Recent Changes

Sides
- Although there were over 18 anti-Bolshevik governments in Russia at one point, there were 3 major groups:
1) Reds (Bolsheviks):
- One aim: to stay in power. “Worker’s and Peasant’s Red army formed from Kronstadt, also soldiers from former imperial army.
2) Whites:
Broad, all anti-Bolshevik: liberals, formal tsarists, nationalists, separatists, socialist revolutionaries, moderate socialists. Many divisions because of this. Few wanted Tsar back, but all wanted military dictatorship until Bolsheviks gave up power. Socialist revolutionaries wanted a Constituent Assembly. Held office under provisional government. Joined by Cossacks and Kadets.
3) Greens
Peasant armies, deserters from army. Some for some against Bolsheviks. Concerned with protecting their own area from armies, some were bandits
Civil War
- Began in spring of 1918
- Bolsheviks wanted to run Russia as a one-party state, alienated socialist groups, liberals, conservatives
- Czech legion: formed by Czech and Slovak nationalists to gain independence and war prisoners. Planned to fight Russians, later fought allies when Russia pulled out of the war. Agreed with Bolsheviks to be transported to western front along Trans-Siberian Railway, clashed resulted in Czech’s control of major sections of the railway, joined by white forces.
- 3 major white forces threatened Bolsheviks: Yudenich in West, Kolchak in east, Denikin/Wrangel in South (pg 82)
- Allied tropps sent to Russia to reopen eastern front against Germany, tried to help whites, no effective actions occures
- British sent supplies to Whites
Russo- Polish War (1919-1921)
- Poles tried to seize former territory
- Initially successful: captured Kiev in 1920, but by theis time the Bolsheviks had won civil war.
- Polish invasion resulted in non-Bolshevik support for the party because of the common enemy
- Poles pushed back to Warsaw by Front led by Tukhachevsky
- Lenin hoped Bolshevik success would encourage revolution in Germany, and although Germany was unstable and had set up red soviets, the reds were lacking supplies, support, and were defeated by the Poles.
- Settlement in 1921: Treaty of Riga: Russia surrendered large areas of white Russia and Ukraine to Poles
Trotsky
- Commissar for War in 1918
- Army was in disintegration, restored discipline, returned it to effective military force
- Reorganized army by hierarchical lines, brought back Tsarist officers, held families hostage to ensure loyalty
- Resented by other leading Bolsheviks: Stalin and Zinoviev- had different concept of revolutionary army that was more like a militia than a Tsarist army
- Trotsky got his way with support of Lenin, who believed it was the only solution due to the state of the army and urgency of situation
- To placate party and ensure loyalty from officers, Trotsky placed political commissar to each army unit, to monitor actions of officers to ensure they were politically correct
- Soldier’s committees and elections of officers by soldiers ended, changed ranks and wages, re-establishment of harsh military discipline, returned death penalty
- Formed labor battalions, made up of bourgeois
- Saved Petrograd when under threat from Yudenich
Red Amry
- Made of urban workers and peasants
- Although peasants were willing to fight for their land, they were generally unwilling conscripts: deserted at harvest time, staged uprisings in response to mass conscription by Reds, amny joined green armies
- Rates of desertion were just as high in reds and whites
- When peasants deserted, took uniform and weapons with them, resulting in the red army being poorly equipped
- Because of this, Trotsky’s train carrying uniforms and supplies was important
- Large amount of indiscipline: officers were murdered, anti-Semitism although many of the commissars were Jewish, including Trotsky
White Army
Division:
- Kolchak had many socialist revolutionaries arrested, which resulted in them staging results and undermining his campaign
Lack of Support:
- Southern Volunteer army, led by Denikin was misled: believed they were fighting for old order, but Don Cossaks only wanted independence for their own region
- United against Bolsheviks, but did not share central command and kept separate units
- Denikin did not make concession to national aspirations
- Brutality of white armies antagonized peasants, especially Cossacks in Southern army- ethnic cleansing of peasants
- Peasants deserted white army by thousands, helped by Volunteer army and helped by Denikin. This resulted in peasants opposing whites
- Whites were identified with old Tsarist army, so although they held support from Kadets and Rightests, lost support of workers and peasants
Red Army: Why they won
Geographical factors
- Bolshevik control of central area- Moscow and Petrograd. Moved capital to Moscow, which was center of railway network, and helped to transport materials to army.
