Tonight in 1918 the Communists of Russia revealed their true nature to anyone with eyes and ears. They butchered the entire family of the last Tsar of Russia . . . including his daughters who had no political status. It was not in their political interest, but it was in the interests of Terror. Bloody-minded Lenin and his terrorist thugs had learned only one thing from the earlier French Terror . . . the evil men had not killed enough of their foes.
Lenin would not make that mistake.
It was common in Russia, before the Fall of the Tsar, to think “nothing could be worse.” Change was slow and there was much to justify legitimate complaint.
The Tsar, whatever his faults as a ruler, loved Russia and was eventually convinced that his abdication, however personally painful, would save Russia from the “worst.”
He was wrong and so were the Russians who were so frustrated with the slow growth of democracy (and it was growing) that they could not be patient. They could not wait for the next Tsar, certain to be weaker or more open minded than Nicholas. They could not wait for the First World War to end. Hadn’t the allies already lost? Wasn’t it a Frenchman’s war, but poor Russians fight? Besides . . . nothing could be worse . . . nothing worse than the gridlock, the bad supplies, the incompetent ministers shuffled about, nothing.
They were very wrong.
What if Russia had endured the cold winter of 1917 without a Revolution? The spring offensive would (probably) still have failed. The war would have dragged on, but America was coming. With control of the seas would American supplies have saved Saint Petersburg another hungry winter? Would moderate Duma forces (with Rasputin dead) have prevailed for a more responsible ministry? Would Russia (as is far more likely) have simply muddled through a War that was winding down to come out on the victors side?
What if Russia had been there to aid the Greeks in their (nearly successful) attempt at Constantinople in the 1920’s? What is Russia had not lost 22 millions in the communist concentration camps on top of the talent and treasure lost in the Civil War? What if secularism had not emptied Russia of hope so that vodka and abortion have emptied the nurseries of the nation?
Would fascism have arisen in Germany without the Red Terror to justify (falsely) the Brown Terror? Would there have been the need for a Second World War if they first of the hideous regimes that caused it (the Communist regime in Russia) had never existed?
Things could have been better for Russia if a Michael III, following the brief reigns of Alexei and Michael II (the Tsar’s brother), sat in Petersburg today as a constitutional monarch in a confident Orthodox Russia.
Of course, I do not know and nobody can know. This we do know. It is foolish to believe that “things cannot get worse” and so give council for certain bloodshed, revolution, and terror.
Stalin comes from such a nightmare . . . not greatness, hope, or peace.
Those who now look at Iraq and say that nothing can get worse need to learn the lesson of July 17, 1918 . . .hard won by a father who had to watch his children die the death of martyrs.
Things can get worse.
Leaving Iraq to certain chaos, revolution, bloodshed, Iranian control, and violence is not even hopeful and it cannot be wisdom.
It is the worst sort of folly and it will be the innocent who die as a result of it.
