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The reader may find all the facts in any reputable history of Russia, or of the houses of Rurik and Romanoff. In his jealousy of the absolute power he wielded, Ivan the Terrible had made constant war upon his nobility killing them, or driving them away, and in every way possible destroying whatever share of influence they possessed in the state.
Tashkend has long been known as a refuge for damaged reputations and shattered fortunes, or “the official purgatory following upon the emperor’s displeasure.” One of the finest houses of the city is occupied by the Grand Duke Nicholai Constantinovitch Romanoff, son of the late general admiral of the Russian navy, and first cousin to the Czar, who seems to be cheerfully resigned to his life in exile.
I do not know whether Nicholas II and Kuropatkin say like Dibitch in so many words that not more than fifty thousand lives will be necessary for this on the Russian side alone, only and only that; but they think it they cannot but think it, because the work they are doing speaks for itself; that ceaseless stream of unfortunate, deluded Russian peasants now being transported by thousands to the Far East these are those same not more than fifty thousand live Russian men whom Nicholas Romanoff and Alexis Kuropatkin have decided they may get killed, and who will be killed, in support of those stupidities, robberies, and every kind of abomination which were accomplished in China and Korea by immoral ambitious men now sitting peacefully in their palaces and expecting new glory and new advantage and profit from the slaughter of these fifty thousand unfortunate, defrauded Russian workingmen guilty of nothing and gaining nothing by their sufferings and death.
So the Bolsheviki, sweeping over the country, have seized, first of all, upon these priests of Romanoff, torturing them to death with hideous cruelty, if there be any truth in stories, and finding vindictive delight in deriding sacred things and violating holy places.
Aristocrats with pedigrees that shamed those of the Bourbon and the Romanoff were spoken of in language that might possibly have been applicable to the lazzaroni of Naples, that lazzaroni being on the side of the "law and order" classes.
Another group was appointed to wait upon Nicholas II and tell him that henceforth he was not the Czar of all the Russias, but plain Nicholas Romanoff. Messengers were sent to the fighting fronts to inform the generals that they were no longer to take orders from the Czar, but from the representatives of the free people of Russia. With remarkable calmness, the nation accepted the new situation.
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