- This area contained major factories, enabling them to produce war materials. Much of the old military equipment from the Tsarist army fell into the hands of the Bolsheviks.
- Central area was heavily populated, (much more than white areas): able to conscript large numbers for army.
- Whites were scattered along edges of central area, separated by large distances. Resulted in difficulties communicating and moving weapons.
Unity/Organization
- Bolsheviks had single, unifies command structure
- Trotsky organized army: more effective and disciplined than the whites
- Whites were made of different groups with different beliefs, could not agree what they were fighting for. Split on views of national minorities. This made it hard to decide on a political and military strategy: white generals would not work together because they did not trust each other.
Leadership:
- Trotsky was excellent leader: brave, took his special forces to parts of Front where fighting was hardest. Inspired army.
- Heavy discipline in red army: peasants knew if they retreated they faced the death penalty.
- White leaders were second-rate: cruel to men. Many soldiers deserted.
- Large amount indiscipline and corruption in white army: uniforms and weapons provided by foreign governments sold on black market, officers on drugs/sex.
Support:
- Peasants support was crucial because they made up main body of soldiers for both sides. Peasants wanted to desert from both sides, but Lenin legitimized their right to the land while White’s said land would be restored to its former owner- support of Reds.
- White’s lost support of nationalist groups; wanted to restore Russia with its pre-1917 borders, which antagonized national groups (separatists) like Ukraine and Georgia looking for independence. This resulted in no support from separatists, which occupied the territory the whites were based in.
- Reds had support group of workers and soldiers but did not hold popular support because of war communism and the way the reds handled food supply and cities. However, workers and peasants wanted to protect gains of 1917, and since the whites were associated with the old form of government, saw supporting reds as the best way to do this.
Other factors:
- Although foreign intervention gave whites supplies, it was ineffective. Gave Bolsheviks propaganda coup because they could present themselves as defending Russia against foreign forces.
- Reds used more imaginative and powerful propaganda.
Russian Life in Civil War
- Central authority disappeared, fighting fronts were unstable, military units changed sides between whites and reds
- Cossacks in South raped/murdered villages of Jews in pogroms, claiming Jews supported the Bolsheviks
- In Donbass region, white shot minors that did not produce enough coal
- Typhus spread rapidly, killing over 1 million in 1920
War Communism
- While Trotsky led civil war, Lenin built and consolidated Bolshevik state, including dealing with the economy deterioration in spring 1918
- To ensure survival in first months after October revolution, Bolsheviks gave control of land to peasants and control of factories to worker committees
- There were shortages of raw materials because of civil war
- Industrial output, mainly consumer goods, shrank in Bolshevik central area
- Resulted in inflation, value of rouble collapsed
- Peasants would not supply food to the cities if no goods were provided in return and paper money was worthless
- Rich wheat areas of Ukraine were outside of Bolshevik control
- Food riots in many cities in early 1918
- Workers left cities, factories were short of workers
- Lenin was faced with 2 problems:
Keeping workers in cities to produce war supplies.
Feeding workers.
