The main condition for the existence of immortality is death itself.

Stanislav Jerzy Lec

The shooting of the royal family of the Romanovs on the night of July 17, 1918 is one of the most important events of the era of the civil war, the formation of Soviet power, as well as the exit of Russia from the First World War. The assassination of Nicholas II and his family was largely predetermined by the seizure of power by the Bolsheviks. But in this story, not everything is as unambiguous as it is customary to say about it. In this article I will present all the facts that are known in this case in order to assess the events of those days.

Background of events

To begin with, Nicholas II was not the last Russian emperor, as many believe today. He abdicated the throne (for himself and for his son Alexei) in favor of his brother, Mikhail Romanov. So he is the last emperor. It is important to remember this, later we will return to this fact. Also, in most textbooks, the execution of the royal family is equated with the murder of the family of Nicholas 2. But these were not all Romanovs. To understand how many people we are talking about, I will give only data on the last Russian emperors:

• Nikolay 1 - 4 sons and 4 daughters.
• Alexander 2 - 6 sons and 2 daughters.
• Alexander 3 - 4 sons and 2 daughters.
• Nikolai 2 - son and 4 daughters.

That is, the family is very large, and any of the list above is a direct descendant of the imperial branch, which means a direct contender for the throne. But most of them also had their own children ...

Arrest of members of the royal family

Nicholas II, having abdicated the throne, put forward rather simple requirements, the fulfillment of which was guaranteed by the Provisional Government. The requirements were as follows:

• Safe move of the emperor to Tsarskoe Selo to his family, where at that time Tsarevich Alexei was present.
• The safety of the whole family at the time of their stay in Tsarskoye Selo until the full recovery of Tsarevich Alexei.
• Safety of the road to the northern ports of Russia, from where Nicholas 2 and his family must cross to England.
• After the end of the Civil War, the royal family will return to Russia and live in Livadia (Crimea).

It is important to understand these points in order to see the intentions of Nicholas II and later the Bolsheviks. The emperor abdicated the throne so that the current government would provide him with a safe exit to England.

What is the role of the British government?

The Provisional Government of Russia, after receiving the demands of Nicholas II, turned to England with the question of the latter's consent to host the Russian monarch. A positive response was received. But here it is important to understand that the request itself was a formality. The fact is that at that time an investigation was underway in relation to the royal family, during which it was impossible to leave Russia. Therefore, England, giving consent, did not risk anything at all. Another thing is much more interesting. After the complete acquittal of Nicholas II, the Provisional Government again makes a request to England, but already more specific. This time, the question was no longer raised abstractly, but specifically, because everything was ready for the move to the island. But then England refused.

Therefore, when today Western countries and people shouting at every corner about the innocent murdered talk about the shooting of Nicholas II, this only evokes a reaction of disgust at their hypocrisy. One word from the British government that they agree to accept Nicholas II with his family, and in principle there would be no execution. But they refused ...

In the photo on the left is Nicholas 2, on the right is George 4, King of England. They were distant relatives and had obvious similarities in appearance.

When was the royal family of the Romanovs executed?

The murder of Mikhail

After the October Revolution, Mikhail Romanov asked the Bolsheviks to stay in Russia as an ordinary citizen. This request was granted. But the last Russian emperor was destined to live "quietly" not for long. Already in March 1918 he was arrested. There is no reason for the arrest. Until now, no historian has been able to find a single historical document explaining the reason for the arrest of Mikhail Romanov.

After his arrest, on March 17, he was sent to Perm, where he lived for several months in a hotel. On the night of July 13, 1918, he was taken away from the hotel and shot. This was the first victim of the Romanov family by the Bolsheviks. The official reaction of the USSR to this event was ambivalent:

• It was announced to his citizens that Mikhail had shamefully fled from Russia abroad. Thus, the authorities got rid of unnecessary questions, and, most importantly, received a legitimate reason to tighten the maintenance of the rest of the royal family.
• For foreign states through the media, it was announced that Mikhail was missing. They say he went out for a walk at night on July 13 and never returned.

The shooting of Nikolai's family 2

The background is very curious. Immediately after the October Revolution, the royal family of the Romanovs was arrested. The investigation carried out did not reveal the guilt of Nikolai II, so the charges were dropped. At the same time, it was impossible to let the family go to England (the British refused), and the Bolsheviks really didn’t want to send them to the Crimea, because there were “whites” very close. And throughout almost the entire Civil War, the Crimea was under the control of the white movement, and all the Romanovs who were on the peninsula were saved by moving to Europe. Therefore, it was decided to send them to Tobolsk. The fact of the secrecy of sending is also noted in his diaries by Nicholas 2, who writes that they were being taken to ONE from cities in the interior of the country.

Until March, the royal family lived in Tobolsk relatively calmly, but on March 24 an investigator arrived here, and on March 26 a reinforced detachment of Red Army soldiers. In fact, from that time, increased security measures began. The basis is the imaginary flight of Michael.

Later the family was transported to Yekaterinburg, where she settled in the Ipatiev house. On the night of July 17, 1918, the imperial Romanov family was shot. Together with them, their servants were also shot. In total, died that day:

• Nikolay 2,
• His wife, Alexandra
• The emperor's children are Tsarevich Alexei, Maria, Tatiana and Anastasia.
• Family doctor - Botkin
• Maid - Demidova
• Personal chef - Kharitonov
• Lackey - Troupe.

In total, 10 people were shot. The corpses, according to the official version, were thrown into the mine and filled with acid.

Who killed the family of Nicholas 2?

I have already said above that since March, the protection of the royal family has been significantly increased. After moving to Yekaterinburg, this was already a full-fledged arrest. The family was settled in the house of Ipatiev, and a guard was presented to them, the head of the garrison of which was Avdeev. On July 4, almost the entire composition of the guard was replaced, as was its chief. Later, it was these people who were accused of the murder of the royal family:

• Yakov Yurovsky. Supervised the execution.
• Grigory Nikulin. Assistant to Yurovsky.
• Peter Ermakov. Chief of the Emperor's Guard.
• Mikhail Medvedev-Kudrin. Representative of the Cheka.

These are the main persons, but there were also ordinary performers. It is noteworthy that they all significantly survived this event. Most later took part in the Second World War, received a pension from the USSR.

Massacre of the rest of the family

Beginning in March 1918, other members of the royal family were gathered in Alapaevsk (Perm province). In particular, Princess Elizabeth Feodorovna, princes John, Constantine and Igor, as well as Vladimir Paley find themselves in captivity here. The latter was the grandson of Alexander II, but had a different surname. Later, all of them were transported to Vologda, where on July 19, 1918, they were thrown alive into a mine.

The latest events in the destruction of the Romanov dynastic family date back to January 19, 1919, when princes Nikolai and Georgy Mikhailovich, Pavel Alexandrovich and Dmitry Konstantinovich were shot in the Peter and Paul Fortress.

Reaction to the assassination of the Romanov imperial family

The murder of the family of Nicholas II had the greatest resonance, so it needs to be studied. There are many sources indicating that when Lenin was informed about the murder of Nicholas 2, he did not even seem to react to it. It is impossible to verify such judgments, but you can refer to archival documents. In particular, we are interested in Protocol No. 159 of the meeting of the Council of People's Commissars dated July 18, 1918. The protocol is very short. We heard the question about the murder of Nicholas 2. Decided - take note. That's right, just take note. There are no other documents regarding this case! This is completely absurd. It's the 20th century, but not a single document has been preserved regarding such an important historical event, except for one note "Take note" ...

However, the response to a murder is an investigation. They started

Investigations into the murder of Nikolai's family 2

The Bolshevik leadership, as expected, began an investigation into the murder of the family. The official investigation began on 21 July. She carried out the investigation quickly enough, since Kolchak's troops approached Yekaterinburg. The main conclusion of this official investigation is that there was no murder. Only Nicholas II was shot on the verdict of the Yekaterinburg Soviet. But there are a number of very weak points that still cast doubt on the veracity of the investigation:

• The investigation began a week later. In Russia, the former emperor is being killed, and the government reacts to it a week later! Why was this week of pause?
• Why investigate if there was an execution by order of the Soviets? In this case, on July 17, the Bolsheviks had to report that “the execution of the royal family of the Romanovs took place on the orders of the Yekaterinburg Soviet. Nikolai 2 was shot, but his family was not touched. "
• There are no supporting documents. Even today, all references to the decision of the Yekaterinburg Council are oral. Even in Stalin's times, when they were shot by millions, there were documents, they say, "by the decision of the troika and so on" ...

In the 20th of July 1918, Kolchak's army entered Yekaterinburg, and one of the first orders was to start an investigation of the tragedy. Today everyone is talking about investigator Sokolov, but before him there were 2 more investigators with the names Nametkin and Sergeev. Nobody has officially seen their reports. And Sokolov's report was published only in 1924. According to the investigator, the entire royal family was shot. By this time (back in 1921), the same data was announced by the Soviet leadership.

The sequence of the destruction of the Romanov dynasty

In the story of the execution of the royal family, it is very important to observe the chronology, otherwise it is very easy to get confused. And the chronology is as follows - the dynasty was destroyed in the order of the pretenders to the succession to the throne.

Who was the first contender for the throne? That's right, Mikhail Romanov. I remind you again - back in 1917, Nicholas II abdicated the throne for himself and for his son in favor of Mikhail. Therefore, he was the last emperor, and he was the first contender for the throne, if the Empire was restored. Mikhail Romanov was killed on July 13, 1918.

Who was next in the line of inheritance? Nicholas 2 and his son, Tsarevich Alexei. The candidacy of Nicholas 2 is controversial here, in the end he abdicated power on his own. Although in his respect everyone could have played the other way, because in those days, almost all laws were violated. But Tsarevich Alexei was an unambiguous contender. The father had no legal right to refuse the throne for his son. As a result, the entire family of Nicholas II was shot on July 17, 1918.

Further in line were all the other princes, of whom there were quite a few. Most of them were collected in Alapaevsk and killed on July 9, 1918. As they say, rate the speed: 13, 17, 19. If we were talking about random murders that are not related to each other, then there would be no such similarity. In less than 1 week, almost all the pretenders to the throne were killed, and in order of succession, but history today considers these events divorced from each other, and absolutely not paying attention to the controversial places.

Alternative versions of the tragedy

A key alternative version of this historical event is set forth in the book Murder That Didn't Happen by Tom Mangold and Anthony Summers. It hypothesizes that there was no execution. In general terms, the situation is as follows ...

• The reasons for the events of those days should be sought in the Brest Peace Treaty of Russia and Germany. The argument is that in spite of the fact that the classification of the documents has long been removed (it was 60 years old, that is, in 1978 it should have been published) there is not a single complete version of this document. An indirect confirmation of this - the "executions" began precisely after the signing of the peace treaty.
• It is a well-known fact that the wife of Nicholas 2, Alexandra, was a relative of the German Kaiser Wilhelm 2. It is assumed that Wilhelm 2 introduced into the Brest Peace a clause according to which Russia undertakes to ensure the safe exit of Alexandra and her daughters to Germany.
• As a result, the Bolsheviks extradited women to Germany, and left Nicholas II and his son Alexei hostage. As a consequence, Tsarevich Alexei grew up in Alexei Kosygin.

Stalin gave a new round to this version. It is a well-known fact that one of his favorites was Alexei Kosygin. There is no great reason to believe this theory, but there is one detail. It is known that Stalin always referred to Kosygin as "tsarevich".

Canonization of the royal family

In 1981, the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad canonized Nicholas II and his family as great martyrs. In 2000, this happened in Russia. Today Nicholas II and his family are great martyrs and innocent victims, therefore they are saints.

A few words about the Ipatiev house

The Ipatiev House is the place where the family of Nicholas 2 was imprisoned. There is a very reasoned hypothesis that it was possible to escape from this house. Moreover, in contrast to the unfounded alternative version, there is one essential fact. So, the general version is that there was an underground passage from the basement of the Ipatiev house, which no one knew about, and which led to a factory located nearby. Proof of this has already been provided in our day. Boris Yeltsin gave the order to demolish the house and build a church in its place. This was done, but one of the bulldozers fell into this very underground passage during work. There is no other evidence of the possible escape of the royal family, but the fact itself is curious. At the very least, leaving room for thought.

To date, the house has been demolished, and the Temple on Blood was not erected in its place.

Summarizing

In 2008, the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation recognized the family of Nikolai 2 as a victim of repression. Case is closed.

From the authors of the site: we do not agree with the anti-Stalinist statements of the author. According to recently released documents, Stalin was right about the anti-Soviet conspiracy of military experts in Tsaritsyn, and his timely intervention saved the Soviet Republic. Nikanorov is a brilliant publicist, historian often presenting unique materials, convincingly and convincingly exposing anti-Leninist fakes - at the same time he allows himself such rude anti-Stalinist attacks that the authors of the site cannot afford to post his undoubtedly talented articles and books on the site.

Georgy Nikanorov

V.I. LENIN AND ROMANOVS IN THE CONDITIONS OF A REVOLUTIONARY SITUATION

In the textbook for fifth-graders "Stories from Native History", which was published in 1993, without a hint of documentary validity, the following accusation is proclaimed:

"By order from Moscow in the summer of 1918, the former Tsar, his wife, children, as well as the doctor, cook and maid who were with them, only eleven people, were shot in the basement of the house where they had lived recently. So tragically (scary) ended the life of the last king "(p. 175). And on page 174 - a colorful group portrait of the royal family. The use of the term "Tsar's children" in relation to unfortunate, but already grown-up girls, which has become obligatory, helps to awaken in a consciousness devoid of honest information a blinding feeling of unjustified hatred towards Lenin and the revolution.

In 1994, a new textbook was addressed to the tenth graders: "Domestic history. XX century" (Part I). With regard to the execution of the royal family: "The execution was carried out by the decision of the Ural Soviet and, probably, in agreement with Moscow" (p. 219). To all appearances, a deliberate untruth is being established here under the pressure of the newly emerged ideological "twist". At the end of the textbook there is a rather large block of historical photographs, opened by the most striking of them, which depicts the royal family. Among the many comparatively large photographs of the leaders of the white movement, similar in size and brightness to photographs of Stalin, including those with fascist "colleagues" in negotiations of the late 1930s, and so on. suddenly a small photo of Lenin was lost ...

In 1994, the editor-in-chief of the "Hypoteza" magazine, a history teacher at the "School of a young teacher" at Moscow State University, V.Ya.Khutorskaya, published his own textbook that distorts everything and everything. In his "History of Soviet Russia (1917-1993)", as well as in other completely dishonestly opportunistic publications, it is also asserted that "by order of Lenin and Sverdlov, on the night of July 16-17, 1918, the tsar, his family and servants were shot. "

The appearance of Volkogonov's two-volume book "Lenin" is a more than remarkable phenomenon in an extremely negative sense, for on almost a thousand pages not a single large-scale problem has been disclosed in any way objectively and conscientiously.

Practically the most important thing in our past is "presented" here in accordance with the logic of Stalin's "Short Course", only changed to diametrically opposite "signs", say, assessments of such historical values \u200b\u200bas V.I. Lenin and the last emperor N.A. Romanov.

