Apologies for posting.
I should say by way of introductory remarks, that while this is an effort post, it is an effort post on a shitposting website, and thus ab initio a shitpost and therefore be taken in the correct spirit of levity in which it is intended. Don’t get my thread locked.
Recent discussion on here has touched on the moral status of the execution of the Romanov family by Bolsheviks ahead of the advancing White Army1. While not exactly of practical significance given how few of us have Royal Families locked up in our basement, it did reveal several significant, (sometimes severe) differences in the philosophical underpinnings of the posters on this website.
A Moral Communism
Moral status as such actually has very little to deal with communism/leftist (in the Marxian vein) in terms of it’s internal mechanism. Marx, Engels, Lenin, and the rest of that intellectual lineage2. famously thought very little of moral philosophy. A communist is thus entirely at liberty to dismiss this entire discussion as idealism, and observe that within a Marxist framework, there are no ‘good’ and ‘bad’, merely a historically deterministic sequence of class antagonisms that will eventually resolve in favor of the proletariat and thus choosing to be a communist is merely choosing to throw one’s hat in with the predetermined victors. This strand of amoral communism thus is not terribly interested in this discussion, and anyone here that adheres to that framework is excused from the discussion as having won the argument.
Given the rest of us do have moral considerations that prefigure our political beliefs, it’s necessary for us to sketch out at least a scaffolding for what moral commonalities leftists share before going further, lest we fall into a morass of fundamentally incompatible frameworks stemming from different axiomatic premises. Speaking from my own personal position, I ascribe to leftist political positions as they offer me the greatest promise of granting a comfortable and dignified existence to the largest number of people possible. That in of itself does not make a moral axiom though, as achieving a large amount of something is valueless if the individual components don’t themselves have value, and therefore, and a fundamental value informing my politics is the axiomatic value/sanctity of human life. So I am taking on as an assumption that generally speaking, want everyone to have dignified and comfortable lives3. If that position doesn’t more or less describe you, you are also excused as having won the argument.
Justifying Shooting a Tsesarevich in my Pajamas
Which brings us to the Romanovs. In keeping with 3. above, and considering the minor children of royals not culpable for the systematic injustices perpetrated under the dictatorship of their parents, we’ll limit our discussion here to the minors (Anastasia, and especially Alexei), though I think the general outline of the argument can be applied to pretty much all of the Tsar’s issue. The entirety of the family, along with their retinue, were bulleted and bayoneted in Yekaterinburg about 10 days before white occupied the city. In attempting to defend the legacy of one of the most politically successful socialist projects in history4., this action has largely been justified on the left. Examining the commonly proposed justifications in light of our moral principles finds them universally lacking.
- It was necessary in order to safeguard the immediate success of the revolution against an individual with claim to the throne.
This argument goes that while we do value human life and dignity, our efforts to maximize these will sometimes require that certain human lives be forfeit, essentially turning this into a trolley problem5.. This argument differs in an important aspect from the trolley problem in that the trolley problem consists of single moment in time with clearly articulable and certain outcomes given at the outset. Leaving Alexei alive was in no way certain to doom the revolution to failure of significant struggle, as he could have been maintained in custody, and ascribing such outsized influence on the course of political affairs to the life of a sickly 13 year old is a profoundly anti-materialist approach to history. History is replete with challenges to establish socialist authority6., none of which stemmed from claimants to the Imperial thrown. Further, liquidating the Tsar, his children, and his brother did not exhaust the Romanov line, his cousin could and did proclaim himself Emperor-in-exile, and despite being old enough to actually head a restorationist intervention, none materialized. So the notion that killing Alexei was necessary fails to stand up to scrutiny 7.. It is also worth noting as an aside that the Romanovs were deeply unpopular, and to wit, were not the government the Bolshevik revolution occurred under, and supporters of the provisional government (domestic and international alike) formed the overwhelming contingent of the White forces, and the notion that a 14 year old tsarist claimant to the thrown would have had a meaningful impact on that colossal clusterfuck strains credulity.
- It prevented a longterm challenge to Boshevik control in a manner similar to Jacobite uprisings or the Bourbon Restoration.