- Aside from economic problems, Lenin faced other problems: the whole economy of the red-area Russia was focused on was geared towards army
War Communism- reaction of pressures to run the economy to continue the war
- Called “internal front”- extension of class warfare, aim to wipe out bourgeois and counter-revolutionaries
- Happy to see market economy collapse in 1918- believed the only way to communism was through socialism
- Wanted nationalization of industry and state control
- Reluctance to abandon when civil war ended: Trotsky wanted to draft soldiers into factories and fields to work under military discipline
Features of War Communism:
“decree on nationalization”- control of all econonomic production and distribution, outlawed private trade, printing large quantities of bank notes
Grain requisitioning:
- Bolsheviks had been sending soldiers to the country to find grain
- May 1918: Food-Supplies Dictatorship was established to set up forceful collection of grain as standard policy
Banning of Private Trade
- Private trade and manufacture banned
- State trading organization was chaotic, industry not producing enough condumer goods
- Development of black market
Nationalization of Energy:
- All industry brought under state control- administered by Supreme Council of National Economy Vesenkha
- Workers committees replaced with single managers reporting to central authority: old bourgeois managers called “specialists”. This was done to prevent workers committees that voted for their own pay raises
- Not all workers were against nationalism, some just wanted to keep their jobs
Labor Discipline:
- Fines for absences and tardiness
- Internal passports created to stop people fleeing from countryside
- Piece-work rates brought back
- Bonuses, work book needed for rations
Rationing:
- Class-based system of rationing introduced
- Labor force and red army priority, small rations for civil servants and professionals, smallest to middle class “former people”
Peasants revolted: resulted in forced mobilization of unemployed labor in industries, strikes outlawed, people fled from towns to countryside for more food
Red Terror
Bolsheviks faced increasing opposition in cities because:
- Workers were angry at economic plight, low food rations, state violence. Called for new Soviet elections, free press, formation of Constituent Assembly, wanted to overthrow Sovnakom
- Anarchists who rejected authoritarian control of government
Treaty of Brest Litovsk
- Soviets introduced decree of peace and decree of land, calling for immediate peace negations and abolishing land ownership
- March 3 1918: Ukraine, Georgia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland fell under German occupation
- Russia lost resources, population, land, industry
- Left-wing Socialist revolutionaries protesting treaty of Brest-Litovesk, turned to terrorism.
Cheka
Assassination attempt on Lenin resulted in Cheka launching Red Terror on summer 1918- many socialist revolutionaries, anarchists, other left groups arrested. Mensheviks and socialist revolutionaries could not take part in soviets, Kadets were imprisoned or fled to south.
- “dictatorship of the proletariat”: formation of two armed forces to destroy the remnants of the aristocratic and bourgeois power
- “extraordinary commission”: secret police known as the Cheka was formed to fight counter revolutionaries through terror
- Large executions of prisoners in cities
- Cheka promoted class warfare, Bolsheviks wanted to completely wipe out middle class
- Main purpose of terror was to terrify hostile social groups: all guilty of “bourgeois provocation” or counter revolution
- Cheka very active in country-side: used brigades to collect grain from peasants to meet quota, left peasants starving, many took more than food. Some peasants attacked collectors, party officials were murdered. Thousands of peasants arrested, some started hiding grain and stopped planting for next season. Wheat harvests declined.
Execution of Tsar
- Tsar and family/servants shot in July 17 1918
- Lenin claimed it was carried out by local Soviets against his wishes, but evidence suggests otherwise
Constitution
- Degrees in Feb 1918 attacked the Church, separating it from state, banning religious schools
- Second series between April and March nationalized banks, mineral resources, industrial concerns, foreign trade, inheritance of property illegal
- Stae given name of Russian Soviet Federated Soicalist Republic: electoral system based on village and city soviets, centralized power was All-Russian Congress of Soviets. Election by universal suffrage, with some exceptions, such as former Tsarist generals
Life Under War Communism: 1819-1821
- Less than third of urban diet came from state rations, rest from black market
- Urban workers sold made and stolen goods for food
- Chaos in factories due to movement of people: high percentage of workers could be absent at one time
- Middle class viewed as “class enemy”- not allowed to work, although some drafted to work in civil service
- Houses of the rich were taken over and lived in by many small families- run by building committees under control of former servants
- Bourgeois were humiliated
- Corruption in Bolshevik party: local Mafias ran local areas
Kronstadt Rebellion
- 1921
- Naval base: originally source of Bolshevik support, demans for freedom of press, electiosn by secret ballot, release of political prisoners by sailors. Brutally repressed.
