Mystery of the Murder of the Romonofs and role of Lenin

One of the mysteries that have fascinated me is the killing of the Russian Tsar and his family at the hand of the Bolsheviks. I am intrigued that whether Lenin himself had ordered the execution or not. Did he have a hand and did the Bolshevik firing squad act on the orders of Lenin? We do know that Tsar Nicholas was an incompetent man and his decision to launch an ill-equipped army into battle against Germany spelt his doom. He was overthrown in a coup engineered by Lenin and exiled to Siberia. On 17 July 1918, a Bolshevik firing squad opened fire on the family on the pretext of taking a group photograph and murdered the family. I feel for the Romanoff family and wonder how such a barbaric crime could have been committed.

In 1988 the bodies of the of Nicholas Romanov II, his wife Czarina Alexandra, and their three daughters, Olga, Tatiana, and Anastasia were discovered but kept a secret for 10 years as the powers that be wished to bring the details to the fore once communism collapsed. Finally, on 17 July 1988, the remains of the last Czar and his family were laid to rest at St Petersburg. Boris Yeltsin the then Russian president himself attended the ceremony. It stirred an emotional chord among Russians. However the remains of 2 of the missing children the crown prince Alexi, and his sister, Grand Duchess Maria were not located and speculation was rife that these 2 had escaped the death squad of the Communist’s.

However in 2007 a builder searching for trinkets in the area where the Czar had been murdered came across 2 highly decomposed bodies. The Russians carried out a DNA test and it was proved that these 2 were indeed the missing children. But the romantic notion that the 2 children escaped still holds the imagination of the people all over the world. Lastly was Lenin involved? There is no evidence that at any stage Lenin ordered the murder of the Czar and his family. It is possible that this may have been ordered by some second rung leader. Could it be Trotsky? We don’t know, but Lenin, I think was not involved.