Volkogonov feigned indignation at the fact that earlier the Central Committee of the RCP (b) considered it necessary "to bring the tsar to court (they did not specify: why? For being the Russian emperor? Or for wanting to keep the great state in peace?)". Further, without a hint of facts and documents, it is proclaimed that (moreover, in advance) "Lenin knew that the whole family of the tsar was shot." There is really no limit to the cynicism of a high-ranking nomenklatura author (formerly a "faithful" and especially influential party member from among the leaders of the highest "rank"), who has "stuffed" his two-volume book with deliberate falsity and manipulation to the limit. Among other things, Volkogonov did everything to conceal the truth that the tsar was removed from power not by V. I. Lenin, but by his comrades-in-arms in the monarchical "belief".

What is the true cost of typical tricks, based on a selfish desire to inspire the people that Lenin personally strove for the tragedy in Yekaterinburg in 1918?

There are more than sufficient grounds to assert that it was V. I. Lenin who was a categorical opponent of extrajudicial punishment, and even more so - of innocent, innocent people who were not involved in anything bad. Much of his position in relation to the Romanov family was predetermined by the most pressing political considerations: perhaps even the flight of the tsar and his loved ones seemed to him a lesser evil from the point of view of the interests of Soviet Russia than any other outcome. And all the more unacceptable he saw not just the unlawful, but in fact the criminal murder of the tsar, and even together with his family, doctor and servant. After all, the appearance of the last emperor in the white "camp" could sharply complicate the position of a number of key figures in this movement, and, of course, would not strengthen the authority of the white leaders in the popular mind.

In this regard, the opinion of one of the prudently purposeful and influential White Guards of the first stage of the civil war, Colonel A.I.Stepanov, quite sympathetically quotes the words of one of his interlocutors, is extremely symptomatic: “The royal family, as well as monarchical principles, are so spit and dirty that it is unlikely whether they will meet with any response among the people ... Therefore, no matter how difficult and painful it is to admit, monarchist slogans, if you put forward them, will fail completely.My advice to you to wage a decisive struggle under the banner of restoring violated rights ... ". As Colonel Stepanov confessed, "I didn't have to think for a long time ... for opportunistic reasons I had to turn to the banner of the Constituent Assembly" (1).

There is no doubt: all the thinking leaders of the white movement understood that the authority of the tsar was irreparably undermined in connection with the terrible troubles of the war that began in 1914, memories of the humiliating defeats of the Russo-Japanese war, the tragedy on the Khodynskoye field, the shame of Rasputinism. Especially murderous for all the Romanovs was the memory of the bloody massacre of the unarmed, full of naive faith in the tsar, the masses of the capital's inhabitants, popularly perceived as "Bloody Sunday" on January 9, 1905. It is no coincidence that such an outstanding leader of the white movement as General A.I.Denikin noted that the people did not forgive the tsar for this atrocity ... And what were the completely arbitrary massacres, the many thousands of victims of the Stolypin-tsar military field courts!

Some of the current, unfortunately, very influential personalities who direct the "ideological stream", of course, with the help of broken functionaries-propagandists, declare the tragedy of "Bloody Sunday", some - "trifles", some - a completely natural and justified reaction of "God's anointed one. "on the claims of the" rebellious rabble ". This harmonious "chorus" organically includes voices praising the Russian president and even urging him to show almost autocratic toughness and inflexibility towards the "unworthy" bulk of fellow citizens who dream of reforms in the interests of the people, not grabbers ...

Contrary to speculation and slander, strongly encouraged by the "team" that has been in power since the end of 1991, the facts irrefutably testify that V. I. Lenin not only was not even in the slightest degree involved in the murder of the royal family, but also instructed Ya. to prevent such an outcome, and the latter, of course, tried to fulfill the instructions of the head of the Soviet government. This was most clearly manifested in the appointment of V. Yakovlev personally known to Y. Sverdlov as extraordinary commissar, who was so devoted to the idea of \u200b\u200blegality and justice, the prevention of any excesses in relation to the tsar and his family, that the regional leaders, who occupied a leading and largely uncontrolled position in the Urals at that time, declared him without the slightest reason "traitor to the revolution." And later, he was often portrayed as an enemy agent, allegedly sent to carry out a top-secret mission to save the tsar from the Bolsheviks.

In fact, he was a member of the Leninist party since 1905, a convinced and determined participant in the revolutionary movement. V. Yakovlev (real name Konstantin Myachin), an active participant in the October Uprising, delegate to the II Congress of Soviets, was appointed commissar at the central telegraph station by the Petrograd Military Revolutionary Committee. Subsequently, after returning to Moscow, Yakovlev was appointed commander-in-chief of the troops of the Ural-Orenburg front, operating against Dutov, then commander and commissar of the 2nd Army of the Eastern Front (it included formations operating in the Ufa and Orenburg directions) (2).

Enjoyed the confidence of the Leninist center, an impeccably honest revolutionary party member who reacted with organic rejection to the extremist aspirations of pseudo-revolutionaries, firmly and selflessly strove to fulfill the decision of the Bolshevik Central Committee of May 19, 1918 "Do not take anything yet towards Nikolai" And, of course, an unambiguous directive, in accordance with which the minutes of the meeting of the committee of the Red Guard detachment of special purpose wrote the following on April 22, 1918: "The life of the prisoners is guaranteed by the heads of everyone who fails to protect, and everyone who makes an attempt on the life of the family of the former tsar or an attempt to take away or transfer without the order of Comrade Yakovlev. " It is easy to imagine what this testified to in conditions when the leadership of Soviet Russia (especially in connection with the signing of the Brest Peace) was loudly accused of all mortal sins not only by the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries, anarchists, but also by a certain part of the members of the Bolshevik Party, up to a number of those, who was part of its leadership. Moreover, as a fact of "betrayal" was also pointed to the "careful" attitude of the Soviet government to the tsarist family, in response to the louder and more widely spread demands for the execution of the former emperor.

Lenin's desire to protect the royal family is also evidenced by the words of the then chairman of the Tyumen provincial executive committee, N. Nemtsov, that Yakovlev, having appeared to him, presented a mandate signed by V. I. Lenin to "remove Nikolai Romanov from Tobolsk and deliver him to Moscow . " ... It was impossible to quickly and clearly solve the problem of moving the royal family in full force due to the serious illness of Alexei's son. Time passed, the situation changed and the plan to move to Moscow was thwarted.

The fact that a sharp deterioration in the health of the already extremely painful teenager Alexei ruled out the timely transfer of the royal family to Moscow is quite understandable. But the extreme passivity of many active monarchists, from the summer of 1917 to the summer of 1918, when it was not so difficult to take away the royal family, seems more than strange. Why did no one take advantage of the very real opportunities of this kind? It was about this that the tutor of the heir P. Gilliard mentioned (3). And the daughter of the tsarist doctor E. S. Botkin, T. Melnik-Botkina, even testified that the soldiers of one of the platoons of the special-purpose detachment informed Colonel Kobylinsky that on their duty they "would allow their majesties to leave safely" (4).

The monarchists of that and subsequent times reproached each other many times for the actual refusal to save the royal family, which was quite feasible, including, of course, when the Provisional Government was at the head of Russia. The current "authorities", who have flooded the press and the TV screen, keep mum about this, and even more so about the "passivity" of, for example, the British leadership, including members of the royal family - rather close relatives of the last tsar. From April to June 1917, the next stage of negotiations between the Provisional Government and the government of the British Empire on granting asylum to the royal family continued. According to the testimony of the former Minister of Foreign Affairs Tereshchenko, as well as Kerensky and Milyukov, a visit was planned by a British cruiser, which was to take on board the Romanov family in Murmansk. Through the Danish ambassador, a guarantee against the threat from German submarines was confirmed. Their attack on a cruiser with a royal family was out of the question. But from England "at the end of June or the beginning of July ... we got a final refusal" (5). These are just a few of the many facts ...

Still, very, very much testifies in favor of the belief that both the former emperor and his relatives were absolutely not needed by those who, it would seem, like no one else, had to do anything to save them. It seems that in the subconscious of the key figures of the monarchist camp, up to the main foreign patrons of Russian reactionaries of the highest rank (including the Romanovs' relatives who ruled in some places outside of Russia), something "inexplicable" was really happening. Probably, some of them have matured in their souls an interest in a fatal outcome, quite possible in the immensely confused and often almost uncontrollable conditions of the summer of 1918. Why? Yes, because the tragic death of the former tsar and the people closest to him in an atmosphere of spontaneous and brutal confusion, which was still unbridled in 1918, could be used against Soviet Russia. This was a factor that, both then and at the end of our century, worked in an extremely ominous way precisely against progress, social justice and the reputation of the power of the Soviets.

The cruelty of those times is known, for example, Winston Churchill admitted that "they (foreign interventionist troops - GN) killed Soviet people as soon as they caught their eye; they remained on Russian soil as conquerors." It is also quite natural that the commanders of foreign troops, in accordance with the instructions of their political leaders, in every possible way encouraged the recklessly treacherous and most unbridled in their inhumanity, terrifyingly bloodthirsty, such of their henchmen as Krasnov, Semyonov and the like ...

At the same time, it should be noted that the Ural leading group at that time practically did not depend on the instructions of the center, relied on a multitude of essentially partisan and semi-partisan units, which were essentially impossible to resist, despite the extraordinary powers of Yakovlev and the detachment headed by him, the task which was the prevention of arbitrariness in relation to the royal family. It is no coincidence that the former emperor said that he would not like to go to the Urals, where, as he knows, they are "sharply against him." The Urals, who acted almost "independently", were eager to establish their complete control over the former tsar and all those who were near him. V. Yakovlev had to keep them all alive, taking them out of Tobolsk, where they were sent back under the Provisional Government.

However, in spite of the "broadest powers" given to Commissar Yakovlev by the Council of People's Commissars, whose head was V. I. Lenin, the local leadership in the Urals and the military units subordinate to him then behaved extremely arbitrarily. Ahead of Yakovlev's detachment was Zaslavsky's detachment, directly subordinate to the Ural leadership, and the escorting detachment, commanded by Brusyatsky, “closed” the escort. Someone clearly thought about how to "recapture" the Romanov family from Yakovlev, and he even found himself forced to temporarily arrest one of the "Urals". However, the matter did not come to shooting ... A kind of tactical confrontation continued even when the royal family was moved by rail. After the train with the royal family from Yekaterinburg, another special train was sent ... Yakovlev openly and angrily condemned the "partisan actions of the Urals", claiming that "he had no other intention than to save the former Tsar on the instructions of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee."

The commander of one of the Ural detachments stated that “Commissar Yakovlev came here and wants to take Romanov to Moscow, and then they seem to have decided to send him abroad. And we have the following task: to deliver him to Yekaterinburg by all means ". At the same time, Sverdlov asked Yakovlev if he was too nervous, if he was exaggerating the danger, and ordered him: "Go to Omsk, telegraph on arrival ... I will give further instructions to Omsk. Move." However, Yakovlev's attempt to carry out Ya.M. Sverdlov's order to transfer the royal family to Omsk, and not to Yekaterinburg, was thwarted.

The Ural Regional Council was gripped by irreconcilably vengeful emotions, Yakovlev was declared a traitor to the revolution and it was planned to stop the train going to Omsk and send it to Yekaterinburg under threat of execution. In case of disobedience, it was decided to destroy the train, of course, along with the passengers, and the attempt by the central leadership from Moscow to curb the presumptuous local extremists of the highest leadership level there ends with an attack against Sverdlov and even Lenin. In a telegram of ultimatum content, sent to the central leadership, it was stated: "The regional council ... states that the CEC presidium made a responsible decision without notifying the regional council in advance, thereby committing an act that clearly discredits the regional council ... We consider the only way out of this situation I will give you an order to return Yakovlev to Yekaterinburg. Your answer and the whole story are being discussed at the upcoming regional party conference. "

On April 29, the chairman of the Omsk Regional Council V. Kosarev, who is absolutely loyal to Lenin, sent a telegram in which he called the accusation of V. Yakovlev of treason "the result of a criminal misunderstanding", and in the next called on "the Ural workers not to make separate statements and in this case to fulfill the order exactly Moscow ". But neither the Omsk leader, nor Ya.M. Sverdlov, and even V.I.Lenin himself, had in those conditions any real opportunity with chances of success to resist the willfulness of those who held the Ural region in their hands. As a result, they had to hope for a successful outcome, having received from the chairman of the Uraloblsovet A. Beloborodov firm guarantees of the safety of the royal family. Having no real levers of administrative and military influence on local leaders, Sverdlov, in order to avoid further aggravation of the situation, which at any moment could completely get out of control, ordered to send the ill-fated train back to Tyumen, and from there to Yekaterinburg ... it is known about the approach of the Czechoslovak detachments and formations of the White Guard Siberian Army to Yekaterinburg, the reason presented itself, and the execution was carried out.

Alas, there were many shootings at that time, and they were not started by the Bolsheviks. Until the end of days, for example, the person closest to the author of these lines experienced the execution of young communists, anarchists, socialist-revolutionaries, as well as other "undesirable elements" (due to their revolutionary convictions), which followed at the moment when the Denikinites burst into Kursk. In this city in 1917, a very popular youth club arose, where, in fact, still boys and girls of different ideological orientations met regularly, passionately argued, exchanged information, puzzled over questions like who and how will be able to save Russia and the whole world from an abyss of misfortunes and injustices. Only for this, of course, those (almost children) were hanged who were revolutionary and simply anti-reactionary ... She was saved from a similar fate (at that moment a very active supporter of the ideas of Pyotr Kropotkin, although she was a completely "green" girl anarchist ) only because the elderly revolutionary-political prisoner who took care of the youth political club then persuaded her to sit in the last echelon with some difficulty, and those who disobeyed and remained in Kursk ended up on the gallows ... By the way, it is worth noting in passing that by the will of key figures from among the uncontrollably ruling in Russia since 1992, the terribly "objective" media, and above all television, do not mention in a single word the countless victims of the white terror, "ramming" into the mass consciousness only an extremely distorted idea of \u200b\u200bthe so-called. n. red terror.

For almost a dozen years, almost every day it has been written, it is said, shown in a multitude of invented "enticing" verbal patterns, God knows what about the tragedy of the family of the last emperor, and at the same time, of course, not a single word of honor about its true culprits! In the same series of "depictions" is the hatred that the Ulyanov family allegedly possesses towards all the Romanovs down to small children! In particular, there are endless references to the death of Nicholas II's brother, Mikhail, and several other victims from among the Romanovs. But not a word is said about the role played by the "combustible material" accumulated in the country against the oppressors of all stripes, which was completely uncontrollable from Moscow. Meanwhile, Lenin, for example, gave the opportunity to leave the country to the widow and young son of Mikhail Romanov, who did not consider it possible to accept the crown offered to him by the last tsar ...

In our time, malicious and biased propaganda is becoming more common. Just like a miracle, you remember that a few years ago, for the first time, an intelligent, conscientious person appeared on the screen, by no means one of those lightweight primitive "aristocratic authorities" who glorify autocratic monarchical authorities to the skies more and more often on the TV screen. charms "and admire their own noble or other" noble "origins. Before us appeared the descendant of the reigning house Nikolai Romanov. And he said something at the present time, not just far from the official politico-pseudo-historical fashion, but also organically incompatible with it. The family of this extremely conscientious and intelligent person still retains a grateful memory of the revolutionary sailor Zadorozhny, who was attached at that most difficult time to this "branch" of the dynasty. Before this convinced party member-Leninist, the task was set to protect the relatives of the last emperor from the whole Romanov family, who were thirsting for "lime at the root".