- Led to decision of NEP: New Economic Policy. Main features concerned with agriculture. Gov abandoned grain requisitioning from peasants, demanded instead tax paid in food at lower level.
by: Greta Hiestand

Lead to Russian Civil War
Soviet Union was declared in 1922 and lasted until 1991
February/March Revolution-
- Could be considered top down because Tsar advocated
- Could be considered bottom up because of: minority discontent and radical opposition groups, and the nobility/army ceased to support the Tsar so he had no choice
- Began in Petrograd (St. Petersburg before WW1) because: center power, main industrial center (many discontent proletarians), people more educated in cities with public schools, intelligentsia
- March 8: food riots, troops sent to stop rioters but instead join
- March 14: Duma declares creation of provisional government: temporary government. Many things going on WW1, Germanic Huns were major threat- the type of government was secondary, but there will be democratic elections later: one in 1917.
- Maintained an autocracy while having a democratic system in place- didn’t work because it is not a true Parliament with a Tsar in rule.
- March 15: Tsar abdicates- POWER VACCUM: no political power in place- confusion, fear
Provisional Government after Revolution- will rule UNTIL a Constituent Assembly is elected
- Duma: dominated by Liberals who represented urban bourgeois and landed gentry (intelligentsia and nobility)- democratic, capitalistic, Kadets, liberal parties
- Wanted western-style constitutional monarchy- wanted to keep royal family
- Advocated land reform (redistribution to peasants instead of nobility), minority rights, liberal constitution
- STAYS IN WW1- already fighting for 3 years, promotes nationalism
- Kept Tsarist civil service (bureaucracy)- service to the people through gov
- No control of army- officers were loyal to Tsar
- Formation of Petrograd Soviets: workers and soldiers- socialist intellectuals, Mensheviks and Socialist revolutionaries. Soviets controlled railways, telegraph station, soldiers in Petrograd garrison, factories, power supplies (access to coal).
- Constituent assembly: when an old system of gov collapses, a new one must be set up- represents constituents, writes constitution. Takes long time to set up- size of Russia.
Problems with Provisional Gov:
- Soviets (proletariats) developed all over country, mainly in Moscow and Petrograd: democratic worker councils in factories. Dominated by Social Democrats, mainly Mensheviks: radical and impatient with provisional government.
- April 1917: Lenin arrives with German assistance- GREAT MAN THEORY- radicalizes situation, calls for world revolution of workers and peasants- (like Marx predicted)- wanted to pull out of war. Dismisses Feb/March Revolution as a “bourgeois” revolution. All land to peasants, all power to soviets, stop war.
October/November Revolution -Beginning
- Kerensky and Provisional Gov advocated fight against Germans- unsuccessful, but ignore “war-weariness.”
- Petrograd Soviet issues Army Order #1 in May: army only takes orders from Soviets, undermines military discipline
- Lenin attempts coup, fails, flees
- General Kornilov (tsarist officer) attempts to take over provisional government, Kerensky forced to ask Bolsheviks for help- this gives legitimacy and authority to Bolsheviks to act on behalf of provisional government.
- Results in both Provisional Gov and Soviets believing they have control over Russia
Bolsheviks Gain Power- Lenin
- In Petrograd and Moscow Soviets
- War is going badly, only group in Russia calling for peace
- Demand immediate land redistribution of large estates to peasants
- Encouraged workers to seize and control factories from bourgeois owners
- Nationalized banks: no private ownership of banks, national government takes control of banks- people and government make profit instead of private owners
- Confiscated church property
- Called for: abolishment of class privileges, equal rights for women, rights of national minorities, “peace, land, and bread.”
October/November Revolution
- November 1917: Bolsheviks overthrow Provisional Government in a coup- Bolsheviks storm Palace. Popular revolution from below?
- Establishment of Council of Commissars led by Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin.
- Communists said this was popular revolution FROM BELOW- people came together and demanded an end to Tsardom. If that were true, it gives this revolution legitimacy, new leaders are legitimate and deserve to lead the country.
- Leads to start of civil war- Lenin and Bolsheviks defeat White Army in 1922. In 1922, Lenin declared Russia as the USSR (Russia was one of its 25 republics). In theory all republics were equal with autonomy.