Taking a more longterm view of the problem, it might be acknowledged that the Alexei presented no immediate threat justifying his liquidation, but, drawing from the history of pre-CIA regime changes, he presented a longterm likely/probable/plausible/possible threat in the form of an eventual challenge, and that acting in light of that possibility was justified if not strictly necessary. If we wish to examine this in light of our moral principles, we need to develop some notion of probability calculus; at what point is taking in innocent life now justified in order to avoid certain possible harms that have a certain probability of occurring. You can formalize this to ridiculous extents8., or you can take the legal systems more qualitative approach, of establish some standard of proof (you are, after all, justifying killing someone), where the execution is deemed justified if seems more likely than not/clearly and convincingly/beyond a reasonable doubt that it will prevent further, greater harm in the future. This lets you weaken the requirement that it is necessary to kill him to merely it is prudent to kill him. What is lacking though is any evidence that anyone has meaningfully carried out this process for any standard beyond plausible. The greatest extent to which this is established is that historically, there have been several restorationist insurrections, but no systematized historical study has been undertaken to quantify the risk of insurrection/coup in the presence or absence of an legitimate claimant.9.
Well perhaps we leave it there; a plausible narrative that places Alexei as the cause of some harm is sufficient in our eyes to justify his liquidation. The problem with this is that it is such a liberal standard that it can be applied to nearly everyone. There are scores of documented peasant rebellions throughout history, so by the same standard it is plausible that any given peasant may be at risk for launching a peasant rebellion down the line and thus, by that same standard, we are justified in liquidating them. Universalizing from this generic peasant^.10. to all peasants. And thus our system named aimed an providing dignity and comfort is able to justify pretty much any atrocity.
- The moral culpability of for the executions lies at the feet of the Tsar who created the system and not the executioners themselves.
This argument goes that it was actually the Tsar that placed him in position to be killed by standing at the top of a monarchical system that has ruined and ended untold numbers of lives. Had the Tsar dismantled that system before it came to blows, Alexei would have lived a happily inbred life as a continental European curiosity.
This argument plays fast an lose with the notion of fault to an extent that borders on the absurd. Within getting into the morass that encompasses the legal notion of fault, I’ll observe that the executioners where in total control of the situation, given the Romanovs were in the zone of immediate material influence, while the Bolshevik leaderships were at a more distant proximity, and Tsar Nicholas II at the head of the Imperial State was a fleeting memory, having greatly influenced the events that now overtook them, but having no control over them. The Bolshevik’s in Ipatiev House or those in leadership in Moscow alone decided who in that house lived and died, they knew that, and they exercised that choice.
- Unpleasant things happen during a revolution and we accept that as soon as they begin.
This is true, but once again, it comes down to the notions of control and proximity. As a leftist, I acknowledge that the struggle for political power may involve the world becoming a worse place (as judged according to my moral principles outline above) due to my actions to make it a better one. This is an abstract acknowledgement. It may also result in me taking actions that I find unpleasant or repugnant11. If it is the moral principles that describe motivate my political struggle though, it is fundamentally self-defeating to exercise my control over my immediate surroundings to knowingly act in a manner that results in an immediate degradation of the world around me (once again, as judged by my moral standards). My actions in the here and now, must be justified according to my principles in the here and now and my actions in the here and now. If 10 minutes ago I was standing in Yekaterinburg and the Whites are closing in, and now I’m still standing in Yekaterinburg and the Whites are still closing in, but now there is a brand new pile of child corpses of my making, then I have made the world a worse place.
No tears for dead peasants
It is reasonable to ask why go to such great lengths to challenge the justifications for the murder of Alexei (which is so emotionally remote to me as to essentially be fictitious). To which I offer the following justifications.
- It’s ridiculous and therefore funny.
- Because eventually some of us may be in positions to make decisions that make the world a substantially better or worse place for others, and I want it be very clear what stands before us when making those decisions. No, none of us are going to decide whether or not an heir lives or dies, but we are going to decide how to treat with those around us, and want everyone to pause before they exercise what little control they have in the world around them before making it a worse place, justifying it with a glib aphorism or some half-baked argument.
1. The fitness for humor here is not considered, as something can be both morally bad and the legitimate target of well-done comedy. Like 9/11.
2. I was promised ice cream if I didn’t say ‘ilk’ here.
3. To wit, one of the main justifications for political violence on the left is that it is directed at those preventing others from enjoying dignity, comfort, or well, life.