As a disciplined revolutionary and decent man, he coped with his mission with amazing success for the situation. Judging by the story of the now living Grand Duke Nikolai Romanov, the revolutionary who took care of his parents and other relatives was not only a brave man, but also extremely non-stereotypical, which manifested itself in a critical situation when, in order to exclude the fatal outcome of the case entrusted to him, he handed weapons to men Romanov, who attracted especially close and extremely unkind attention of local extremists due to family ties with the extremely unpopular former king.

Prince Nikolai Romanov, who lives, as it is now customary to express himself, in the far abroad, considered himself obliged, in fact, to call for a truly objective, completely free from vengefulness (and blatant self-interest) assessment of the tragic pages of our common past. That is, not to push together millions and millions of people with their foreheads, to prevent anything similar to unprincipled aggressive settling of scores, completely eliminating the implantation of intoxicating "reflexes".

It is also worth noting that even after the dethroning of the German emperor during the November 1918 revolution, the factor of the German origin of many Romanovs did not lose its significance. However, not only from the point of view of taking into account a number of the most urgent and significant foreign policy factors, but also based on the internal Russian situation, delivered, say, to Moscow safe and sound, the family of the last emperor could become not the least important lever of weakening military confrontation, albeit difficult but negotiations tending to soften mutual bitterness.

There is hardly any reason for doubt: Vladimir Ilyich Lenin was the decisive and salutary figure of the revolutionary camp, leading the forces opposing pseudo-revolutionary bloodthirstiness in Soviet Russia. But the "round" of the summer of 1918 - his attempts to save the family of the last tsar and a number of his other relatives - he still lost. This cost dearly not only to those who perished in those already rather distant times, but also to many of their contemporaries (by no means tsarist origin), but also to subsequent generations ...

Why did the tragedy of the last tsar and some of his relatives, as well as other people close to him become inevitable? Not only because of the temporary lack of control of the Leninist center of the leading extremists of the Urals region. An immeasurably more significant and decisive factor that predetermined the Yekaterinburg and a number of other tragedies of the same kind was that Nicholas II and his relatives were needed by the key figures of the interventionist powers and the white movement precisely dead, and by no means alive and well, and even claiming to be the main role in the anti-Soviet camp. No less inhuman and in essence especially ominous was the position of the leaders of the leading imperialist powers, for whom the hopelessly bankrupt and compromised last tsar of Russia could only become an additional "burden" and "headache." All the more since, fueling the white movement, they were eager to tear apart and pull apart a huge power "piece by piece", leaving a semicolonial "stump" from its endless expanses.

The "uselessness" of Nikolai Aleksandrovich, even to his crowned relatives who ruled in some places, manifested itself soon after the revolution. Attempts to save the lives of members of the House of Romanov were made, for example, by the Spanish royal family. In October 1917, King Alphonse XIII and the Spanish government tried to reach an understanding in London to sign an appropriate agreement with the Provisional Government to organize the departure of the king and his family through Finland and Sweden. To this end, the Spanish king personally addressed the King of England George the Fifth, the nephew of Maria Feodorovna (the dowager empress, mother of Nicholas II, who, therefore, was the cousin of the English monarch ... - G.N.), as well as the royal people of Sweden and Norway, but his appeal was not successful "(6).

Practically all the "evidence" of the alleged guilt of the Soviet leadership in the bitter fate of the last emperor and his relatives, pseudo-democratic "authorities" derive from the investigator Sokolov, on behalf of Kolchak, who was dealing with the case of the royal family. (By the way, A.V. Kolchak, apparently, was very afraid of accusations that he, in fact, did not do anything serious for the very possible salvation of the tsar and his relatives, and therefore the investigator had in this regard a very definite "order" for "dumping "responsibility for what happened on VI Lenin and his associates). In this regard, much could be understood, having received accurate information about the background of the mistrustful attitude towards Sokolov of the Tsar's mother, who refused to meet with him, and about why this investigator did not succeed in winning over to his side the then most authoritative of the Romanovs, Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich (the uncle of the last emperor), who also did not want to accept him. It would also be worthwhile to find out the reason for Sokolov's very early and mysterious death in 1924 in exile.

However, it would be a sin not to express satisfaction at least with the fact that the truth is also recognized by such a modern lawyer as the senior criminal prosecutor of the General Prosecutor's Office of Russia V.N. Soloviev. In his opinion, it is clear from the new documents that the plan to liquidate the entire family of Nicholas II belonged to the Yekaterinburg leaders. This, in particular, is evidenced by the recording of a conversation over a direct wire between Yakov Sverdlov and the military commissar of the Ural region F. Goloschekin, which is a serious argument "in favor of the fact that the direct decision to shoot the royal family was made in Yekaterinburg" (7).

The crime in Yekaterinburg could not solve any of the most difficult problems of that time, if only because it cemented, strengthened the ranks of forces opposing the creative, humane, truly socialist renewal of society. Awaiting an objective, thorough, honest trial, unpopular like none of his predecessors for the entire more than three hundred years of the Romanov dynasty, the tsar, who was under arrest in Moscow, would not pose a threat to Soviet Russia and, on the contrary, could very seriously interfere with the activation and consolidation of forces intervention and various currents of the white movement. But his tragic death could not but affect in a diametrically opposite way, for which he had to pay not only during the years of military confrontation. That is why he was needed by the most aggressive foreign and the darkest counter-revolutionary, selfishly anti-popular forces in Russia itself, namely the dead, not the living.

As for V.I. Lenin and his associates personally, their adherence to the norms of humanity was inherent (in spite of all the current propaganda concoction) in relation to any person, including when it came to innocent members of the recently ruled Russia dynasty. A typical example of this kind was the attitude towards the wife and the little boy - the son of the tsar's brother, Mikhail.

Any uncontrollably ruling cruel politician of the 30s, 40s or 90s of our century would most likely not interfere with the destruction of a helpless woman and child in those conditions, but in the midst of a military confrontation with the forces of foreign aggression and White Guards, when everything "hung literally by a thread "and the country was under the threat of foreign colonization, the leaders of the state simply could not help but provide them with the opportunity to leave Soviet Russia. Moreover, both the widow and her son lived happily in exile many years after the death of the founder and first leader of Soviet society.

In the course of the slanderous "merrymaking" being promoted for many years, aimed primarily against Lenin, the "new" rulers and their television, newspaper and other henchmen do not hesitate to block in some way even with ignorant murderers of bygone days! It goes without saying that the tragedy associated with the fate of the last tsar's younger brother, Mikhail Romanov, is also used with cynical shamelessness. At the same time, even the initiator and main culprit of the murder of the last tsar's closest relative, in favor of whom he abdicated during the February Revolution, is portrayed as a true Bolshevik-Leninist. In this case, we are talking about Gabriel Myasnikov, expelled from the party and put on trial in Lenin's times, but who managed to escape and live in Paris for many years. For some reason he was not tried there ...

In the 90s of the outgoing twentieth century, an almost self-evident "explanation" for the death of Tsar Mikhail's brother is the one that was "placed" in the officialdom of the Yeltsin regime in "Rossiyskaya Gazeta", 09.10.99. "On the June night of 1918, the Chekists dragged Mikhail Alexandrovich out of bed, pushed him out into the street and took him out of town, into the forest, where they killed him ... The next morning they announced that Mikhail Romanov had been kidnapped by the White Guards. They even organized their" search "..." : Semi-criminal elements are declared "chekists", hinting that they operated on the orders of Dzerzhinsky, who allegedly fulfilled Lenin's "wish"! And there are many naive people who believe this.

The reputation of the king's brother, who immediately renounced the throne offered to him (in the presence of a positive attitude towards him from the ruling circles and, above all, the military leadership, apparently in full strength), but who did not want to establish himself on the throne with the help of violence, was quite decent. First of all, for this reason, when M.A. Romanov turned to a particularly trusted, close ally of V.I. Lenin - the head of the Council of People's Commissars V.D. Bonch-Bruevich with a request to issue him a document confirming that the former Grand Duke and the closest relative of the latter Tsar, is not an enemy of Soviet power, followed by a completely benevolent reaction. He was given a mandate certifying this on the letterhead of the Council of People's Commissars.

The loyal attitude of the leadership of the new Russia to the most "weighty" representative of the recently ruled "House of Romanov" was manifested not only in the issuance of a fundamentally very important document of the most authoritative body of power of that time. The positive attitude towards the former Grand Duke extended so far that his request for the removal of Cheka's supervision from him was granted.

Did V.I.Lenin and his associates have any reason to treat M.A. Romanov with trust that was unusual at that time? Yes. For the information about his conscientious life position was quite convincing. Moreover, it was difficult to deny him sensitivity and foresight. Even if V.I. Lenin and other most civilized leaders of Soviet power had no idea about the letter of this man to his then reigning elder brother, who in the most fateful moments showed an amazing limitation, spiritual inertia on the verge of a complete loss of a sense of reality. It remains only to assume how painfully Mikhail Romanov was worried because of, in essence, perhaps the anomalous readiness of the last tsar to repeat and almost replicate the same mistakes that have long been characteristic of him ...

So, apparently, the last attempt of the Grand Duke Mikhail Alexandrovich to prevent a fatal outcome failed, because Nicholas II could not seriously think about the content of the more than sad, but prophetic letter of his younger brother. "... I am deeply alarmed and worried about everything that is happening around us. The change in the mood of the most well-meaning people is amazing; resolutely from all sides I notice a way of thinking that inspires me with serious fears not only for you and for the fate of our family, but even for the integrity of the state system ... I came to the conclusion that we are standing on a volcano and that the slightest spark, the slightest erroneous step could cause a catastrophe for you, for all of us and for Russia ... "However, the emperor remained true to himself, committing one "wrong step" after another! What was the cost, for example, of the "removal" of the IV-th State Duma, extremely reactionary, in which the monarchists were the overwhelming majority! Only because from its rostrum one could sometimes hear speeches "undesirable" for the tsar and especially for the tsarina, who was even ready to hang other and relatively "well-meaning" deputies (like Kerensky) ... As if the emperor deliberately sought self-isolation among the "upper classes "!!!

Oddly enough, but the last autocrat, even in February 1917, was still essentially "wilting", taking seriously the downright painfully stupid "revelations" of the tsarina: "Yesterday there were riots on Vasilievsky Island and on Nevsky, because the poor took They smashed Filippov to smithereens and the Cossacks were summoned against them. Hooliganism, boys and girls running around and shouting that they have no bread - just to create excitement - and workers who prevent others from working. If the weather were very cold they would probably all stay at home. But all this will pass and calm down, if only the Duma behaves well. The worst speeches are not published ... I hope that Kerensky from the Duma will be hanged for his terrible speech - this is necessary (military law , wartime) and this will be an example. Everyone is eager and begging you to be firm ... All the troubles from this yawning audience. " And this spiritually weak couple, extremely primitive in their self-confidence, who ruled in a huge country in the most pernicious way, for a dozen years, Yeltsin and the key figures of his propaganda servants have been portrayed as wise, kind, crystal clear rulers of "happy" Russia, allegedly overthrown by the allegedly "cruel" Lenin, who was then in exile! ... And not only that: pseudo-democrats who seized power and wealth, ruining millions of lives in a matter of years, just V.I. Lenin, who did everything possible to save the Romanovs from lynching, accused of inhumanity!

That is why, in a row of many others, similar, and there is another publication "Lenin was very pleased ...", and these words are taken from the confession of Myasnikov - the main killer of M.A. Romanov, whose claims of conscientiousness are simply immoral not to reject, as a deliberate lie. It goes without saying that it is extremely beneficial for prudent slanderers "not to specify" thanks to whom the members of the Romanov family were able to survive, and where they were in mortal danger. However, why not commit yet another falsifying vileness, accusing Lenin of not just anyone but personally of Lenin in the "villainous" attitude towards the tsar's brother? And why not, due to the complete lack of elementary decency among the current "powers that be" and their "servants"! So the pseudo-revolutionary, capable of self-willfulness up to the most unbridled break with the norms of humanity, has "fit in". And therefore, he had reason (at least - in the subconscious) to hate Lenin and resist him. Quoted half-phrase, taken from the "memoirs" of someone who proved his ability to treachery and cruelty, and became the headline of an article of little respect, published in "Moskovskaya Pravda" on 14.05.96.

The main thing is to understand that Myasnikov, who was extremely influential at that moment in Perm, behaved towards an absolutely decent person, such as the tsar's younger brother, as the initiator and organizer of a villainous act committed without the knowledge and in spite of the Leninist center. The unauthorized arrest and execution of Mikhail Romanov for the time being was concealed with the help of a false version about his escape with the help of "unknown kidnappers", about the need to organize a search, etc. Although in reality it was, perhaps, almost a criminal murder and robbery of the Grand Duke, along with Secretary Johnson, who followed him of his own free will and to his own death, who was finished off in the style of criminals, "removing" witnesses ...

Myasnikov himself claimed that, they say, "the Kremlin is making a mistake," which must be corrected with the hands of his henchmen who fully trusted him. Subsequently, Myasnikov did not accidentally carry deliberate nonsense, justifying the murder: "Mikhail and his entourage are the headquarters, the main headquarters, on which the course, and, perhaps, the outcome of the war depends. Having this headquarters in your hands, not to destroy it means to help the enemy to beat us ... We must carry out the sentence of history. " Of course, people like Myasnikov had nothing to do with Lenin's concept of transforming society on the basis of genuine progress and humanity. It is for this reason that he was expelled from the party even under Lenin, and for his "art" he even ended up in prison.

Nevertheless, Gabriel Myasnikov left us his self-revealing manuscript "The Philosophy of Murder, or Why and How I Killed Mikhail Romanov." And now it is possible to refute the slander and as a result of the revelations of G. Myasnikov, who accused the Leninist leadership of actually conniving at Mikhail Romanov. "They want to arrange an escape (...) And if he has not escaped so far, it is only because he is a lazy fool!" And then Myasnikov reveals the depth of his contradictions with those who led Soviet Russia from the Kremlin. “He will be killed, it’s clear, but it’s clear to me and my comrades, to whom I trust my secret, but for everyone he fled. And good. And how will Sverdlov and Lenin react to this? And no matter how they react, it makes no difference to me . I know my duty, I will fulfill it, and then let them sleep on me at least "(8).

Moreover, Myasnikova is "drawn" not only to insulting abuse addressed to her victim - MA Romanov, of course, absolutely unfounded, containing nothing but primitive hatred ("stupid", "dirty trick", etc. .), but also on hostile, albeit hidden attacks against V.I. Lenin and Ya.M. Sverdlov. If Myasnikov did not know Mikhail Romanov at all and only once caught a glimpse of him before the murder, which he personally organized, then he should have had a fairly thorough understanding of the head of the Soviet government and the chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee. However, nothing but irritation awakens in him their telegrams demanding to grant the brother of the former tsar complete freedom, which he explains to himself only by "games of humanism" harmful to the working class. Therefore, Myasnikov, with a light heart, deals with his victim and his secretary, immediately spreading false information about their escape. The leaders of Soviet Russia, according to Myasnikov, will only have to make excuses, proving their innocence in the crime: "Lenin and Sverdlov can trump" Here are the orders, here are the telegraph orders ... "(9).