- Marx called for democracy and capitalism, Lenin took a shortcut- theory not practice
- Bolsheviks rewrite history in their own ideological view- see human history as class struggle. – INDOCTRINATION- countries use history books to indoctrinate people- makes people patriotic. Censorship office about writing/study of history until 1991- what we study is influenced by Marxist-Leninist interpretation of history
- Most Bolshevik general were Tsarist.
- By 1924, Communist party is running USSR. Lenin dies 1924
By: Greta Hiestand

Communism
- All men are equal
- Classless, moneyless, revolutionary socialist society
- redistribution based on needs- different types of property
Real (land) property, intellectual (copyrights and patents) - intangible
- Elimination of private property- liberal western idea
- Equality- autonomy
- Comes from Karl Marx and Ingels
- from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs
- human nature is collectivity
Socialism is the same thing except socialism recognizes private property.
Communism has never happened- many leaders have intentionally misused this term.
ESSAYS: Be able to distinguish between theory vs. practice: beliefs and ideologies vs. what leaders really do. Historians focus on how and why things CHANGE- Emancipation, Russian Revolutions- causes and effects.
According to Karl Marx, communism was Marxism:
- predicting the future- not detailed concept
- Communist manifesto was written in 1848: industrialization, urbanization, increasing population and literacy rates- life was not good for the average person. Because of this, Marxist ideas were attractive to ideas because society would take care of you.
- Anarchist: no government because human beings will get along and act to benefit society.
- Organized religion is not good because it keeps people down: people were attracted to heaven, now people are attracted to this ideology.
- From Germany- highly industrialized state= Westerner writing about his understanding of history and what he sees the future as.
- Completely centered around social class
- Marxist-Leninist is very different- goes against Marxist ideas
- What Bolsheviks did was not true Marxism
- According to Marx, communism is the last step of Marxism- how human beings will evolve to someday, but this step was not described in detail because it was a THEORY.
- Bolsheviks took power with the promise of a utopia- 3 generations of “promise” in the future. Although it was supposed to be a utopia for the proletariats, the working class is where the change came from.
-
- Bolsheviks “won”
By: Greta Hiestand

{Socialist Revolutionaries.pptx}
by: Greta Hiestand

Industrial Development under Nicolas II: Sergei Witte
Terms
Tarriffs: a tax levied by a government on imports and exports for purpose of protection, balancing payments, or raising revenue. Under reign of Nic II, the Witte System justified high import tariffs originally imposed in 1891, which raised the price of manufactured goods and luxuries. This upset the land-owning nobility, who were the major agriculture producers and exporters and the main support group of the Tsar. For Russia to industrialize, they needed to import industrial equipment, but protective tariffs discouraged imports.
PROTECTIVE TARIFFS (protect domestic economy) VS. FREE TRADE (no tariffs)
Taxes: DOMESTIC Idea of modernizing the country by improving the lives of people. Slavophiles, however, thought the social division was important in Russia, whereas Westerners valued social mobility. Russia wanted to modernize and industrialize, but also wanted to keep an aristocracy, which was considered backwards in Western standards. Every time there is a commercial transaction, the country gains money through sales tax. Income tax, property tax, excise tax, (sin tax) on alcohol and tobacco. Main idea is for government to raise money: is it better for government to have money and increase livelihood of citizens, or is this better done through private means, where people are free to invest in other things.
Interest Rates: a rate charged for the use of money, in addition to principle amount. BONDS: peasants paid redemption taxes. Government pays back loans from private investors with interest. Raising interest rates encourages investments, but then the government has to pay more money back. But with low interest, people won’t invest. After revolution, people that invested in Russia lost money when the Tsar fell.
Gold Standard: fixing prices of domestic currency: pricing the standard and interest of a currency. Reserves of gold “fix” money- provides common currency- Western idea. Showed Russia was modernizing because it could invest like the rest of the world
Servicing a debt: paying back a death with interest
National debt: money owed by national government- through bonds. Russia had a large national debt when Tsar fell (big investments in France)
Trans-Siberian Railway: made commerce more efficient- industrialization
Growth from a low base:
Raising Money
• Major problem: Russia did not have the money to spend on industrialization
• Witte faced a dilemma: Raising money for government spending in the form of taxes and interest rates would result in less money for private enterprise. Avoiding this problem by attracting foreign investment would leave the country at the mercy of the international money markets.
