Russia convulsed and its revolutions and violence reverberated throughout the world before and during WWI

Pyotr Stolypin, Prime Minister 1911

Alexander Kolchak

Anton Denikin

Alexandar Bogdanov

Mikhail Rodzianko, 4th Duma

Nicholai Ruzsky

Tzarina Alexandra Feodorovna

Grand Duke Paul Alexandrovich

Grand Duke Kirill Vladimirovich

Joseph Stalin

Between the wars, Stalin rose to power and famine and death raged as he purged the Soviet Union of old-time Bolsheviks.

Nikolai Bukharin

Vyacheslav Molotov

Joseph Stalin

Alexei Rykov, Soviet Union Premier

Noe Schordania, leader of the Menshevik Party

Anton Denikin

Lev Kamenev, leader of the Oppositionists

Grigori Zinoviev

Lavrentiy Beria

Yakov Saulovich Agranov

The Russian Imperial Romanov family (Tsar Nicholas II, his wife Tsarina Alexandra and their five children Olga, Tatiana, Maria, Anastasia, and Alexei) and all those who chose to accompany them into imprisonment—notably Eugene Botkin, Anna Demidova, Alexei Trupp and Ivan Kharitonov, according to the conclusion of the investigator Sokolov, were shot and bayoneted to death[1][2] in Yekaterinburg on the night of 16–17 July 1918.[3] According to the official state version in the USSR, former Tsar Nicholas Romanov, along with members of his family and retinue, was executed by firing squad, by order of the Ural Regional Soviet, due to the threat of the city being occupied by Whites (Czechoslovak Legion)[4][5]. By the assumption of a number of researchers, this was done according to instructions by Lenin, Yakov Sverdlov and Felix Dzerzhinsky. Their bodies were then taken to the Koptyaki forest where they were stripped and mutilated.[6][2] Initially thrown down a mineshaft called Ganina Yama, the bodies were later disposed of in two unmarked graves in a field called Porosenkov Log.[7] A White Army investigation failed to find the gravesite, concluding that the imperial family's remains had been cremated at the mine, since evidence of fire was found.[8]

Nicholas II or Nikolai II (Russian: Николай II Алекса́ндрович, tr. Nikolai II Aleksandrovich; 18 May [O.S. 6 May] 1868 – 17 July 1918), known as Saint Nicholas the Passion-Bearer in the Russian Orthodox Church, was the last Emperor of Russia, ruling from 1 November 1894 until his forced abdication on 15 March 1917.^[1] His reign saw the fall of the Russian Empire from one of the foremost great powers of the world to economic and military collapse. He was given the nickname Nicholas the Bloody or Vile Nicholas by his political adversaries due to the Khodynka Tragedy, anti-Semitic pogroms, Bloody Sunday, the violent suppression of the 1905 Russian Revolution, the execution of political opponents, and his perceived responsibility for the Russo-Japanese War (1904–1905).^[2][3] Soviet historians portrayed Nicholas as a weak and incompetent leader whose decisions led to military defeats and the deaths of millions of his subjects.^[4]