Especially socially dangerous was the fact that Myasnikov, not without reason, hoped that the massacre of M.A. Romanov would serve as a signal for the destruction of all the Romanovs who are still alive and are in the hands of Soviet power. "Well, let it ... It is necessary to carry out the sentence of history. And hesitation is not and should not be a place" (10). The "hesitant" Lenin and Ya.M. Sverdlov, but in fact - normal people who resisted murder, in 1918 still did not have the opportunity to suppress the counterrevolutionary unbridledness of the dark, or even deliberately bad, elements that great and noble ideals. Most likely, Myasnikov did not understand that the end of the "House of Romanovs" is the elimination of the monarchical form of government in Russia, and by no means the murder of defenseless people who had the right to life, like everyone else, especially not criminal fellow citizens ...

Among other things, the atrocity of Myasnikov and his henchmen may have become a kind of inspiring signal for the Yekaterinburg extremists, shortly after the execution of M.A. Romanov near Perm, they also finished with the former emperor and the people closest to him. With some morbidly anomalous self-righteousness, Myasnikov asserted: "On the side of Lenin and Sverdlov there is only authority, and on mine is the authority of truth and my authority." How easy it is to "raise" your own, existing only in your imagination, authority ...

And today the image of a "Leninist" appears in the media, they say, as if carrying out the will of the head of the Soviet country, and even allegedly trampling the unfortunate boy Alexei with his boots. Such is the lie proclaimed according to the "norms" of the dirtiest slander of our day! Perhaps this particularly disgusting trick, calculated to deceive tens of millions of our fellow citizens, is just an accidental breakdown of a TV journalist, “for no reason, for no reason,” with all the conveniences "located" with all the conveniences in the "historical" TV programs of RTR. But what is the price of a generalizing slanderous, criminally dirty "information" as if this was the beginning of the massacre of babies from noble and bourgeois families ?!

Either the accomplices of such actions will prove their case by historical facts, documents, objective evidence, or they should be brought to the strictest responsibility in accordance with legal norms. If the malice of both them and the "highest" inspirers of this black deed is proven, then, at least until the end of their days, no decent person should shake hands with them. Slander should be punishable at least in this way, because in reality it is unlikely that among all the responsible political values \u200b\u200bof that most difficult period, and even the current historical stage, there was a person who, to a greater extent than V. I. Lenin, hated bloodthirsty excesses, and even such, the victims of which were children. Only the criminal elements of today can claim that in Lenin's times, the key figures could have desired reprisals against at least one child or adolescent, including "on the occasion" of his belonging to the Romanov dynasty, or to another aristocratic or bourgeois family! For any proven fact of such an act, especially in relation to children, under Lenin, a severe punishment was imposed.

There is every reason to believe that for such the most conscientious leaders of the white movement as A.I. Denikin, cruelty of a similar kind was just as unacceptable as for V.I. Lenin, for personally he was also one of the normal decent people. The only difference was that already in 1919, V. I. Lenin still managed to establish quite effective control over the most difficult situation of the period of foreign invasion and the civil war he had predetermined, putting an end to the element of excesses that nearly overwhelmed our country to a dangerous extent. in 1918. But the leaders of the so-called. the white movement in the sphere of its competence in the territory controlled by them was not able to do the same, which, incidentally, became one of the decisive factors that predetermined their isolation from the bulk of their fellow citizens and (including for this reason) the inevitable final defeat.

For many years now, the pseudo-democrats who have ruled in Russia, of course, cannot help but evade answers to elementary questions in their thirst to irreparably trample on historical truth. (Up to the proclamation of the alleged "salvation" and in no way irreplaceable "beneficence" of the autocratic-monarchical, "primordially Russian foundations".) Among many others, the following fact deserves attention: why, for example, the bourgeois Provisional Government even before V.I. Lenin of the Great October Revolution, on his own initiative, abolished the monarchy and proclaimed Russia a republic?

In the same way, it is far from accidental, and not somehow, but personally, the English king addressed the government with a demand to cancel the proposal to grant the tsar political asylum in Great Britain, made shortly after the abdication of the Russian emperor from the throne! The British Foreign Office has long denied the cancellation of the proposal and recognized it only in the 30s (11). Of course, Reuters rightly condemns George V, but the main thing here is that the vast multimillion masses of the most socially active and, of course, thinking "subjects" resolutely rejected Nicholas II and the monarchist "order" in general! It is truly impossible to count the evidence of this kind. For example, long-liver Yevgenia Mikhailovna Podshivalova, when asked if she remembers the revolution, answered: “Of course, I was 9 years old then. The whole village was shouting“ Down with the Tsar! ”Once at a meeting a woman saddled a red horse without a tail and under With a red flag, she led us across the river to Kournikovo - some lady lived there. We gathered at her estate and shouted: “Down with Nicholas!” We lived poorly under the Tsar Father. We ate bread with vetch, walked in sandals. The village was large but poor. The roofs were thatched, there was no light, no kerosene. Torch was burnt in the huts. We buried under Lenin, he did not offend the peasants "(12).

The opinion of an elderly peasant woman in something most important completely coincides with what even the most thinking of the relatives of the last emperor experienced more than eight decades ago during the period of the irreversible collapse of tsarism. It is no coincidence that one of them wrote on a letterhead with a grand ducal crown at the beginning of March 1917: “Regarding our rights and, in particular, mine, to the succession to the throne, I, passionately loving my Motherland, fully subscribe to those thoughts that are expressed in the act of refusal Grand Duke Mikhail Alexandrovich. Grand Duke Kirill Vladimirovich "(13).

But the modern writer, Boris Vasiliev, who was awarded the Yeltsin Order and declares his deep respect for him, mainly propagates what is in the interests of this regime, claiming that after the 1917 revolution, all the best and most valuable was allegedly mutilated and destroyed. Vasiliev immediately "clarifies" that "the Bolsheviks and Soviet Power committed the greatest crimes against their own people." "They exterminated the nobility and the old intelligentsia, destroyed the church, took away the land from the peasantry. Lack of property is the basis of immorality. In the city the philistine triumphed, in the countryside, the lumpen. The new masters of Russia got what they wanted - a gigantic immoral lumpenized mass. Take it naked. hands and do with it what you want "(14).

In any case, this person seeks to either meaningfully or subconsciously follow in Yeltsin's footsteps. After all, back in 1992, he "won" the applause of the American congressmen, saying that everything that happened in our country since 1917 was "a complete nightmare." The then ruler lied and lied as usual without proof, but quite prudently. But how can a person who is not at all stupid and untalented by nature descend to the same level! What's the matter here?

An old peasant woman pays tribute to October 1917, honestly confirming that "we lived under Lenin," while "under the tsar-father we lived badly," and we "ate bread with vetch"? How can Vasiliev even "not know" this? And also the fact that immediately after the defeat of the troops of the foreign invasion and their White Guard satellites, under Lenin's NEP, the peasants really became "free masters on free land"? It was for this reason that agriculture began to flourish then. In these times, the people ate satisfyingly and efficiently, which was not rot in tsarist times, nor the usurpatory triumphant of the Stalinist anti-socialist coup!

Vasiliev is just as far from the truth in almost every word of the above. The assertion that the church was destroyed is also blasphemous. The purposeful destruction of many churches and priests began only after the ominous triumphs associated with Stalin's collectivization and "the elimination of the kulaks as a class." And the troubles of the intelligentsia, saved by V.I. Lenin, A.V. Lunacharsky, A.M. Gorky and their associates, thanks to which an unprecedented flourishing of education, health care, science and culture took place in the 1920s, also began only as undermining Leninist norms in the conditions of Stalin's seizure of uncontrollably tyrannical power.

Perhaps it will seem completely unexpected to someone, but here lies a lot of the Russian officer corps, which predetermined the irreconcilable split, on which the course of our history depended to a great extent, not only in the years after 1917. For example, in Germany, after the liquidation of the monarchy during the revolution of the end of 1918, the majority of officers were almost monolithically regressive and anti-people (which, among other things, predetermined the coming triumph of Hitlerism). It played a decisive role in the fact that the movement of the masses for a better future for their country was literally drowned in blood in Berlin, and in Bavaria, and in other places in the very first post-war years. But among the Russian officers there were many who sympathized with their suffering people and especially the peasantry, among whom tens of millions were in an unbearably humiliated and distressful situation. The foreign imperialist invasion, armed to the teeth, also played a role, literally tearing the country to pieces.

The process of delimitation proceeded with the utmost clarity in two directions. First of all, it was necessary to decide: or not to go along with the huge majority (mainly peasant) of the population, terribly crushed, brought to the extreme of poverty by the pre-revolutionary regime, for the sake of saving it from eternal troubles? Thus, recognizing the correctness of V. I. Lenin and simultaneously saving his great country from disintegration and colonization by foreign aggressors! Such a decision was taken primarily by sacrificial natures, sometimes on the verge of complete self-denial, like the young wounded front-line soldier, Staff Captain Mikhail Zoshchenko, that is, the most consistent advocates of a good attitude towards the overwhelming majority of fellow citizens. Of the true humanist intellectuals with officer's shoulder straps on their shoulders, there were a surprisingly many of them. However, most of the former officers who served in the Red Army were, at first, nevertheless, apparently, of those who, gritting their teeth, did not accept much of what was happening after October 1917, still did not see any other way out. Indeed, before their very eyes, the most worthy of the leaders of the white movement, not to mention monsters such as Krasnov, Semyonov and the like, with fatal inevitability turned out to be puppets in the hands of German, Japanese, English, French, American and other dismembers and destroyers of their long-suffering Motherland!

Of course, in the ranks of the white movement there were many subjectively honest people, including officers, full of good intentions, but still the main thing there was predetermined by those who simply tried to return "their own" lands given by the Soviet government to those who suffered from land shortages, which means , and hopeless need, the peasantry. Moreover, it was with the "help of" foreign "well-wishers" patrons who armed them and aimed against their native people, simultaneously sending their troops to Russia with deliberately predatory, criminal, fatal goals for the Motherland and its multimillion-dollar mass of patriotic workers ... Fortunately , most of the former officers responded to Lenin's call to defend their country, and this call was resolutely supported by a significant part of the former tsarist military leaders, the brightest and largest figure among whom was the famous and most talented of the pre-revolutionary military leaders Alexei Alekseevich Brusilov ... Together with a significant group of his former fellow generals, he called on the officers to forget all the grievances and hardships for the sake of saving the Motherland, to go to achieve this goal to the end together with his people and the Soviet government.

A colossal and irreplaceable role for the sake of saving the officer corps (which included a lot of those who, like A.A. Brusilov, were of noble origin) and in the name of self-preservation, revival, the greatness of our country was played by the fact that V.I. Lenin, together with his true associates, managed to suppress the anti-officer, anti-noble, etc. terror, and thus - to protect the Russian officers from vengefully embittered and simply dark extremists, among whom many self-styled themselves as those who supposedly really personified Soviet power. It is known, for example, that soon after the February Revolution, the fiercely minded dark section of the sailors "in one fell swoop" interrupted many officers led by admirals Viren and Butakov. By the way, as soon as the Bolsheviks, even before the October Revolution, became the most influential leading force in such a body as Tsentrobalt, which had a decisive influence on the sailors' masses, something like the aforementioned tragedy became unlikely, and then completely impossible. And immediately after coming to power, V.I. Lenin, together with his followers, managed firmly and decisively not only to suppress the terrible anti-officer excesses, but also to begin the mass attraction of those who began to be called military experts to command and staff posts in the Red Army, up to the highest.

Of course, anti-officer breakdowns could and, unfortunately, did occur here and there, and the most influential "specialist" in this area was Stalin, who concocted the so-called Alekseev case in Tsaritsyno, who ordered the execution of the criminally slandered former officers, but he only had great difficulty by means of deception, harsh responsibility was avoided. Subsequently, until the onset of his uncontrolled triumph in the 30s, he was forced to behave with caution and restraint, while Lenin's norms were still in effect at least partially ... Since the end of 1918, fortunately, the Leninist strategy of the military construction, an integral part of which was the massive inclusion of former tsarist officers in the ranks of the commanders of the Red Army, right up to the appointment as commanders of armies, fronts and even commanders of the Red Army as a whole (they, in the midst of the military confrontation, were for the most part only from this environment). The course of events more and more impressively made it possible for tens and tens of thousands of former officers, many generals and admirals to correctly assess the role of V. I. Lenin and Soviet power, which became one of the decisive factors in saving the great country from collapse and destruction. Indeed, without the knowledge, combat experience, command and staff professionalism of the "military experts", victory over foreign invaders and White Guards would have been impossible.

The officers' milieu was also split over a problem that was not of paramount importance at that time, and the delimitation was not outwardly noticeable, although it usually touched the "deep strings" of many officer souls, because the matter concerned the last autocrat. In this regard, all the top leadership of the pre-revolutionary armed forces and the simply-minded military of the highest rank, including many adamant counter-revolutionary monarchists, were, as a rule, united to the trouble of the last emperor. For the most part, if not personally familiar with him, but sometimes observing his actions from a remote, or even close enough distance, they were sure of the complete incapacity and irreparable compromise of this person as the head of state, and as a result of this leading the Motherland and its "tops" not only to a gigantic "rift", but also to the prospect of a general collapse.

Under inhumanly most difficult conditions, V. I. Lenin was able to solve many other (and, as a rule, immeasurably more difficult) problems associated with the need to save at all costs not only our great culture, our amazing literary, theatrical and other classic heritage. And this is not the most difficult part of the accomplishments saving for our Fatherland.

It would seem that it was difficult to undermine everything good and potentially positive, which radically improved the life of the people at that time. Despite the mistakes and even serious breakdowns that also took place ... But after all, something relatively decent remained and despite the dangerously inertial neo-Stalinist vices, which especially badly influenced society for almost two stagnant decades. But no: in a few years, starting from the end of 1991, all this was mutilated, mutilated, destroyed. Tens and tens of millions of our compatriots have been ruined, destitute, killed by hunger, disease, encouraged in every way by crime, immorality, drug addiction, alcoholism, etc. already millions of them.

And the main culprit of the collapse with inhumanity, deceit, hypocrisy, covetous insatiability, together with his own kind, from year to year, continued his dirty work, not only bathing in unprecedented luxury, but also defaming with his dirty verbiage even such a magnitude, the largest in its wholesomeness for many millennia, like Vladimir Ilyich Lenin!

It is in all this terrifyingly inhuman, on the verge of calculating genocide, that the background of an unbridled filthy desire "forever and ever" to trample the truth of history lurks. Of course, first of all, concealing from the peoples (not only our country), the complete absence of cruelty, lust for power, self-interest and everything else similar to this, in Vladimir Ilyich. It was this fundamental principle of his personality that gave rise to his unfulfilled desire to save the royal family from unlawful reprisals. This also explains the fact that it was possible to successfully protect the vast majority of distant and a number of close relatives of the last emperor from death, which, of course, must be hidden forever, for, along with an immense set of other facts, it irrefutably testifies to a truly humane, -really noble essence of the first leader of Soviet Russia. As well as those workers of the Soviet, party and other bodies of the central and regional levels, who, unlike the so-called "Urals" and "Permians", were truly in solidarity with Lenin's, inherently impeccably humane guidelines.