- Nobility paid taxes, resulting in less money for private investments.
- Russia saw themselves as leader of Slavic people: nationalistic, but they were dependent of foreign investments from Westerners- contradiction. Stalin’s main goal was to end Russia’s dependence on the West
Witte’s Dilemma
Taxes on the peasantry? Most peasants were subsistence farmers: only had enough to eat. Entrepreneur farming was a western concept.
Interest rates on loans from the state bank?
Tariffs on foreign imports?
Benefits for increasing: Russian government would make money, promote Russian products and domestic investment
For decreasing: more countries would invest (promote foreign investment), lower prices for Russian citizens
Should we put Russia on the Gold Standard?
Benefits: easier trade with other countries by providing common currency
Against: heavy government spending to provide gold used, could result in money withdrawels from the government
International loans?
Spend government money on transport, or on social improvements?
Witte’s Decisions/ Consequences
Policies
Results
Raising Money: Gold Standard/Taxes
Money for Government - Raised massive amounts of
capital
• Secured a loan from France,
• Raised taxes, tariffs and interest rates
Money for Industry - Put Russia on the Gold Standard in
1897
• Currency can now be changed for gold
• 20th Century equivalent of the Euro
• Foreign investment in Russia trebles in 10 years
Money for government – more taxes means less
available for free enterprise
▪ This was a “command economy”
Money for government – more taxes means less
available for free enterprise
▪ This was a “command economy”
Investing Money: Trans-Siberian Railway
• Massive railway investment (military + economic
advantages) = Tsar enthusiastic.
• The Trans-Siberian Railway stretched 9600 miles from
Moscow to Vladivostok.
• Symbolic value only– only single track, unfinished by 1914.
• Encouraged Nicholas II to believe he could defeat Japan.
Overall
industrialisation” – minimise social dislocation.
• Massive growth 1893-1900
• All this in the face of the suspicion and hostility of the
conservative establishment (Milyutin had faced the same
problem).
• Growth was from a very low base.
• No political reforms to match economic reforms = tension
• 4/5 of population in 1914 still peasants
By: Greta Hiestand

The maid carried a pillow. The Tsar's daughters also brought small pillows with them. One pillow was put on the Empress's chair; another on the heir's chair. It seemed as if all of them guessed their fate, but not one of them uttered a single sound. At this moment eleven men entered the room: Yurovsky, his assistant, two members of the Extraordinary Commission, and seven Letts [operatives of the infamous Cheka or Secret Police]..
Yurovsky ordered me to leave, saying, 'Go on to the street, see if there is anybody there, and wait to see whether the shots have been heard.' I went out to the court, which was enclosed by a fence, but before I got to the street I heard the firing. I returned to the house immediately (only two or three minutes having elapsed) and upon entering the room where the execution had taken place, I saw that all the members of the Tsar's family were lying on the floor with many wounds in their bodies. The blood was running in streams. The doctor, the maid and two waiters had also been shot. When I entered the heir was still alive and moaned a little. Yurovsky went up and fired two or three more times at him. Then the heir was still."
the site:
Eye witness history
There's also some interesting recent information about remainings of Tsarevich Alexei found with his sister's remainings:

Nicolas II
Looking at family and personality: GREAT MAN THEORY- may have validity because of autocracy.
Rasputin: killed by royalty because he was an embarrassment when he ran the country. Went to front line to fight the Germans- people lost faith in him and orthodoxy because he was believed to be God’s person on earth.
by: Greta Hiestand
Nicolas II and his family facing the terror of Communist power:
After Nicolas II abdicated in 15 March 1917 along with his family (wife Alexandra, four daughters and a son) he has been sent to the town of Ekaterinburg in spring of 1918. At that moment family had to start living normal live in hard conditions under supervision of Bolsheviks who were there to not let them look for exile in countries such as Great Britain.
