1918: Romanov family and one of the first brutal acts of communism

We’ve posted about the crimes of communism on this page.   Let’s remember one of the most horrific cases.

On July 16, 1918, Nicholas, Alexandra, their five children and four servants were ordered to dress and go down to the cellar of the house for a photograph. A few moments later, armed men gunned down the imperial family:

The killing of the Romanovs, on the other hand, was as bloody and ghastly as any mass murder of women and children. The killers fired some 70 bullets point-blank at their 11 victims, who screamed and clasped one another. The room soon filled with smoke and pulverized plaster and the groans of the wounded. In order to finish their work, the Bolsheviks beat the family to death with their rifle butts and stabbed them with their bayonets. The bodies were then dumped into a pit.

The murder of the Romanovs—by all accounts, a happy, loving family that had adjusted to its abdication, reduced circumstances, and imprisonment with good cheer—was a fitting curtain-raiser to what would follow.

The 70 years of Soviet oppression, which fed millions into a maw of death in the name of “history,” were prefigured in the events of that July night, 100 years ago.

Yes, it was a sign of things to come.

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