4. Such as it is.
5. which we may dub the Yekaterinburg Streetcar Defense
6. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Rebellions_in_the_Soviet_Union
7. One could alternatively take the logical form of necessity as a conditional, ~P -> ~Q with P being “the legitimate claimant to the imperial thrown is killed” and “Q” being “the revolution is successful”. Given the contra-factual nature of ~P, the truth value of this statement can’t be evaluated directly, but given the analogous situation in China with PuYi, we can strongly infer that this conditional is in fact false and thus logical necessity is not present.
8. define xi to be each enumerated possible future in space X, p(xi) to be the probability of that future occurring, and h(xi) to be the number of lives ruined by Alexei in that future xi. Shoot kid if
9. To reach a preponderance of evidence standard you would need to establish P(Insurrection|Legitimate Claimant) > P(Insurrection), which the strictly materialist interpretation would hold P(Insurrection|Legitimate Claimant) = P(Insurrection).
10 Regular viewers will recognize this as universal generalization.
11 Orwell’s description of the conditions of fighting in the Spanish civil war come to mind.
I find this pretty revealing. You’ve spent a lot of time saying your complaint was that “they didn’t show their work,” but then, in another case where the revolutionaries did show their work, it still wasn’t good enough. It seems to me that if the soldiers who killed the Romanovs had produced moral arguments, you’d dismiss them as “oratorical garbage” if they’d performed the sort of historical survey you asked for, you’d say it was biased and incomplete. It’s pretty clear at this point that you have another reason for thinking the killing is wrong that you’re not telling us (perhaps for fear of getting dogpiled) and you’re just concern trolling using a similar tactic to the media demanding Corbyn prove he’s not anti-semitic, where nothing’s ever good enough.
This goes back to my first comment where I speculated that your views on the matter are based either consciously or subconsciously on the Christian framework of the devil tempting people to sin and the final judgement. It’s either that, or you just have a very unrealistic view of how the world works.
Robespierre wasn’t showing his work, he was literally just making shit up. Everything he says is just one shoddy unchallenged assertion after the other, and I think the result of his nonformalized, vibes based execution justification techniques he introduced speak for themselves.
The reign of terror pretty conclusively shows you what happens when you allow executions on the basis of any old ad hoc justification.
I tell you reason in my OP. Human life has value is an axiomatic foundation of mine. Yes, it can at great length be shown that it is necessary to take a particular life, but absent those overriding circumstances it is wrong. My general dismay here stems from how low that threshold seems for everyone else.
I reject that explanation. You’ve set your standards for evidence to be so high that they could never be reasonably met, which is functionally equivalent to saying that it’s axiomically wrong to kill a prisoner, regardless of the consequences or the material conditions. I hate to break out the fallacies, but it’s a motte and bailey.
I’ve already pointed out that half of Russia, and presumably half of the Red Army, was illiterate at this time. You’re expecting illiterate peasants to make a stronger argument than Robespierre before they’re allowed to kill prisoners. Clearly, you’re not seriously considering the possibility that killing the prisoners was justified - even if we were in a world where there was a much stronger case for it, there is still nothing that they could’ve done that would satisfy your standards.
We don’t really know what the soldiers discussed or what was going on in their heads. Maybe they had a serious, good faith discussion about it, maybe they were just angry and taking it out on them. No amount of studies or polemics could prove (at least to your standards) that they reached the decision through a reasonable, good faith process, to the best of their abilities. And if it wouldn’t convince anyone, then what’s the point of publishing it? Stop pretending that you’re just asking questions and just need a bit more evidence and just admit that you think it’s axiomically wrong.
And I reject this, the standard is in fact very high, but it is not insurmountable. If the Tsar had attempted a breakout or an actual attempt to liberate him made, then he presents a clear and imminent danger and in that case shooting him would in fact would be a regrettable but justifiable action. In fact, the fact that Egon has insisted that we litigate Louis XVI despite my initial goal to of discussing Alexei and Anastasia makes this more of a bailey and motte argument than a motte and bailey. When I say that Louis XVI should not have been killed based on my personal moral calculus, I am advancing a radically different argument that I advancing in the OP.
The first is way harder than the latter, and requires me to rely on moral principles that are not all that common on the left, making it something of an exercise in futility owing to incommensurability.
I don’t care who makes the argument. It’s not like they couldn’t spare eight hours of 3 clerks time to arrive at a decision, one to argue each side and the other to decide. But when you take on the role of state executioner, you take on additional moral responsibilities. If you’re not willing to take on those responsibilities, get out of the killing kids game. Besides, like I’ve said, Robespierre’s arguments are so bad in their form and their effect I find it hard to believe anyone couldn’t make a stronger argument than him.