Family was provided a house of a local merchant N. N. Ipatiev. In the middle of July Czech White Army was approaching Ekaterinburg and so the sounds of a shotgun have been heard by the royal prisoners and Bolsheviks. It seemed like liberation and a chance for escape were close but unfortunately at 17th July the royal family has been taken to the basement and executed by Bolsheviks who were nervous about the turnout of the fight.
Pavel Medvedev was one of the Bolsheviks who where there making decisions about the royal family. As he later described:
"In the evening of 16 July, between seven and eight p.m., when the time of my duty had just begun; Commandant Yurovsky, [the head of the execution squad]ordered me to take all the Nagan revolvers from the guards and to bring them to him. I took twelve revolvers from the sentries as well as from some other of the guards and brought them to the commandant's office.
Yurovsky said to me, 'We must shoot them all tonight; so notify the guards not to be alarmed if they hear shots.' I understood, therefore, that Yurovsky had it in his mind to shoot the whole of the Tsar's family, as well as the doctor and the servants who lived with them, but I did not ask him where or by whom the decision had been made...At about ten o'clock in the evening in accordance with Yurovsky's order I informed the guards not to be alarmed if they should hear firing.
About midnight Yurovsky woke up the Tsar's family. I do not know if he told them the reason they had been awakened and where they were to be taken, but I positively affirm that it was Yurovsky who entered the room occupied by the Tsar's family. In about an hour the whole of the family, the doctor, the maid and the waiters got up, washed and dressed themselves.
Just before Yurovsky went to awaken the family, two members of the Extraordinary Commission [of the Ekaterinburg Soviet] arrived at Ipatiev's house. Shortly after one o'clock a.m., the Tsar, the Tsaritsa, their four daughters, the maid, the doctor, the cook and the waiters left their rooms. The Tsar carried the heir in his arms. The Emperor and the heir were dressed in gimnasterkas [soldiers' shirts]and wore caps. The Empress, her daughters and the others followed him. Yurovsky, his assistant and the two above-mentioned members of the Extraordinary Commission accompanied them. I was also present.
During my presence none of the Tsar's family asked any questions. They did not weep or cry. Having descended the stairs to the
{http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/images/nicholas2.jpg}
The Ipatiev house
first floor, we went out into the court, and from there to the second door (counting from the gate) we entered the ground floor of the house. When the room (which adjoins the store room with a sealed door) was reached, Yurovsky ordered chairs to be brought, and his assistant brought three chairs. One chair was given to the Emperor, one to the Empress, and the third to the heir.
The Empress sat by the wall by the window, near the black pillar of the arch. Behind her stood three of her daughters (I knew their faces very well, because I had seen them every day when they walked in the garden, but I didn't know their names). The heir and the Emperor sat side by side almost in the middle of the room. Doctor Botkin stood behind the heir. The maid, a very tall woman, stood at the left of the door leading to the store room; by her side stood one of the Tsar's daughters (the fourth). Two servants stood against the wall on the left from the entrance of the room.
The maid carried a pillow. The Tsar's daughters also brought small pillows with them. One pillow was put on the Empress's chair; another on the heir's chair. It seemed as if all of them guessed their fate, but not one of them uttered a single sound. At this moment eleven men entered the room: Yurovsky, his assistant, two members of the Extraordinary Commission, and seven Letts [operatives of the infamous Cheka or Secret Police]..
Yurovsky ordered me to leave, saying, 'Go on to the street, see if there is anybody there, and wait to see whether the shots have been heard.' I went out to the court, which was enclosed by a fence, but before I got to the street I heard the firing. I returned to the house immediately (only two or three minutes having elapsed) and upon entering the room where the execution had taken place, I saw that all the members of the Tsar's family were lying on the floor with many wounds in their bodies. The blood was running in streams. The doctor, the maid and two waiters had also been shot. When I entered the heir was still alive and moaned a little. Yurovsky went up and fired two or three more times at him. Then the heir was still."
Memoirs of Pavel Medvedev taken from the site:
Eye witness history
There's also some interesting recent information about remainings of Tsarevich Alexei found with his sister's remainings:
Bodies of the royal family found
by Klaudia Czerwińska