Tsar Nicholas II Mistakes

The assassination of Tsar Nicholas II of Russia was unjustified because, while he did not rule in the best possible way for his country, he abdicated the throne, no longer posing a threat to the welfare of Russia; however, many Russian citizens claim that it was for the good of the people. From the beginning of his rule, Nicholas Romanov was not seen as fit for the throne. He made many mistakes as a leader that brought distress to his country, and handled many national issues, such as World War I (BBC para. 6) and Bloody Sunday, a day on which protesters were open-fired upon by the Royal Guard, extremely poorly (History para. 1). After a series of unfortunate events, the Tsar was forced to abdicate the throne. Soon after, he and his family

were arrested, detained, and later assassinated, execution-style by the Bolsheviks, a rebel force against the monarchy. Before their death in Yekaterinburg, Russia, the entirety of the Romanov line was lined up in a small room, read a death sentence by their captors, and violently executed by a group of drunk guards (Brennan para. 45). This disastrous fate was certainly not new to the luck of the Romanovs, hence the term “Curse of the Romanovs.”
After his many failures as a ruler, Tsar Nicholas was forced to abdicate, or renounce the throne.

He stepped down, despite still believing that he could do the best for Russia. The Romanov family no longer had a place in the government; therefore, posing no immediate threat to the country. Additionally, there is no way to justify murdering a child in cold blood, let alone five. The Bolsheviks planned the assassination, brought innocent children to a small room, killed their parents in front of them, and proceeded to punish them with slow, painful deaths (Brennan para. 45). Until 1991, the only thing the Soviet government had to say about the fate of the family was one single line, sent to Pravda, “Nicholas Romanov has been executed. His family has been evacuated to a safe location.” (Earle para. 9) This lie was spread throughout Russia, no one knowing that the whole family was, in fact, deceased. The Bolsheviks were able to trick an entire country with just one picture and the words they spoke. The Tsar was dead, but so were his children, killed to keep Romanovs from ever ruling

again.
A common argument used to justify the assassination of Tsar Nicholas is that it was for the good of Russia to keep the peace and make sure that he did not try to obtain the throne again.

Many people hated the Tsar because of his many tribulations during his rule (BBC para. 7). While it is true that Nicholas II ruled in a way that sent Russia into a downward spiral, he abdicated the throne, realizing that he could not be the right ruler for his country. Likewise, many Russian citizens today claim that the act of the Bolsheviks was no more than part of a brutal, but revolutionary campaign to free Russia from the rule of a tyrant. This is overshadowed, however, by the fact that the murders of the Romanov family were not justified because “[the Bolsheviks] had not acted at the direct behest of revolutionary leaders… [which] cannot constitute a politically motivated crime.” (Bigg para.

11)
After that fateful July night in 1918, the world essentially forgot about the Romanov family, until rumors surfaced that one daughter, Anastasia, had escaped the attack and was still living, as her remains had yet to be discovered. The story spread like wildfire throughout the world, spawning animated movies and stories of people helping her away. Although it would seem a glimmer of hope if Anastasia truly had escaped, sadly, she did not, because these gruesome and unnecessary attacks targeted the Romanov family and spared no one. All of this death and gore came from one root cause: hatred for a man who was unable to protect millions of people from the harshness of the world that threatened to destroy the country. Nicholas II of Russia had many failures and few successes. He is considered one of the worst Tsars in Russian history (BBC para. 8). Because of this, he was assassinated by the people who hated him the most: his own subjects. He and his family did not deserve the fate that they received because there was no logical reason to end the Romanov line. They could no longer lay claim to the throne, and would not be able to wreak more havoc upon the country. In fact, the family was seeking asylum in England just before they were taken by the Bolsheviks. Maybe it was fate that the Romanovs were assassinated, or maybe it was just a pure act of retaliation. Looking at it from any angle, the logic that lead the Bolsheviks to assassinate an entire line seem extremely trivial, now that all of the facts have been laid out for the world to see. Aleksandr Zakatov, spokesman for the Russian Imperial House spoke on the issue of deciding how to rule the executions, saying, “The totalitarian regime killed millions of people and all of them must be rehabilitated. The Terror will not end until we rehabilitate every one of its victims.” The fate of the Romanovs really was decided from the moment Nicholas II stepped into power. Was it the curse of the Romanovs, or was it simply bound to happen?