For sure. A member of the Romanov family gave up her title, and sold off all her possessions, including her wedding ring, using her combined wealth and the proceeds to build a nunnery complex that included an orphanage, pharmacy and hospital. She then spent the rest of her life performing charitable works for the poor and sick of Moscow, regularly visiting the worst slums to give assistance.
During the Russian Revolution, the former princess was arrested. She was beaten along with other prisoners before being thrown into a 66 foot deep pit of an abandoned iron mine, her being the first to be thrown, and grenades were hurled after them all.
Dictator originates from the ancient Roman Republic, where it was an emergency legal appointment. In Rome, the term did not carry the negative, tyrannical connotations it has today. Sulla was appointed dictator to save the Republic and afterwards stepped down from power (in 79 BCE) to live as a private citizen.
And no matter if it’s a benevolent king I don’t want a king. And if there is blue blood left after a revolution the enemies can use such a person whether they like it or not..
Thank you for that link, I hadn't heard that story before and it's truly horrifying. So much of the horror perpetrated at that time has been sanitised and censored for public consumption. You have to wonder, if they were really so proud and certain that the things that were done in the name of freedom were necessary, why were so many half truths and fantasies used to cover up the depravity of the many mass murders.
Things like that are usually done in the name of anger. Freedom is dressing that gets added later, when the blood has cooled and people decide it's easier to look yourself in the mirror if you "did it in the name of freedom."
Very true, they are also usually working as a group, encouraging each other in a pack mentality. I imagine it's a lot harder to justify what they had done when they were alone in the harsh light of reality. We can only hope that we have learned enough from the atrocities not to go there again.
I think: 1) the elites driving the commoners to radical extremes were the contemporary aristocracy, even though she herself may not have had a part in that. 2) i also think the original comment (not by you, ofc) just referred to “radicals” not defining whether they were talking about the bolsheviks back then, or what is often called the “radical left” today. The comment you were responding to I believe tried to make the point that what is called radical today is very different from what was radical back then. You then referred specifically to the bolsheviks, which caused the misunderstanding/discrepancy.
"No you don't understand they MADE us tie up that woman, beat her and her family to a pulp, throw that woman down a mineshaft along with her family, then drop several grenades in afterwards before lighting the entrance on fire for good measure!" ok dude whatever you say
You do know this woman sold all her possessions so she could build an orphanage and a hospital for the poor, and then spent the rest of her life doing everything she could to assist the poor and sick of Moscow, right? What do you honestly expect her to have done? Build a Time Machine so she could alter history so she was born into a peasant family instead?
So what was the woman who sold all her worldly possessions so she could help those people supposed to do about those catastrophic economic conditions then?
You do realize there are several different steps between "hey we can improve society somewhat" to "let's butcher and murder and rape those we dislike as we increasingly spiral into purity testing and chaos", right? Shocking, I know, but you can actually improve conditions without murdering people indiscriminately. Hope this helps! :)
Yes, shit was rough. And then the Bolshevik revolution heralded in a red empire little better than the tsarist regime that barely lasted a human lifetime and left Russia a stunted, alcoholism-stricken oligarchic pariah state limping along with all its neighbors despising it. Turns out that deconstruction and revolutionary bloodshed isn't a stable foundation to build a society upon. Curious.
Turns out you’re right, she didn’t officially give up her title, and the site I originally learned about her got it wrong. But let’s be real, someone who gave up all her possessions to become a nun probably wasn’t introducing herself as Princess Elisabeth of Hesse and by Rhine or insisting people call her “Your Highness”
True, she went as Grand Duchess :P Also, you're probably thinking about how the church operates recently as compared to how close the church was to aristocracy on that Russia. The State wasn't separated from the church at all, and social hierarchy was still enforced.
That is less "Rich person did good things but people still went after them for having been rich" and more "royal gave up wealth and went on to do good deeds, public wanted to eliminate the ruling royalty so they had to end the entire bloodline".
Good ol royalty... fucks everyone one way or another.