Therefore, some of the direct descendants of the former tsars even sympathized with what Lenin planned and did! For example, Artemy, the eldest son of Grand Duke Nikolai Konstantinovich Romanov (grandson of Emperor Nicholas I), served in the Red Army during the Civil War, participated in suppressing the Dutov rebellion, but in front-line conditions fell ill with typhus, was released from the military ranks and died in 1919 year. (And before the revolution, this man graduated from the Corps of Pages, served in the Guard, then retired, in 1914 he was again drafted into the tsarist army in connection with the outbreak of World War I, and even then he showed himself to be a progressive and Tolstoy-style humane person ... .) (fifteen).

Honest conclusions in this regard, as in everything else, will undoubtedly make it possible to radically change for the better practically everything that is most important in terms of the spiritual and moral recovery of our society. Irreparably fatal for him is the slanderous filth of the murderous rulers, intoxicating the gigantic masses, who are especially successful in deafening and demoralizing, above all, our youngest fellow citizens. And, of course, hammering into their minds the most vile lie that the founder of Soviet Russia "exterminated" the intelligentsia, peasantry, nobility, entrepreneurship, officers and their children, starting with infants !!! Well, how profitable it would be for the Yeltsinoid clique to conceal from the people the life-saving realities of Lenin's humanity in everything without a single exception from the people. The destroyers of our Motherland and many millions of its citizens simply cannot operate otherwise. After all, this method distracts attention, for example, from the fact that in recent years alone the number of children and adolescents in Russia has decreased by millions.

And here is the "new" present of NTV for the 130th anniversary of the birth of Vladimir Ilyich - Kiselev's falsified film about Lenin. In vain efforts!

Notes:

1. Stepanov A.I.Siberian operation. White matter. T. 1. Belgrade, 1926.S. 85.
2. News. 1918.19 May.
3. Historian and contemporary. T.5. Berlin, 1924, p. 194.
4. Emperor Nicholas II and his family. Vienna, 1921, p. 196.
5. Melnik-Botkina T. Memories of the royal family and its life before and after the revolution. Belgrade, 1921, p. 46.

Who refused to shoot the king and his family? What did Nicholas II say when he heard the death sentence? Who wanted to kidnap the Romanovs from the Ipatiev House? On the anniversary of the execution of the royal family, we remind you of the most important facts about this tragedy.

Photo: RIA Novosti / Maya Shelkovnikova

Moscow. July 17 .. in Yekaterinburg, the last Russian emperor Nicholas II and all members of his family were shot. Almost a hundred years later, the tragedy has been studied far and wide by Russian and foreign researchers. Below are 10 of the most important facts about what happened in July 1917 in the Ipatiev House.

1. The Romanov family and retinue were placed in Yekaterinburg on April 30, in the house of a retired military engineer N.N. Ipatieva. Doctor E.S.Botkin, chamberlain A.E. Trupp, the Empress's maid A.S.Demidov, cook I.M.Kharitonov and cook Leonid Sednev lived in the house with the royal family. All except the cook were killed along with the Romanovs.

2. In June 1917, Nicholas II received several letters allegedly from a white Russian officer.An anonymous author of letters told the Tsar that the Crown supporters intended to kidnap the prisoners of the Ipatiev House and asked Nicholas for help - to draw room plans, inform the sleep schedule of family members, etc. The Tsar, however, in his reply stated: “We do not want and cannot escape. We can only be abducted by force, as we were brought from Tobolsk by force. Therefore, do not count on any of our active help, "thereby refusing to assist the" kidnappers ", but not giving up the very idea of \u200b\u200bbeing abducted.

Later it turned out that the letters were written by the Bolsheviks in order to check the readiness of the royal family to escape. The author of the letters was P. Voikov.

3. Rumors about the murder of Nicholas II appeared back in June 1917 after the assassination of Grand Duke Mikhail Alexandrovich. The official version of the disappearance of Mikhail Alexandrovich was the escape; at the same time, the tsar was allegedly killed by a Red Army soldier who broke into the Ipatiev House.

4. The exact text of the sentence, which the Bolsheviks took and read to the tsar and his family, is unknown. At about 2 am on July 16-17, the guards woke up doctor Botkin so that he woke up the royal family, ordered them to pack up and go down to the basement. The collection took, according to various sources, from half an hour to an hour. After the Romanovs with the servants descended, the Chekist Yankel Yurovsky informed them that they would be killed.

According to various recollections, he said:

"Nikolai Alexandrovich, your relatives tried to save you, but they didn't have to. And we are forced to shoot you ourselves." (based on materials from investigator N. Sokolov)

"Nikolai Alexandrovich! The attempts of your associates to save you were not crowned with success! And so, in a difficult time for the Soviet Republic ..." (according to the memoirs of M. Medvedev (Kudrin))

"Your friends are attacking Yekaterinburg, and therefore you are sentenced to death" (according to the memoirs of Yurovsky's assistant G. Nikulin.)

Yurovsky himself later said that he did not remember the exact words he uttered. "... I immediately, as far as I remember, told Nikolai something like the following that his royal relatives and friends both in the country and abroad were trying to free him, and that the Soviet of Workers' Deputies decided to shoot them."

5. Emperor Nicholas, having heard the verdict, asked again: "My God, what is this?" According to other sources, he only managed to say: "What?"

6. Three Latvians refused to carry out the sentence and left the basement shortly before the Romanovs went down there. The weapons of the refuseniks were distributed among the rest. According to the recollections of the participants themselves, 8 people took part in the execution. “In fact, there were 8 performers of us: Yurovsky, Nikulin, Mikhail Medvedev, Pavel Medvedev four, Peter Ermakov five, so I'm not sure that Ivan Kabanov is six. And I don’t remember two more names,” writes G. .Nikulin.

7. It is still unknown whether the execution of the royal family was sanctioned by the higher authorities. According to the official version, the decision on the "execution" was made by the executive committee of the Uraloblsovet, while the central Soviet leadership learned about what had happened after. By the beginning of the 90s. a version was formed according to which the Ural authorities could not make such a decision without a directive from the Kremlin and agreed to take responsibility for the unauthorized execution in order to provide the central government with a political alibi.

The fact that the Ural Regional Council was not a judicial or other body that had the authority to pass a sentence, the execution of the Romanovs for a long time was viewed not as political repression, but as a murder, which prevented the posthumous rehabilitation of the royal family.

8. After the execution, the bodies of the killed were taken out of the city and burned, pre-watering with sulfuric acid to bring the remains beyond recognition. The sanction for the release of a large amount of sulfuric acid was issued by the Ural Supply Commissioner P. Voikov.

9. Information about the murder of the royal family became known to the public several years later; Initially, the Soviet authorities reported that only Nicholas II was killed, Alexander Fedorovna with her children was allegedly transported to a safe place in Perm. The truth about the fate of the entire royal family was reported in the article "The Last Days of the Last Tsar" by P.M.Bykov.

The Kremlin acknowledged the fact of the execution of all members of the royal family when the results of the investigation of N. Sokolov became known in the west, in 1925.

10. The remains of five members of the imperial family and four of their servants were found in July 1991.not far from Yekaterinburg under the embankment of the Old Koptyakovskaya road. On July 17, 1998, the remains of members of the imperial family were buried in the Peter and Paul Cathedral in St. Petersburg. In July 2007, the remains of Tsarevich Alexei and Grand Duchess Maria were found.

The conversation with the senior investigator for especially important cases Vladimir SOLOVYOV is conducted by the political observer of Pravda Viktor KOZHEMYAKO

The tragedy of June 17, 1918 in Yekaterinburg, where the family of the last Russian tsar was shot, became during the years of anti-Soviet "perestroika" and bourgeois "reforms" a reason for colossal political speculation. Yeltsin tried to use it for his own purposes. She is remembered at every next outbreak of anti-communist hysteria. And if someone shouts again and again about the demolition of Lenin's Mausoleum, then, of course, the events in Yekaterinburg are brought forward as one of the main points of accusation against the leader of the Bolsheviks.

This accusation has already become so commonplace that it has firmly stuck in the heads of many. Moreover, for example, Zhirinovsky long ago built a psychological scheme, which to some may seem simply irrefutable. How! Lenin's elder brother was hanged for participating in the attempted assassination of Father Nicholas II, and the "bloodthirsty Ulyanov" avenged this by killing not only the tsar himself, but also his wife and children.

All this in different variations is repeated, repeated, repeated. For example, I watch on the TV channel "Russia" a very recent release of the so-called "Historical Chronicles" of Svanidze - and again: "Lenin killed Nikolai and his family."

I will present: Vladimir Nikolaevich Solovyov, Senior Investigator for Especially Important Cases of the Main Investigation Department of the Investigative Committee under the Prosecutor's Office of the Russian Federation. He has been involved in the criminal case on the murder of Nicholas II and his family since 1993, when it was initiated in connection with a burial found near Yekaterinburg with the remains of nine people. Identification was required, and for this - versatile expert work, to which the investigator involved scientists and other qualified specialists, including foreign ones.

The rest is known. Some agreed with the experts' conclusion, some did not, but in 1998 the solemn funeral of these remains took place in the Peter and Paul Cathedral of St. Petersburg as the remains of the royal family.

Then the criminal case was dropped, and again resumed in 2007: not far from that burial, local search engines found fragments of two more people, supposedly the son and daughter of Nicholas II. And again, the investigation in this case with the participation of many experts, completed by a resolution of January 15, 2009, was led by Vladimir Nikolaevich Solovyov.

The details of his investigations are a huge topic. But today we are not going to talk about her. I have already noted that for a long time of this painstaking work, which absorbed him entirely, Vladimir Nikolaevich became a unique connoisseur of all the circumstances of history that happened more than 90 years ago. He studied a lot of documents, memoirs, eyewitness accounts and materials of all kinds of historical research carried out in different years.

So, one of the conclusions that he made for himself is the following: Lenin was not involved in the execution of the royal family.

In order to more fully present the reasoning of the investigator (I emphasize: in this case, he has no political bias and interest!), I bring to the attention of the readers the text of my conversation with him. The conversation turned out to be very lengthy, and then I had to return to it for all the details, so I publish the record in an abbreviated form.

“I have reason to assert this”

Vladimir Nikolaevich, I accidentally learned about your conclusion regarding Lenin's position in the case of the royal family. Have you come to the decision that the execution was carried out not only on his initiative, but also without his consent?

I have reason to assert this.

What are they based on?

First of all, on the reality of the relationship that was then between the center and the province, that is, between the authorities in Moscow and the localities. By that time, not everything in these relations had stabilized, and the instructions from the center did not always work out clearly. After all, Soviet power was just being established. In general, in order to understand what happened as it happened, one must imagine the complexity of the situation in its historical concreteness. And now everything is extremely simplified.

Give an example of the complexity you mean.

You are welcome. I don’t know if you know, but the absolute majority, I’m sure, don’t know that at this time, which we are talking about, the word “Leninist” among many Ural Bolsheviks, including the local leadership, was almost abusive.

Why?

The Brest Peace was the reason. Lenin is the Brest Peace, that is, a compromise. And the radicals are against compromise. They are not at all for the beginning of peaceful construction, but for the expansion of the revolutionary conflagration. Because of the Brest Peace, remember, Lenin has a sharp clash even with Dzerzhinsky. It turns out that in the eyes of many, Lenin is now some kind of opportunist conciliator.

This is clear. It is not without reason that Lenin wrote his well-known work "The Childhood Illness of 'Leftism" in Communism. "

So, the leadership of the Ural, Yekaterinburg Bolsheviks was thoroughly captured by this “leftism”. And Lenin at that moment was not an absolute authority for them. Moreover, revolutionaries with great experience worked here, mentally considering themselves (at least some of them) as leaders, maybe no less or on an equal footing with Lenin. And certainly - much more revolutionary!

Did this also determine their attitude to the problem of the royal family?

Sure. They were eager to solve it in their own spirit - radically. But for Lenin this turned out to be unacceptable. Moreover, I came to the conclusion that the execution was even a kind of provocation against Lenin and the line he was pursuing.

Imagine that the German ambassador Mirbach was killed in early July 1918 by the Left SRs, that is, by the same radicals. This is a provocation to aggravate relations with Germany, right up to the war. And there is already a threat that German military units will be sent to Moscow. Right there - the Left SR mutiny. In short, everything is on the brink. Lenin is making tremendous efforts to somehow smooth over the imposed Soviet-German conflict, to avoid a collision. So why should he at this moment shoot the German princesses, which were considered the daughters of Nicholas II and Alexandra Feodorovna?

No, even for such purely pragmatic, political reasons, Lenin could not want this and, I am convinced, did not strive for this in any way. On the contrary, what was done was actually directed against him.

Lenin was for the trial of the former tsar?

Yes. It was assumed that such a trial would take place, and Trotsky wanted to act as a prosecutor. However, Trotsky, who certainly considered himself not less, but more than Lenin, at this time began to play his game ...

The provisional government was literally bombarded with telegrams and letters demanding that the tsar and his family be "expended" immediately and without any trial

Since we started talking about the trial, I remembered that the Provisional Government was also going to arrange a trial over Nicholas II.

Over him and over the former empress. Soon after the February Revolution, an Extraordinary Commission of Inquiry (CSK) was established to investigate the crimes of the tsarist family and senior Russian officials. It was about high treason and much more.

I read about the work of this commission with Alexander Blok, who, it seems, took an active part in it ... But, as far as I know, there were negotiations on the expulsion of the royal family abroad?

Exactly.

Who led them and with whom?

Yes, the same people who supervised the preparation of the trial, in the midst of this preparation, were negotiating to send the tsar and his family to England. I would like to note that when developing the act of abdication from the throne, the issue of a possible tsarist departure from Russia was not officially considered. But a note of the deposed emperor of March 4, 1917, transferred to the chairman of the Provisional Government, Prince Lvov, has survived. Judging by it and by the resolution of March 6, Nikolai's request to go abroad was supported.

Did you mean England right away?

Apparently right away.

And why?

The warmest, even friendly personal relations of all foreign monarchs developed between the Russian emperor and the English king. In England, Nicholas, who in Russia bore a rather modest military rank of colonel, was awarded the highest ranks - field marshal of the army and admiral of the British fleet. The same as those worn by King George himself. By the way, an interesting detail: Nikolai and Georg looked very similar in appearance. Sometimes they, changing their form, played others.

In short, it would seem that Great Britain is the best option for the departure of a crowned family. Around March 7, Foreign Minister Miliukov met with the British Ambassador, George Buchanan, and asked to clarify the position of the British government on this issue. And already on March 10, the ambassador said that the government of his country is positive about the idea of \u200b\u200bmoving the royal family to Great Britain.

Kerensky, on whom the Provisional Government entrusted all the problems associated with this family, began to work closely with the preparation of sending it abroad.

Why didn't this happen?