To show that this is true you would have to show such a case where the captors show the prisoner presents a clear and imminent danger to the lives of others and have me reject that. Robespierre isn’t that.
I have not at any point insisted we litigate the trial of King Louis. I presented you an argument made by a person from another situation in which a royal person was defenseless, in the control of the revolution, and not able to escape or seemingly fall into the hands of the enemy. While Louis is king and therefore responsible for what happened, the argument does not rest on this, but instead the fact that Louis is Royal and therefore by default “guilty”. Except for being a child this is the situation you’ve described. A person in that situation made that argument, and I’ve asked you to read that argument to get an idea why some people might rationalise such an action to be justified.
You keep misrepresenting what others argue and you keep avoiding engaging with the arguments others present you, instead dictating stringent terms other must follow, while you yourself can weave and bend with what you’re saying, what your argument is, what it is that we’re debating and so forth. This is rude.
For all we know, they might have. They probably didn’t, because that’s not how decisions are made in war-time (except perhaps the case with Robespierre), but even if they did, even if we could produce evidence of it, I do not believe that would be enough. You could easily dismiss it as all for show. What you’re asking for is for them to make the case to you that they followed a reasonable process, even though nothing they could’ve reasonably done would be enough to convince you, and there’s also nothing to be gained from making the effort.
Fine, I hate stupid hypotheticals as much as anyone but you’ve left me no choice.
The Whites are in possession of a fully functional nuclear ICBM that is biolocked the the DNA of the Tsar and his immediate family. How many pages of polemics will you demand from illiterate soldiers, how many fish will you demand walk on land, before you sign off on mulching the orphans in that case?
Sure it’s possible that I could, but you’re speaking to contrafactual. If you want to show the claim that I will shift the goalposts is true, you actually have to show them achieve the original goalposts.
Well considering the whites found the corpses, and thus gained ready access to the primary source of their DNA (their bodies) I would say the prudent move in this case would have been to move them away from the whites instead of killing them, and I guess, going back to the entire point of my argument, that if the captors thought about the scenario for more than 10 minutes, they’d have realized that and not gotten the Petrograd soviet nuked.
OK, so you want a couple people to get together and debate before killing a prisoner. The French did that. You said it wasn’t good enough because you found the arguments unconvincing. That’s a goalpost shift. Unless you’d have us believe that if the Reds did the exact same process as the French, you’d treat it differently for some reason.
As for the other part, obviously they wouldn’t have ditched the bodies where the whites could find them in that scenario, you’re just trying to weasel your way out of answering. And the reason that you won’t answer is because you’re arguing from a sockpuppet position that is rapidly disintegrating.
It’s so rude tbh.
I’m enough of a debate pervert that even though I saw through it right away, I was willing to engage because I’m still down to defend my beliefs even if the other person is just playing Devil’s Advocate. But now it’s pretty clear that they just want to attack from an unreasonable position that no one would actually believe while never allowing their actual beliefs to be scrutinized by keeping them hidden, which yeah it’s pretty frustrating and unfair.
I guess I can understand that they don’t want to get dogpiled but at this point I’m more curious about the other people who I’ve seen agree with their position, since this user is pretty much the only one who’s engaged in the question substantially from that side. I’m guessing a lot of it is knee-jerk and unexamined.
Removed by mod
This isn’t “On Shooting Louis the XVI”, I regret ever engaging with Louis the XVI, because I do not view it disqualifying as a leftist to support his execution, mirroring what I allude to in footnote 3 and mention further here. I find the argument unconvincing, I do not expect every leftist to. I am an acknowledged peculiarity in that regard. The fact that we’re even talking about Louis XVI is a reflection of a massive goalpost shift in your favor, given his actual culpability in the crimes of the regime.
Sorry, I missed where you said this part originally.
We are rapidly approaching the point where I get fed up with your bad faith bullshit and start telling you to post hog.
If the Reds had followed the same process as the French, would you accept their decision, yes or no?
If the only way to avoid giving the Whites a nuke was to kill an innocent prisoner, would you accept that decision without needing the unreasonable standard of evidence you’re asking for in the historical scenario, yes or no?
Absolute moral rules with exceptions requiring an impossible level of proof to achieve are still absolute moral rules. If you want to argue for them, quit this concern trolling bullshit and actually argue for them. And answer the questions or we’re done.