system, and what is necessary for them to believe about themselves and their system, at a given point in history. So, Feudal morality values loyalty and deference to your lord through the lens of Christian loyalty to god in order to keep the feudal structure stable, Bourgeoise morality values the supposed superior hard work and abilities of the capitalists "born equal" to the workers to justify their superior position - this is obviously just the superstructure rising from the base, but is a part of the superstructure that cannot be called anything but morality and yet clearly exists on an objective, non-arbitrary basis (these beliefs aren't held just because members of that class subjectively decided to choose them).

        The difference is that we as proletarians, using dialectical materialism - the philosophical system proper to our class - can consciously understand the reason behind our intuitively arising morals (rather than having to write a mythologized "Genealogy", for instance). It becomes apparent to a conscious worker that it is objectively good for our class for feminism, antiracism, LGBTQ acceptance etc. to be implemented; but even without consciously understanding it, the mechanics of class struggle and the necessity of solidarity with fellow workers for your own rational self-interest naturally lead workers to feminist, anti-racist and LGBT-accepting conclusions* - unless that process is disrupted by intentional bourgeoise interference, of course. This is important because it means that as proletarians we can truthfully claim - to our undecided fellow proletarians - that we are not amoral, that we in fact have a definite, non-arbitrary, superior morality to the capitalists, and opposition to those morals are objectively bourgeoise intrusions. As a concrete class, we DO have objective goods, as defined for us by our concrete historical conditions.

        (* and after the revolution, the mechanics of a centrally organised worker-run economy require these things for maximum efficiency!)

    • Yeah, Marx trying to make his theoretical development non moralistic and non contingent on his own material conditions was, ironically, non-dialectical. Of course Communism has a moral dimension, and of course that dimension is contingent on the developing morality and consciousness of the working classes and their allies. Otherwise why the fuck are we even doing this, if we don't want a better world?

    • morality is a real thing that's shaped by (and in turn shapes) material conditions. it can be different in different epochs as things change - for example, capitalism introducing factory work started to unravel old patriarchal morality and led to the first successful womens movements. things like very cheap plant-based food and textiles and climate concerns are chopping away at carnist morality.

      This seems to have more to do with a descriptive meta-ethics rather than a prescriptive moral philosophy, which the post was based on. I generally agree with you that amoral leftism does not hold up under scrutiny, but this thread would be twice as long and 4x more frustrating had I not specifically eschewed that discussion here. Even with my dismissal a few people have tried to "morality don't real" in here.

  • This is a great effort post, thank you! A few early things to comment on though:

    While not exactly of practical significance given how few of us have Royal Families locked up in our basement

    That is of course true. But if anyone here is ever in a position where, 'god willing,' we are participating in a proletariat revolution (unlikely in the imperial core but much more likely outside it), this precedent most certainty could be of practical significance.

    This strand of amoral communism thus is not terribly interested in this discussion, and anyone here that adheres to that framework is excused from the discussion as having won the argument.

    Excused from it, yes, but not having "won" it. It is fundamentally a moral argument, which means the people taking that amoral position should have nothing to say on the matter outside of context-specific events where every eventuality is already known. What I mean, is that if the children of monarchs were to survive, we wouldn't know that this would lead to even more death and suffering, which is the claim of the child-murder apologists. We don't know that, even in retrospect with the killing of the Romanov children, it's still a hypothetical. We do know that the collective capitalist world didn't need any such excuse to use every means at their disposal to undermine it even in the most petty ways. If it's the position the strict determinists take that morality should not be a consideration, it should also be the position they take on any argument where morality is in question.

    Choosing not to participate is a reasonable position, but it is not "winning," only neutral at best. Morality exists, even if it is not the domain of a Marxism that only serves to describe the world and not change it. But isn't that the point, as someone said?

    Excusing the murder of children for "practical" concerns will never be moral, and any Marxist who bases their politics on their sense of morality (even if doing so is not strictly 100% the vulgar materialism some here seem to advocate for), it is extremely common. What's more, it is not in contradiction with a strict materialist approach.

  • Thank you for taking the time and effort necessary to lay out a comprehensive argument. I appreciate your work, even if I'm about to take a dump in your living room in one more sentence.

    I don't care. This happened during a war so long ago that none of our grandparents could have possibly been alive yet. Relitigating the ethics of what some troops did then is just navel-gazing. It doesn't have any material consequences today—it's so far removed from our current struggles that it's just a weird purity test for how xXxTREME COMMIE you are.

    Wake me up when we've successfully overthrown the empire and need to worry about who's going to wrestle Barron Trump1. I'll be in our garden if you need me.

    1 It should be me. He may be 9 feet tall, but I know karate and I'm fat. I got a sturdy base to flip him over.

  • I think it was a mistake, but an understandable one by the Ural Soviet, given the Legion was advancing on the town and there had been major (somewhat justified) anarchist/SR riots in the town shortly before.

    They were not to know the situation was stabilising. They thought the political situation was getting tenuous and, well, can you imagine the Czech Legion with the Tsar or his children under control? Or the SRs and Anarchists with the same (which could go any number of ways, many worse than what happened)? People panic, and when they panic they do dumb shit.

  • Continuing my trend from my other comment of only talking about things that are tangentially related:

    Regarding your 8th footonote, how does one enumerate the set of possible futures? Also, how do you calculate the probability of a future occurring and the number of lives ruined by Alexei in a given future? I can't wrap my head around how you can apply formal logic to this.

    Regarding this part of your post:

    Moral status as such actually has very little to deal with communism/leftist (in the Marxian vein) in terms of it’s internal mechanism. Marx, Engels, Lenin, and the rest of that intellectual lineage2. famously thought very little of moral philosophy. A communist is thus entirely at liberty to dismiss this entire discussion as idealism...

    While it is true that the moral status of something is irrelevant to a marxist, it could make sense to investigate morality as part of a society's superstructure and how it interacts with the base.

    • Regarding your 8th footonote, how does one enumerate the set of possible futures? Also, how do you calculate the probability of a future occurring and the number of lives ruined by Alexei in a given future? I can't wrap my head around how you can apply formal logic to this.

      You can't really, and that's sort of my point. You can do some truncated vague approximation of it, but the numbers you end up putting in for the probabilities and values are going to be essentially guesswork themselves. But at least adopting this framework or some other formalized framework would give you the chance to learn from principles whether or not the murders were justified, where all we are getting so far seems to be motivated reasoning.

    1. Monarchs (according to people who support monarchs) are not people as soon as they are aware of their circumstances. Thus killing a monarch transcends morality of killing young vs old.

    On the other hand, imagine if hitler was holding monarch's heir as a rallying point for him (whitess and monarchs' views on jewish question make that very real possibility)

    P.S. But yes ideally, they should have send them to felix.

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