I got to the part of the Revolutions podcast where the royal family died. He said the consensus is that Moscow ordered the death of the whole family. Is that pretty much agreed on by serious historians nowadays or is that Cold War historiagraphy?
It seemed kind of split when I looked in some Ask Historians thread on Reddit from years ago, but I also might just be seeing what I want to see. What do historians think? What do you think? If Lenin and company in Moscow ordered it, why?
IIRC, it was a local decision, but Moscow approved it post factum. Also Moscow did explicitly order the shooting of other Romanovs after recieving news about the shooting of the tsar.
I think it’s harder for us to understand now as the era of kings is (mostly
) dead, but it makes sense to end a dynasty like that. The historical norm at that point was even a 3 year old would be used as a sovereign and the white army would have drawn authority from the Romanov line.
Without that lineage, their claim to power was incredibly weak and the only alternative was the communists who had the mandate of the workers and production on their side.