The immediate departure was prevented by the work of the Extraordinary Commission of Inquiry, which, despite all these backstage negotiations, nevertheless continued. But one more serious problem arose when they practically wanted to start implementing this plan: will it be possible to ensure the safe passage of royalty to the port of Romanov, that is, to Murmansk?

The fact is that rumors about the impending departure of the tsar abroad somehow went beyond the narrow circle and caused a storm of indignation in many public organizations. This is what one should not be distracted from when considering the events of that time! I spoke about the radical wing of the Bolshevik Party. But in 1917 and later, the mood among the mass of the Russian population was extremely radical. Including in relation to the "royal question". Consider the following: a huge number of organizations from localities representing various parties (the so-called democratic, which should be emphasized!) Literally bombarded the Provisional Government with telegrams and letters with a categorical demand that the tsar and his family be "expended" immediately and without any trial.

Yes, this is really serious. Today, few people represent the real mood of a large part of society at that time. It was suggested that the absolute majority in Russia were convinced monarchists and only “a merciless gang of Bolshevik-Leninists” sought to assassinate the tsar.

There were perhaps much fewer monarchists in Russia then than now. All Democrats! Kolchak is a democrat, Krasnov is a democrat, Denikin is also ... That is why the February revolution happened so easily. Almost everyone renounced the tsar, even the church.

About a year ago, in Pravda we published statements by church leaders published after February: sheer delight over the overthrow of the autocracy!

I can add a very indicative fact. When the question of moving the royal family to Tobolsk arises, no clergyman wants to go with her. Including the Tsarskoye Selo priest and confessor of the family, Archpriest Alexander Vasiliev. He will refuse to go, like other clergymen. Therefore, in Tobolsk, the local priest will have to take care of the tsar and his family, coincidentally, also Vasiliev, father Alexei ...

But let's get back to the question of why the crowned family was not transported to England.

But because England has reconsidered its original decision. So to speak, "changed her mind." Exactly one month later, on April 10, 1917, King George V instructed his secretary, Lord Stanfordham, to propose to the Prime Minister, "given the obvious negative attitude of the public, to inform the Russian government that His Majesty's government is forced to withdraw the consent given to them earlier."

What was meant by “negative public attitudes”? What kind of public are we talking about - English or Russian?

Presumably, both. In general, the mood of the British was not at all so favorable to Russia as to save her autocrat. And I have already said about the mood in Russia itself, which the English king, of course, was well aware of.

In a word, thinking about how to continue to do business with a country, whose inhabitants for the most part are resolutely opposed to the former royal family, and also fearing that harboring this family and the tsar himself could interfere with relations with Russia in the future, George V thought it good to refuse to his longtime friend at the reception.

Well, a fact that says something about "morality and politics". In this case, English politics.

No wonder: the rulers of Great Britain have always professed extreme state selfishness. So the fate of the king as such did not bother them much.

Well, were there options for traveling to other countries?

Apparently, others were also not too eager to host the disgraced family of the former Russian emperor. Neither France, nor Denmark, nor Greece or Spain - I name the states where Nicholas II was supposedly highly valued before. Only the Germans, paradoxically, were constantly interested in the fate of the former Russian princesses and, at the same time, German princesses.

The former "master of the Russian land" was looking for a secluded place in a country swirled by revolution

So, since the options for sending the tsar abroad have disappeared, the Provisional Government makes a decision on Tobolsk?

Quite right.

However, why was it necessary to take this family somewhere and why did Tobolsk arise?

Nicholas II and his family, as you know, were under house arrest in Tsarskoe Selo. But the proximity to the seething revolutionary Petrograd was dangerous for them, and over time the danger did not diminish, but, on the contrary, increased. Despite thorough protection, lynching was also possible. Considering the massive radical sentiments we spoke about ...

That is, the king had to be hidden somewhere?

Of course. To hide from the really threatening reprisals - not the Bolsheviks, but anyone's. Kerensky was thinking about that. Siberian Tobolsk was seen at that moment as a suitable place, quiet, secluded.

Members of the royal family also wanted to go away from the boiling capital?

They wanted something, but the place of the move was completely different. Not Tobolsk, but Crimea. They were sure that they would be taken there and they would be able to live peacefully in their palace - so to speak, at the expense of the retired king. The Provisional Government would have gone for it, but by August 1917 it became quite clear that the country, especially the outskirts, it actually does not govern. And the Crimea among these outskirts turned out to be too hot a place. It was then that Tobolsk arose.

So, the Provisional Government decided to transport Nicholas II and his family from Tsarskoe Selo to Tobolsk. Was the move there calmly?

It was like a military operation. They prepared two trains, placed 45 close associates of the royal family, 330 soldiers and 6 officers in them. All the soldiers were distinguished in battles, there were many knights of St. George. And Colonel Kobylinsky headed this military force.

And the railway workers, having learned about the impending dispatch of the royal family, threatened to disrupt the trip to the last. The government was also afraid of attacks on the way, so an order was given to pass the large stations, stopping to replenish coal and water only at small ones. Actually, it was so. Sometimes they stopped in an open field so that passengers could take a walk ...

The royal train left in the early morning of August 14 (28). It was still almost night. An atmosphere of the strictest secrecy has been created. The windows in the main secret carriage are tightly curtained. And on this carriage is the inscription: "Japanese Red Cross Mission". The train was under the Japanese flag.

And why? What was this flag associated with?

For the same secrecy. Disguise. Well, Japan was considered at that time an ally of Russia ...

Did you have any excesses during the trip? Was it not noticed?

It is interesting that they were alarmed not just anywhere, but in the “fateful city” of Yekaterinburg. Although two strange trains proceeded at dawn, but here the presence of royalty on the train became known from somewhere. And a telegram was sent to the Central Executive Committee that, according to rumors, trains with the tsar and family were going to Novonikolaevsk (present-day Novosibirsk), in order to leave from there via Harbin abroad. To prevent this, telegrams were sent from Yekaterinburg to Novonikolaevsk, Krasnoyarsk, Irkutsk. Meanwhile, the king and his entire family were sleeping peacefully.

Then we got to Tyumen rather safely, and from there, having transferred to the steamer "Rus", along the rivers Ture and Tobol we went to their destination. They arrived in Tobolsk on August 19 according to the old style (according to the new - September 1).

And where are they located?

In the house where the last Tobolsk governor lived, Ordovsky-Tanaevsky. By this time he had already moved out; the representatives of the Provisional Government and the mayor of Shalabanov had power. They urgently prepared housing for unusual new guests. Everything there was cleaned, painted, the house was surrounded by a reliable fence.

Big house?

Eighteen rooms, and spacious, so there was enough space for everyone. At the house, according to Nicholas II, there was a "so-called garden" and a "nasty vegetable garden."

The photographs of the former tsar chopping wood are widely known. In modern terms, photographers probably saw this as a special "joke".

Yes, Nikolai was gathering firewood, sawing, chopping. First, a dry pine tree in the yard was cut down, then a birch. And then they brought round timber, which he began to "cut". He needed physical activity. Later, when the Bolshevik Myachin-Yakovlev, whom we will be talking about in front of us, tells in an interview to Izvestia about his first meeting with the Tobolsk exile, he will note his fresh appearance, and the working calluses that have appeared on his hands.

Tobolsk was not destined to remain a quiet place for long

However, how easy it is to imagine that “secluded, quiet place” - Tobolsk - did not remain so for very long?

Indeed, it is easy to imagine. Winds from the capitals flew here, and grandiose events took place there. Change of power! And this creates in the House of Freedom (as by that time the former governor's house in Tobolsk was called) a situation of certain uncertainty and increased tension.

Consider at least the following. The provisional government stopped paying salaries to the soldiers of the tsarist guard, and the Bolshevik government has not yet begun. Moreover, the revolutionization among the soldiers is growing. The soldiers' assembly, for example, decided to remove the shoulder straps. Now, in Tobolsk, you could get in trouble for wearing shoulder straps. Sometimes local residents attacked people in uniform and beat them, and tore off the shoulder straps. The soldiers' committee of the garrison on January 3, 1918 decides to remove the shoulder straps from Nicholas II.

That is, little remains of the isolation and peace desired for the royal family?

Peace, in fact, by this time has long been gone. Letters arrived in sacks to the former governor's house, especially many addressed to Alexandra Feodorovna. It was written about her relationship with Grigory Rasputin, all sorts of obscene proposals to the princesses were expressed. Surprisingly, even from America letters were getting.

And how does the new government in the capitals react to the continued presence of the royal family in Tobolsk?

At first, nothing. Not before that. And there was no reason to deal with the "former" especially. Well, they live there and live, they don't make any political gestures - and okay.

However, the Yekaterinburg Bolsheviks, with their heightened radical, as I have already said, attitudes are showing an increasing interest in Tobolsk. Moreover, rumors are beginning to creep from there: the royal family has conceived an escape. Reaching Yekaterinburg, these rumors are then not only broadcasted, but also amplified, somewhat supplemented.

Rumors are growing. They are published in newspapers, and, I stress, not only and not so much Bolshevik. There are still many different newspapers. They write, for example, that the tsar divorced the tsarina. It is reported that Nicholas took monastic vows and went to the Abalakovsky monastery. There is news that he generally escaped in an unknown direction. There is a rumor that the light schooner "Holy Mary" is standing at full readiness at the pier on the Irtysh, especially in order to rush the royal family abroad.

Sometimes refutations to such "information" are also printed, but rarely in the smallest print, on the last page of the newspaper. And rumors are running! They are perceived eagerly, like an adventure romance. They excite both quiet Tobolsk and the wary and formidable Yekaterinburg, which is more and more closely watching what is happening there, in Tobolsk, around the royal family.

On top of that, at this point a very mysterious figure appears here, which adds to the intrigue.

Who is this?

By the will of circumstances - my namesake. Named Boris Nikolaevich Solovyov. The personality is adventurous. Rasputin's son-in-law is married to his youngest daughter Matryona (Maria). And before that, he allegedly spent several years in India, where he studied hypnosis and all kinds of occult techniques. For example, murder from a distance. He told his friends about himself. And the White Guard investigator Nikolai Sokolov, who will later deal with the case of the shooting of the royal family, will consider Solovyov a freemason and a German spy.

In the February revolution, the lieutenant of the volunteers Boris Solovyov makes a career - becomes Guchkov's adjutant. With the help of the hidden Kornilovites, he gets the position of assistant to the head of the Far East department under the Ministry of War and seems to be working on the commission "for accepting especially important orders for the defense of the state." I don't know if there really was such a commission - this man could have composed anything. It is known for certain: he loved money very much.

But for what purpose did he appear in Tobolsk?

With the aim of freeing the royal family. After October, Solovyov, with incomprehensible functions, entered the service of the banker Karl Iosifovich Yaroshinsky, who was close to the famous friend of the Empress Vyrubova and, in general, to the circle of Alexandra Fedorovna. They give him 40 thousand rubles a year. At the same time, Vyrubova persuades Yaroshinsky to give Solovyov 25 thousand rubles to help the imperial family. So, having received this solid money in royal bills, Solovyov goes to Tobolsk.

How does he work there?

Frankly speaking, it's strange. He told the priest Alexei Vasiliev that he had come on behalf of the "center" to free the royal family and that he was the head of a large armed organization. It is clear that this immediately becomes known to the king, his family and all their entourage, causing joy and great hopes. Still would! The son-in-law of the beloved Grigory Efimovich Rasputin himself arrived as a liberator.

And then practically nothing. Everything turned into some kind of operetta. Solovyov walks around Tobolsk, walks under the windows of the governor's house. The Empress smiles at him from the window, the Tsar and everyone else talk about him. They lend him money, give him some of the royal jewels. The most fantastic plans are being made. For example, rafting on motor boats to the mouth of the Irtysh, and then north, ask the British for a ship and sail to London across the Arctic Ocean ...

In general, some fantasies?

No more. But on February 7, 1918, Solovyov returned to Petrograd and said that he had gathered a group of like-minded people and that the liberation of the former emperor, together with his family, was nearing a successful conclusion.

Apparently, Yaroshinsky, experienced not only in financial affairs, did not really believe Solovyov, so this time he allocated only 10 thousand rubles. However, with the help of Vyrubova, he continued to raise funds among the more naive, and when he already had several tens of thousands of rubles, he again went to Tobolsk. Again to the priest Alexei Vasiliev.

There is also another meeting, significant for the "liberator" - with a young, 19-year-old admirer of the royal family, Sergei Markov. Solovyov tells him tales about how he leads the "brotherhood of St. John of Tobolsk", created to free the tsar, and allegedly 120 people are part of this organization. And in Petrograd he announced the creation of an officer's detachment of 300 sabers.

Is it a fairy tale too?

Of course.

But, nevertheless, Markov became an associate of Solovyov in his adventure?

For a very short time. Probably, on the instructions of Solovyov, Markov goes to Rasputin's homeland, to the village of Pokrovskoye, and there he gets the news of a big trouble that happened to the "boss": Solovyov has been arrested.

Indeed, it happened in Tyumen. Boris Nikolayevich sometimes "buried himself" too much and lost his sense of danger. The Bolsheviks arrested him. And by some miracle, Rasputin's daughter, wife Maria - Mara, as he called her, helped out. In her diary, she wrote that she burst into tears when she saw Borya in an iron cage.

In order to finish the plot with this unlucky "liberator" of the royal family, I will say: after fleeing from the Bolsheviks from Tyumen, he was then arrested again - already white in Chita. And again I got out thanks to the same Mara! Her friend turned out to be the friend of the notorious ataman Semyonov. So he took action. And on the finger of the ataman's girlfriend there appeared an imperial diamond of the purest water ...

To prevent the supposedly preparing escape, the Omsk, Tyumen, Ural regions come into play ...

Vladimir Nikolaevich, it would be necessary to more specifically understand how in the beginning of 1918 the relations developed between the central and local authorities, and if geographically, between Petrograd, Moscow, Yekaterinburg and Tobolsk. Because, as I understand it, these were the main addresses, one way or another influencing the further fate of the family of Nicholas II.

If we talk about Tobolsk, where the family of the former tsar still remained, the situation there became more and more tense day by day. After the dispersal of the Constituent Assembly, the Tobolsk delegation returned from Petrograd, which brought with it instructions on the liquidation of all local institutions and organizations of the Provisional Government. At the end of January 1918, the Tobolsk provincial commissar Pignatti, a librarian and local historian, resigned from his powers, a rather soft person who, in terms of the requirements of the time, could not cope with his duties and could not cope. On January 24, Vasily Pankratov also resigned, who was appointed at one time the commissar for the protection of the former king.

Well, who headed the new government in the city and province? Who became the head of the royal guard?

It was all very difficult. And just the presence in the city of the family of the former emperor and himself became a kind of special circumstance around which different forces began to collide.

The confusion with the protection of the royal family grew, since the old soldiers from Petrograd were replaced by new ones who had gone through a revolutionary school in the capital, but the old ones did not leave either. Strife, friction between the mouths. And soon more applicants for the protection of the so-called House of Freedom appear.

At the beginning of March 1918 from Omsk to Tobolsk arrived the commissar of the Zapsibsovet V.D. Dutsman, and after him a detachment of hundreds of Omsk Red Guards, led by A.F. Demyanov. Here he is, Demyanov, and was appointed extraordinary commissar of Tobolsk and the Tobolsk district.