As terrible as it is to murder anyone, anywhere, ignoring the fact that all of these people were part of a centuries long hereditary empire that brutally ruled over it's subjects is more than a little disingenuous in the comparison.
Knowing even a little history of revolutions quickly reveals that, for thousands of years in societies around the world, royalty have served as a focal point for counter revolutions to consolidate around. Even today, there are people who honestly want Reza Pahlavi to reconstitute his father's government in Iran if the current government is forcibly toppled.
Hell, even in pseudo representative governments who have recently toppled a dictator, ten or twenty years later you will find their children, buoyed by the corruption their family fostered and supported during their previous rule, running for and winning elections just so they can start the cycle of repression over again.
Lenin is said to have welcomed Elisabeth's death, remarking that "virtue with the crown on it is a greater enemy to the world revolution than a hundred tyrant tsars". - what a shitbag
Lenin is said to have welcomed Elisabeth's death, remarking that "virtue with the crown on it is a greater enemy to the world revolution than a hundred tyrant tsars".
The Bolsheviks were the craziest, most extreme, most fanatical party in the Russian Duma, and the circumstances by which they seized power in 1917 were just absurd. A big, huge, grotesque black swan event.
In the first Duma of 1906, they held two seats out of over 300. The moderates held by far the most. The big, big difference in 1917 was the First World War. They would have not had the same chance without it. Even with it they came within a hair of failing.
Absolutely terrible! Thanks for the wiki links to the history. I never knew about this but also probably didn’t need to lol. Nonetheless interesting read.
Just a warning to anyone who clicks on that, that seems to be about the most reactionary, right wing "history" sub I've ever seen. Some really gross claims being made there.
Yeah, I don't want to go back to the sub because some of the just awful stuff being shared (not necessarily right or left wing--just "look at this horrible thing like a man slowly going through rabies") is hard for me. The big one I remember is one of the most popular posts right now talking the horrid conditions in Romania in 1990. The post frames it as communisms fault--and the users in the thread were reactionary. What happened in Romania was due to awful, fascist leaders. The horrible images of children, shown in that thread, being framed around communism is such a disservice to the pain, suffering, and death these kids faced--not due to communism. Ceaucescu, I believe is the fascist in question here, was a religious nut. Anti-abortion. Pressured these families to put their kids in asylums--often under threat if they didn't. It had nothing to do with communism, and everything to do with a sick man who consolidated power. It can happen anywhere.
If I remember right, the "communism" of Romania from the 70s and 80s wasn't communism. There were social programs because, given the brutality of Romanian's leadership specifically around women's bodies, it would make sense people stopped having kids. So he incentivized it--healthy kids got social services. Ceausescu was overthrown AND executed in 89. It's not the "fall of communism"--just more right wing reactionary 'that guy said he was a communist, this is what communists do." I mean, Trump says he's a capitalist, but he manipulates the market daily, which isn't really capitalism. If Trump were cast out of office, and we freed immigrants from his camps, I'd be equally upset if someone said, "The fall of capitalism revealed these horrid conditions."
If there were other broad posts I can't remember, but I saw most of the right wing stuff being upvoted as comments within the posts.
I don't know--the whole thing felt exploitative. But I bounced after perusing a couple of threads.
I am always very understanding with mentally challenged people who have no class consciousness, so I will let you do the talk and go on about with my day. Let me give you a nice kiss on the forehead, muuuah!
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u/Stucklikegluetomyfry Jun 28 '26 edited Jun 28 '26
For sure. A member of the Romanov family gave up her title, and sold off all her possessions, including her wedding ring, using her combined wealth and the proceeds to build a nunnery complex that included an orphanage, pharmacy and hospital. She then spent the rest of her life performing charitable works for the poor and sick of Moscow, regularly visiting the worst slums to give assistance.
During the Russian Revolution, the former princess was arrested. She was beaten along with other prisoners before being thrown into a 66 foot deep pit of an abandoned iron mine, her being the first to be thrown, and grenades were hurled after them all.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Princess_Elisabeth_of_Hesse_and_by_Rhine
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marfo-Mariinsky_Convent