He took over the control of the house, where the family of the former king was?

The Omsk Red Guards really first of all decided to take control of the House of Freedom. But it was not there! The house guards objected. Then Nicholas II wrote in his diary that the soldiers of the guard detachment began to prepare machine guns for battle.

In general, the fight could turn out to be serious. It was saved by the fact that the Omsk detachment behaved quite calmly. In fact, he retreated. In general, for all the time from the side of his fighters there was not a single shot. Not a single person was arrested, not a single search was carried out.

And what were their actions?

The organs of the old government were dispersed and a new provincial council was created. Pavel Khokhryakov became its chairman. A former sailor, fireman of the battleship "Emperor Alexander II", he was secretly abandoned in Tobolsk by the Yekaterinburg Bolsheviks even earlier. He settled here, got married, and now he has come into power.

But what happened to the protection of the king?

She stayed as before. However, since rumors about the impending escape of the royal family had already spread very widely by this time, in a number of Bolshevik organizations adjacent to Tobolsk they decided to take their own measures to prevent the escape. And after the Omsk detachment, the Tyumen detachment arrives in Tobolsk. For the king!

Did they succeed?

Omsk residents of Tyumen were expelled. By the way, the royal family heard how the Tyumen detachment left Tobolsk with a whistle, a whoop and bells on fifteen troikas.

Then the residents of Tyumen were replaced by the Urals. Two groups of the Ural detachment under the command of Semyon Zaslavsky arrived in Tobolsk on March 28 and April 13. And then, in April 1918, another detachment, led by Busyatsky, arrived from Yekaterinburg.

Do Yekaterinburg residents still have the greatest interest in the royal family?

I spoke about a particularly radical attitude in the leadership of this organization. It was significantly strengthened by the influence of the Left SRs who were part of the Ural Soviet. So here even earlier they began to create combat special groups, which were sent secretly and by different routes to Tobolsk in order to block the routes of a possible royal escape. In the villages, members of these groups pretended to be peddlers to disguise themselves ...

But now the plan in Yekaterinburg has already been developed on a larger scale, and it is aimed directly at Tobolsk. With the task of capturing the Romanovs, for which the sent units were ordered, if necessary, to "open military operations." The question was posed as follows: deliver alive or dead.

That is, the second was not excluded?

That's the point! Not only was it not excluded, but was envisaged - in fact, as the main goal. They knew in Yekaterinburg that Moscow was preparing a trial against the former tsar. However, here it was considered an unnecessary "excess". It is best to capture the royal family in Tobolsk and then "lose" somewhere along the way in the confusion of the Civil War. In fact - to destroy under any pretext.

So, the Yekaterinburg plan essentially opposed Moscow, opposed Lenin?

Certainly. However, in Moscow they did not know the secret plans of the Urals. Numerous signals about the unreliability of the protection of the royal family and the organization of a possible escape forced the Kremlin to react - to decide to transport it from Tobolsk to Yekaterinburg.

Why was Yekaterinburg elected?

It was required to deliver the tsar with his family to a point where, firstly, it was possible to provide more reliable protection, and secondly, from where at any time you can quickly bring to Moscow for a trial. Yekaterinburg seemed to fully meet these two requirements.

The Council of People's Commissars and the All-Russian Central Executive Committee entrust the delivery of the Romanovs from Tobolsk to their reliable person.

Who was entrusted to lead the reliable guard of the tsar and his loved ones when they moved from Tobolsk to Yekaterinburg?

This is Konstantin Alekseevich Myachin, a member of the Bolshevik Party since 1904, organizer of military squads during the first Russian revolution. In October 1917, he became a member of the Military Revolutionary Committee, a delegate to the II Congress of Soviets. He was a member of the board of the Cheka and deputy of Dzerzhinsky immediately after the creation of this organization. His most important characteristic is that he is an extremely courageous and decisive person.

He selects the same for the execution of a responsible assignment to the detachment. About a hundred people whom he personally knew from military operations during the 1905 revolution. Takes only those whom he trusts unconditionally. The detachment has its own telegraph operator. In service with machine guns - as many as nine pieces.

And what is the reaction in Yekaterinburg to this detachment and its mission?

Myachin (at that time he had an underground pseudonym - Yakovlev) went to Tobolsk just through Yekaterinburg. At the station, he meets with local leaders - Goloshchekin and Didkovsky. Shows his credentials. And they are really serious! The leaders of the party and the Soviet state ordered all citizens and organizations to render all possible assistance to Yakovlev under threat of execution on the spot.

In the powers given to him, it was emphasized that the "cargo" (as the Romanovs were called for conspiracy in their correspondence) must be delivered alive. Here is Lenin's categorical instruction!

Of course, the leaders of the Urals could not like it. They sent their detachments to Tobolsk with the opposite task - by all means “liquidate” the Romanovs. And now two tasks collided.

Deliver alive? Or dead? Answers and actions are different

Well, the Myachin-Yakovlev detachment with the task of the center and the detachments sent by the Ural Soviet really collide?

I'll tell you in order. This is downright story for an adventure film. Not invented, but real.

On the way to Tobolsk, myachin first meets Avdeev's Yekaterinburg detachment and subjugates it. The same thing happens with the Busyatsky detachment, which had the task of killing the Romanovs. But with the third, who had the same task, a detachment headed by Semyon Savelyevich Zaslavsky, Myachin does not succeed.

Zaslavsky is a bright personality in his own way. Young, he is only 28 years old, but he has already been convicted twice for revolutionary activities. A locksmith by trade, he served in the Baltic Fleet and graduated from the school of midshipmen. He enjoyed exceptional authority among the workers. I say all this to the fact that both sides in the clash that took place were led by very outstanding people.

How does Myachin work upon arrival in Tobolsk? As far as I understand, he still needs to somehow resolve the issue with the royal guards ...

Well, yes, well done guardsmen of Colonel Kobylinsky. These fellows, however, have long been without money and really want to leave Tobolsk. And Myachin has money, and the train is waiting for him in Tyumen. It is on this basis that Myachin negotiates with Kobylinsky, presenting his high documents. The debt to the security detachment has been paid for several months, relations have been established. The guards agree to the Tsar's move from Tobolsk to Yekaterinburg. True, there is a completely natural doubt: will the tsar be harmed when moving, that is, will he be killed on the way?

Myachin finds a way out: he offers to organize joint security. It even plays into his hands: his detachment will be strengthened by front-line soldiers.

And how does the king feel about the move?

Negatively. But more, perhaps, not because he is afraid of a possible disaster. It seems to him that they are taking him to put his signature under the peace treaty of Brest, which he considers shameful and which the allies probably will not recognize without his signature. In addition, at this time the prince is sick, lying in bed.

But Myachin insists on the need to go. And in the end, the decision is jointly made. Nikolai, Alexandra Feodorovna and daughter Maria will go, as well as Doctor Botkin and several servants. The rest with servants and guards remain for the time being (they will be transported to Yekaterinburg later).

And everything that will unfold this time on the road to the capital of the Urals was caused precisely by different tasks that were solved by the Myachin-Yakovlev detachment and the Yekaterinburg detachment of Zaslavsky. The very question is the main one: to deliver it alive or dead?

Where did you go?

First on carts. And he had to hurry: the rivers were about to open up. And when they were just loading, Zaslavsky came up to Myachin and said: they say, don't sit next to Nikolai - we'll finish him on the way. Myachin replies: I have been ordered to deliver the "cargo" alive - and I will deliver it. "Well, look," - something like this, probably, Zaslavsky answered the messenger of Lenin and Sverdlov.

His behavior, of course, did not like very much those who were carrying out the radical task of the Uralsovet?

Still would! He stood across. Zaslavsky lags behind a little with his detachment and gathers a secret meeting: what to do? He himself suggests setting up an ambush near the village of Ivleevo, where Myachin-Yakovlev will arrange the first overnight stay. “Just in case,” as some participants later wrote in their memoirs.

But in reality, everything is much more serious. A soldier from Zaslavsky's detachment, Alexander Nevolin, runs over to Myachin and reports: a secret decision has been made to shoot the royal family and your entire detachment. This fighter is sincerely amazed, shocked. And most of all, probably, the fact that their own will kill their own!

There is something to be amazed at ...

Yes, the Uralsovet decided to kill the extraordinary and plenipotentiary commissar of the Kremlin. He went on to completely destroy the entire Bolshevik detachment (more than a hundred selected comrades!), Representing Moscow, and then betray that some "green" killed them.

This is what the confrontation between the center and the Ural Soviet on the "tsarist question" has reached! The ball cost incredible ingenuity and had to drive the horses literally with all his might to avoid the intended reprisals.

But further - more. After a crazy race along the spring thaw, a quick change of horses, a crossing over unreliable ice (the Tobol River will open from the ice the next day!), They arrive in Tyumen. Here you will board the train. And here Myachin is told in secret: the wreck of this train is being prepared!

It turns out that the Ural Soviet decided to derail the train with the tsar. And after all, not only with the tsar and his family, but again with the entire Bolshevik detachment carrying out Lenin's assignments.

Well, the situation ...

Ball, along with the "cargo" and his fighters, gets on the letter train, but he has already thought out the reciprocal steps. At a time when orders of the chairman of the Uralsovet Beloborodov are going along the entire line to Yekaterinburg to organize a collision with this train and the destruction of Myachin's detachment, who allegedly turned out to be a traitor, he unexpectedly turns the train to Omsk.

I did not know that with him there was an informant from Yekaterinburg - Avdeev, who secretly informs the leadership of the Ural Soviet about the actions and plans of the Kremlin commissar. So, when they approach Omsk, there are already cannons waiting there, an armed screen.

Spirited better than any detective!

It's right. The warned Myachin, leaving the train, still breaks through to Omsk on a detached steam locomotive, where he finds his old friend Kosarev, a classmate at a party school in Capri. Now he is the chairman of the Omsk Soviet. Together they communicate by telegraph with Sverdlov, explaining the situation. And only after the direct intervention of Sverdlov, after the guarantees were given to Myachin (and before him, of course, to Lenin and Sverdlov) that the train would not be touched and it would reach Yekaterinburg, the movement continued.

Have you got there now without incident?

What was waiting?

When we arrived at the station, we saw a raging crowd on the square in front of him. And furious cries were heard that the king would now be torn apart. In short, lynching could have taken place.

How did you manage to avoid it?

There was another train standing under the steam, which Myachin managed to turn between his train and the angry crowd. And then he drives the train to the Yekaterinburg-2 station.

In short, as we see, with very great efforts, decisiveness and amazing ingenuity, the Bolshevik Konstantin Myachin, aka Yakovlev, managed to fulfill the order given to him by Lenin and Sverdlov. Those who were called "cargo" for conspiracy were delivered to their destination safe and sound.

Having made the decision to shoot the royal family and carried it out, the leaders of the Ural Council presented the Kremlin with a fact

It sounds quite convincing that at that time Lenin and Sverdlov had no intention of destroying the royal family. But maybe such intentions came to them later?

It is absolutely possible to say that by July 16, 1918, that is, on the eve of the execution, the trial of Nicholas II is still being prepared in Moscow. There are documents.

The Kremlin considered it necessary to hold a trial against the Romanovs and was against the immediate execution of the tsar. Not to mention his family. There are many confirmations of this. Both Lenin and Sverdlov did their best to restrain the obsession of the leaders of the Ural Soviet in this regard. The most interesting thing is that according to the legislation of that time, the death penalty could not be applied to the former tsar. Extrajudicial reprisals were widely practiced, but the court ruled out such an outcome. The Uralsovet was well aware of this.

Indeed, I would like to call their behavior an obsession ...

Probably, the spirit of the French Revolution with the then execution of the king and queen hovered over the heads of some of the Urals ... I must also note something else: the strong pressure in the Ural Soviet of the Left SRs, who all the time demanded the immediate execution of the Romanovs, accusing the Bolsheviks of liberalism and inconsistency. Say, they hide the tsar from the people's retribution behind the high fences of the Ipatiev house. According to one of the participants in the events, "an attack on the house of a detachment of anarchists was expected, the leader of which shouted to the Bolsheviks in the Soviets:" If you do not destroy Nicholas the Bloody, then we will do it ourselves! "

When today Lenin and Sverdlov are called the initiators of what happened in Yekaterinburg, they simply turn a blind eye to reality. This reprisal was not only unnecessary for them, but, I will say, it is directly “unprofitable”! Indeed, for the living members of the royal family it was possible to bargain for something from the "world bourgeoisie". I have already mentioned a number of great “inconveniences” that the death of the royal family entailed.

But from Yekaterinburg persistently achieved their goal?

When they sought from Moscow, they were refused. Here is an excerpt from the memoirs of an active UralChK activist and a participant in the execution of the royal family Mikhail Medvedev-Kudrin: “A message about a trip to Moscow to Ya.M. Sverdlov was done by Philip Goloshchekin. Goloshchekin failed to obtain sanctions from the All-Russian Central Executive Committee for the execution of the Romanov family. Sverdlov consulted with V.I. Lenin, who spoke in favor of bringing the royal family to Moscow and an open trial of Nicholas II and his wife Alexandra Fedorovna ... "

Everything is clear enough here.

My conclusion is this: the question of the execution on July 17, 1918 of the tsarist family, its confidants and servants was not agreed with either Lenin or Sverdlov. The fact that the decision to shoot Nicholas II was not known to Lenin until July 17 is evidenced, for example, by the fact that, when asked by a Copenhagen newspaper about rumors about the death of the royal family, Lenin replies: “The former Tsar is unharmed. All rumors are just lies of the capitalist press. "

When in June there were rumors about the death of the royal family, Moscow leaders, not trusting the Urals, sent the front commander Reingold Berzin to the Ipatiev house, who was personally convinced that the royal family was alive. The fact that the preparation for the execution of the royal family was not coordinated with the Kremlin is evidenced by the text of the telegram sent to Lenin and Sverdlov. There was no direct connection between Moscow and Yekaterinburg at that time, and the message went through Petrograd. The telegram was forwarded by Zinoviev: “Moscow, the Kremlin, Sverdlov, a copy to Lenin. From Yekaterinburg, the following is transmitted via a direct wire: inform Moscow that the court agreed with Filippov for military reasons does not tolerate delay, we cannot wait. If your opinion is the opposite, please report it now, out of turn. Goloshchekin, Safarov. Talk to Yekaterinburg about this yourself. "

The telegram was received in Moscow at 21 hours 22 minutes. By Moscow time. It took some time for the telegram to reach the addressees. Moreover, one must take into account: the telegraph was then not in the Kremlin, but on Myasnitskaya. Let's not forget the time difference - it is two hours, that is, at the time of the receipt of the telegram in Yekaterinburg it was 23 hours 22 minutes. At this time, the Romanovs were already offered to go down to the execution room. We do not know whether Lenin and Sverdlov got acquainted with the telegram before the first shots were heard, but we know that the telegram did not say anything about the family and servants, so it is at least unfair to accuse the Kremlin leaders of killing children.

Maybe someone will say: the correspondence is just a "smoke screen", and Lenin and Sverdlov at that moment deliberately concealed the Kremlin's decision to shoot the entire royal family.

No, this is not an initiative of the Kremlin. Lenin himself, in a sense, became a hostage to the radicalism and obsession of the leaders of the Ural Soviet. I think the Urals understood that the shooting of the royal family could give the Germans a reason to continue the war, for new seizures and indemnities. But we went for it! A day after the news of the shooting, the secretary of the Council of People's Commissars Gorbunov receives a telegram from Beloborodov from Yekaterinburg. I will quote literally, keeping the spelling: "Tell Sverdlov that the whole family has suffered the same fate as the head of the Official family will die during evacuation." About how this telegram was sent, there are interesting recollections of the mentioned member of the board of the UralChK Medvedev-Kudrin: “Alexander (chairman of the Uralsovet Beloborodov) feared that V.I. Lenin will bring him to justice for arbitrariness with the execution of the Romanovs without the sanction of the Central Executive Committee. " I imagine the leaders of the Urals, like naughty cats, were waiting for what awaited them for a cruel execution. And what was the Kremlin leadership to do? To make public the "feat" of the Urals - the murder of the German princesses and find ourselves between a rock and a hard place - between the White Guards and the Germans? Information about the death of the entire royal family and servants was hidden for years.

Is there a version of accidental death among the leaders of the Uralsovet again?

Yes. It is known that during the family's stay in the Ipatiev House, a correspondence between Nicholas II is organized, allegedly with some monarchist officer preparing to arrange their escape. Letters were written in French, passed through the nuns in corks of bottles of milk. Local chekists have come up with an imaginary conspiracy. And the goal is one: to lure the king, the family and kill everyone, allegedly while trying to escape. Appropriate motivation. Nikolay, however, in the end refused, fearing victims in a possible shootout ...

Well, the center from Yekaterinburg all the time continued to escalate the danger of a conspiracy around the tsar and a possible escape. Moreover, the situation had worsened by July: the White Czech uprising, the offensive of the White Guard troops on Yekaterinburg.

In a word, the Kremlin was presented with a fact. Except, as they say, an extra headache, the center did not receive anything from the Ural comrades in this case.

Were there any unexpected complications?

For example, already in September, the Soviet ambassador to Germany Joffe was negotiating with the Germans in Bern, Switzerland, including the transfer of German princesses to them, that is, the daughters of Nicholas II. He does not know that they have been dead for a long time ...

Absolutely indifferent, as abroad. There were no monarchist speeches or demonstrations. The only vivid speech with condemnation is the word uttered in the Kazan Cathedral by Patriarch Tikhon on July 21, 1918. But there was no noticeable reaction to this word.

Is there at least some indirect documentary evidence, so to speak, incriminating Lenin and Sverdlov in organizing the execution of the former Tsar and his family?

No. One “fact” could be cited, but it, as it turns out, is initially unreliable. While linking to it! We are talking about a much later, 30s, entry in Trotsky's diary. And he writes that after some time, as if he had arrived from the front, he learned about the death of the tsar and the whole family. And he asked Sverdlov: "Who decided?" And he allegedly answered: "Ilyich decided."

But such a conversation after a while could not be! It could not be for the reason that in the minutes of the meeting at which Sverdlov announced the execution of the former tsar, Trotsky's surname appears among those present. Consequently, he later composed that conversation "after his arrival from the front" with Sverdlov about Lenin.

However, I am sure and have already told you about this: Trotsky was already beginning to play his game with might and main, so nothing should be surprised ...

Hundreds of books have been published about the tragedy of the family of Tsar Nicholas II in many languages \u200b\u200bof the world. In these studies, the events of July 1918 in Russia are fairly objectively presented. Some of these works I had to read, analyze and contrast. However, many mysteries, inaccuracies and even deliberate lies remain.

Among the most reliable information are interrogation protocols and other documents of Kolchak's forensic investigator for particularly important cases N.A. Sokolov. In July 1918, after the capture of Yekaterinburg by white troops, the Supreme Commander-in-Chief of Siberia, Admiral A.V. Kolchak appointed N.A. Sokolov as the leader in the case of the shooting of the royal family in this city.

ON. Sokolov

Sokolov worked for two years in Yekaterinburg, interrogated a large number of people involved in these events, tried to find the remains of the executed members of the royal family. After the capture of Yekaterinburg by the red troops, Sokolov left Russia and in 1925 in Berlin he published the book "The Murder of the Tsar's Family". He took with him all four copies of his materials.

In the Central Party Archives of the Central Committee of the CPSU, where I worked as a leader, mostly original (first) copies of these materials (about a thousand pages) were kept. How they got into our archive is unknown. I read all of them carefully.

For the first time, a detailed study of materials related to the circumstances of the execution of the royal family was carried out on the instructions of the Central Committee of the CPSU in 1964.

In a detailed note "on some circumstances associated with the execution of the royal family of the Romanovs" dated December 16, 1964 (CPA of the Institute of Marxism-Leninism under the CPSU Central Committee, fund 588, inventory 3C), all these problems are documented and objectively considered.

The reference was written then by the head of the sector of the ideological department of the Central Committee of the CPSU, Alexander Nikolayevich Yakovlev, an outstanding political figure in Russia. Not being able to publish all the mentioned help, I am citing only some passages from it.

“The archives have not found any official reports or decisions preceding the execution of the royal family of the Romanovs. There is no indisputable information about the participants in the execution. In this regard, the materials published in the Soviet and foreign press, and some documents of the Soviet party and state archives were studied and compared. In addition, the stories of the former assistant to the commandant of the House of Special Purpose in Yekaterinburg, where the royal family were kept, G.P. Nikulin and a former member of the board of the Ural Regional Cheka I.I. Radzinsky. These are the only surviving comrades who had one or another relation to the execution of the royal family of the Romanovs. On the basis of the available documents and memories, often contradictory, one can draw up such a picture of the execution itself and the circumstances associated with this event. As you know, Nicholas II and members of his family were shot on the night of July 16-17, 1918 in Yekaterinburg. Documentary sources indicate that Nicholas II and his family were executed by the decision of the Ural Regional Council. In the minutes No. 1 of the meeting of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of July 18, 1918, we read: “We listened to: Report on the execution of Nikolai Romanov (telegram from Yekaterinburg). Resolved: After discussion, the following resolution is adopted: The Presidium of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee recognizes the decision of the Ural Regional Council as correct. Instruct com. Sverdlov, Sosnovsky and Avanesov to draw up a corresponding notice for printing. To publish about the documents available in the All-Russian Central Executive Committee - (diary, letters, etc.) of the former Tsar N. Romanov and instruct Comrade Sverdlov to form a special commission to analyze these papers and publish them. The original, kept in the Central State Archives, was signed by Ya.M. Sverdlov. According to V.P. Milyutin (People's Commissar for Agriculture of the RSFSR), on the same day, July 18, 1918, a regular meeting of the Council of People's Commissars ( Council of People's Commissars.— Ed. ) chaired by V.I. Lenin. “During the report of Comrade Semashko, Ya.M. entered the conference room. Sverdlov. He sat down on a chair behind Vladimir Ilyich. Semashko finished his report. Sverdlov approached, bent down to Ilyich and said something. “Comrades, Sverdlov asks for the floor for a message,” Lenin announced. “I must say,” Sverdlov began in his usual even tone, “a message has been received that Nikolai was shot in Yekaterinburg by order of the Regional Council. Nikolai wanted to run. The Czechoslovakians were advancing. The CEC Presidium decided to approve. Silence of all. “Let's move on to reading the draft article by article," Vladimir Ilyich suggested. " (Magazine "Projector", 1924, p. 10). This message by Ya.M. Sverdlov was recorded in Minutes No. 159 of the Council of People's Commissars of July 18, 1918: “We heard: The extraordinary statement of the Chairman of the CEC, comrade Sverdlov, on the execution of the former Tsar Nicholas II by the verdict of the Yekaterinburg Council of Deputies and on the confirmation of this verdict by the Presidium of the CEC. Resolved: Take note. " The original of this protocol, signed by V.I. Lenin, kept in the party archives of the Institute of Marxism-Leninism. A few months before this, at a meeting of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, the issue of transferring the Romanov family from Tobolsk to Yekaterinburg was discussed. Ya.M. Sverdlov talks about this on May 9, 1918: “I must tell you that the question of the position of the former tsar was raised in our Presidium of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee back in November, at the beginning of December (1917), and since then has been repeatedly raised, but we did not accept no decision, taking into account the fact that it is necessary to know exactly how, in what conditions, how reliable the security is, how, in a word, the former Tsar Nikolai Romanov is kept. " At the same meeting, Sverdlov reported to the members of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee that at the very beginning of April, the Presidium of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee heard a report from the representative of the committee of the team that guarded the tsar. “On the basis of this report, we came to the conclusion that it is impossible to leave Nikolai Romanov in Tobolsk any longer ... The Presidium of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee decided to transfer the former Tsar Nikolai to a more reliable point. The center of the Urals, Yekaterinburg, was chosen as such a more reliable point. The fact that the issue of transferring the family of Nicholas II was resolved with the participation of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee is also said in their memoirs by the old communists of the Urals. Radzinsky said that the initiative for the translation belonged to the Ural Regional Council, and "the Center did not object" (Tape recording of May 15, 1964). P.N. Bykov, a former member of the Ural Council, in his book "The Last Days of the Romanovs", published in 1926 in Sverdlovsk, writes that at the beginning of March 1918, the regional military commissar I. Goloshchekin (party nickname "Philip"). He was given permission to transfer the royal family name from Tobolsk to Yekaterinburg. "

Further, in the note "On some circumstances connected with the execution of the royal family of the Romanovs," there are terrible details of the cruel execution of the royal family. It talks about how the corpses were destroyed. It is said that about half a pound of diamonds and jewelry was found in the corsets and belts of the dead. In this article I would not like to discuss such inhuman acts.

For many years, the world press has been spreading the assertion that "the true course of events and the refutation of the" falsifications of Soviet historians "are contained in Trotsky's diary entries, which were not intended for publication, therefore, they say, especially frank. They were prepared for publication and published by Yu.G. Felshtinsky in the collection: “Leon Trotsky. Diaries and Letters ”(Hermitage, USA, 1986).

Here is an excerpt from this book.

“On April 9 (1935), the White Press once very heatedly debated the question of whose decision the royal family was put to death. The liberals were inclined, as if, to the idea that the Ural executive committee, cut off from Moscow, acted independently. This is not true. The decision was made in Moscow. It took place at a critical period of the civil war, when I spent almost all my time at the front, and my memories of the case of the royal family are fragmentary. "

In other documents, Trotsky tells of a Politburo meeting a few weeks before the fall of Yekaterinburg, at which he argued for the need for an open trial, "which was supposed to unfold the picture of the entire reign."

“Lenin responded in the sense that it would be very good if it were feasible. But time may not be enough. There was no debate, because (as) I did not insist on my proposal, absorbed in other matters. "

In the next episode from his diaries, the most frequently quoted, Trotsky recalls how, after the execution, when he was asked who decided the fate of the Romanovs, Sverdlov replied: “We decided here. Ilyich believed that we should not leave them a living banner, especially in the current difficult conditions. "

Nicholas II with his daughters Olga, Anastasia and Tatiana (Tobolsk, winter 1917). Photo: Wikipedia

"Decided" and "Ilyich considered" can, and according to other sources and should be, be interpreted as the adoption of a general principled decision that the Romanovs should not be left as the "living banner of counter-revolution."

And is it so important that the Ural Soviet issued a direct order to execute the Romanov family?

Here is another interesting document. This is a telegraphic inquiry dated July 16, 1918 from Copenhagen, in which it was written: “To Lenin, member of the government. From Copenhagen. A rumor spread here that the former king had been killed. Please tell us the facts by phone. " On the telegram, Lenin wrote with his own hand: “Copenhagen. The rumor is wrong, the former tsar is healthy, all rumors are lies of the capitalist press. Lenin ".

We were unable to find out whether a reply telegram was sent at that time. But this was the very eve of that tragic day when the tsar and his loved ones were shot.

Ivan Kitaev - specially for "Novaya"

reference

Ivan Kitaev - historian, candidate of historical sciences, vice-president of the International Academy of Corporate Governance. He went from a carpenter at the construction of the Semipalatinsk test site and the Abakan-Taishet road, from a military builder who was building a uranium enrichment plant in the wilderness to an academician. Graduated from two institutes, the Academy of Social Sciences, postgraduate studies. He worked as a secretary of the Togliatti city committee, the Kuibyshev regional committee, director of the Central Party Archives, deputy director of the Institute of Marxism-Leninism. After 1991 he worked as the head of the central board and head of the department of the Ministry of Industry of Russia, taught at the academy.

Lenin is characterized by the highest measure

About the organizers and customer of the murder of Nikolai Romanov's family

In his diaries, Trotsky does not limit himself to quoting the words of Sverdlov and Lenin, but also expresses his own opinion about the execution of the royal family:

“In essence, the decision ( about execution. — O. Kh.) was not only expedient, but also necessary. The severity of the reprisals showed everyone that we will fight mercilessly, stopping at nothing. The execution of the royal family was needed not only to intimidate, horrify, and deprive the enemy of hope, but also to shake up their own ranks, to show that there was no retreat, that there was a complete victory or complete death ahead. In the intellectual circles of the party, there were probably doubts and shaking their heads. But the masses of workers and soldiers did not hesitate for a minute: they would not have understood or accepted any other decision. Lenin felt this well: the ability to think and feel for the masses and with the masses was in the highest measure characteristic of him, especially at great political turns ... "

As for the highest measure inherent in Ilyich, Lev Davidovich, of course, is arch-righteous. So Lenin, as you know, personally demanded to hang as many priests as possible, as soon as he received a signal that the masses in some places on the ground had shown such an initiative. How can the people's government fail to support the initiative from below (and in reality the most base instincts of the crowd)!

As for the trial of the tsar, to which, according to Trotsky, Ilyich agreed, but time was running out, then this trial would obviously have ended with a sentence of Nicholas to the death penalty. Only in this case, unnecessary difficulties could arise with the royal family. And then how glorious it turned out: the Ural Soviet decided - and that's it, bribes are smooth, all power to the Soviets! Well, maybe only “in the intellectual circles of the party” there was some confusion, but it quickly passed, like Trotsky himself. In his diaries, he cites a fragment of a conversation with Sverdlov after the Yekaterinburg execution:

“- Yes, but where is the king? “It's over,” he replied, “shot. - And where is the family? - And the family is with him. - All? I asked, apparently with a tinge of surprise. - All! - answered Sverdlov. - What? He was waiting for my reaction. I didn't answer. - Who decided? - We decided here ... "

Some historians emphasize that Sverdlov did not answer “decided”, but “decided”, which is supposedly important for identifying the main culprits. But at the same time they take Sverdlov's words out of the context of the conversation with Trotsky. And here, after all, how: what is the question, this is the answer: Trotsky asks who decided, here Sverdlov answers, "We decided here." And then he speaks even more concretely - about what Ilyich believed: "We must not leave us a living banner for them."

So in his resolution on the Danish telegram of July 16, Lenin was clearly cunning, speaking about the lies of the capitalist press about the "health" of the tsar.

In modern terms, we can say this: if the Ural Soviet was the organizer of the murder of the royal family, then Lenin was the customer. But in Russia, organizers are rare, and those who ordered crimes almost never, alas, find themselves in the dock.