Would you shoot the Romanov’s even if it was me?!

Would you ride a bike even if it was your grandma with wheels for legs?

I would shoot

YTA but you (obviously) had the correct opinion

I was dissapointed that the one communist didn’t brutally blow Anastasia’s brains out, but I definitely think the play … inspires violence in me.

I don’t think this is a good thing. It is true that violence becomes regrettably necessary in resistance and revolution, but it should not be something we take pleasure in, for a myriad of reasons. It leads to adventurism, it hinders our ability to grow our movement, and it puts our culture in a bad spot post-revolution towards successfully building towards communism.

And on a personal level, no, you should never, ever tell your friend that you would kill them under some hypothetical scenario. You should never let the conversation get to the point where that’s even a question being asked.

You told your friend you would shoot him, lmfao.

The form of your opinion makes sense, but your delivery was brusque, immature and alienating. Propaganda is a skill, and I hope you can learn some good lessons from here. In general, you are going to seem nuts rigidly and dogmatically relitigating historical events. It’s better to deflect around these sort of questions and talk concretely about contextually relevant issues.

If you lead off the bat with the most extreme and least relevant example, you will probably foreclose the opportunity to build the prior beliefs necessary to support this less relevant position.

"Would you shoot the Romanov’s even if it was me?! " “No sympathy. And yes, I would shoot regardless of personal connections”

What for though? Where is political pragmatism?

The amount of memes on the subject I see from western leftists makes me question if there are very few sources available in English or it’s just juvenile cruelty. It was local initiative, strongly influenced by strategic situation during the civil war in the region. Nicolas was “citizen Romanov” by then and the party had a 1001 reason to keep him and his family alive, including plans for a public trial. Lenin was pushing for their evacuation to Moscow. Also…moral implications of killing a couple of teens that were there, anyone? Kill them, because they were born into the wrong family? How very conservative… Not to mention penty of nobles up to and including at least one Major General of the Imperial army I can remember went on to form the core of the Red Army.

Consider the implications for propaganda too. Why create a bunch of martyrs for the Whites? Using exactly this argument, later that same year Maxim Gorky convinced Lenin let Nicolas’ sick second cousin go. Lo and behold - no one remembers Gavriil Constantinovich Romanov.

It would have been better to point out how stupid your friend’s question was. Thars a really weird hypothetical, like if he was a Romanov and your were a revolutionary ar the time you wouldn’t know each other personally, so the it’s a senseless thought experiment on its own. Like…if my firend became The Romanovs since apparently this guy is hypothesizing himself as an entire family we wouldnt be friends anymore, so.if he’s going for modern day it’s also weird and stupid.

“If I were a totally different person who did horrible things would you kill me?”

“Yes”

“I can’t believe you’re willing to kill me”

It’s sort of beside the point, I think? Because litigating the morality of an argument over hypotheticals is a red herring to begin with. The real point is about the conditions those people were living under, the power dynamics in play, and the response necessary to secure liberation. What they did is try to put you firmly within a framework of idealism, which is about doing the “right thing” (as abstract moral principle) even if the circumstances surrounding it would tempt you to do otherwise. So in their minds, you affirmed that you are hypothetically morally bankrupt and would not do the abstract moral principle “right thing.” Naturally, that’s going to make them uncomfortable around you because idealism is all about what people are capable of and whether they are willing to strive to overcome their “base urges.”

The question is, do you want to be friends with them? If so, you’ll probably need to go out of your way to be more diplomatic about this stuff. If this were a question of organizing, I’d say, don’t bother. Friendship and making sure you stay safe, that people aren’t viewing you as some kind of loose cannon when you aren’t, can be a little different.

We shouldn’t have to go above and beyond to deal with people like this, and let’s be real: sometimes we’re not going to. The idealist position would say we should always strive to, no matter what. Well, sometimes it’s just not going to happen. BUT, that doesn’t mean you have to leave these situations to impulse either. What you can do is try to learn from it by reflecting on what about it didn’t work, how you would like to present yourself and your views going forward, what outcome it is that you’re even wanting. For example, are you wanting to vent? to persuade? To be the opposition when everyone is affirming the norm? Keep in mind the last one can be very difficult to do alone and it’s easy to slip into defense mechanisms instead of keeping a clear head, especially when people are throwing nonsensical hypothetical gotchas at you or citing some of the same talking points you’ve heard a thousand times.

You’re right, your friend is just a liberal in need of education on what the Romanovs were actually like.

You probably should have elaborated a bit more instead of going, “yeah, I wouldve shot you, too”

Well, you did basically tell your friend who just literally pretended to be Tzar Nicholas that you’d be willing to shoot them, right to their face. Haha

I would have just said something like, “I wouldn’t be friends with you in the first place if that was the kind of person you were, so the question is irrelevant.”

You could’ve been kinder to your friend, who is now either offended or scared of you (but that’s kinda funny, to be honest).

But are you the asshole for insisting to kill the Romanovs? NTA!

You could have been a bit more diplomatic with a friend. Dishonest a bit but it would have been a chance to swerve and say that if you were their friend it wouldn’t likely get to that point, that you’d convince them to abdicate or that if you were their friend you’d likely have similar class interests and not want to shoot them so it’s a moot point. Pivot then to how much you value them as a friend but they should really read up more on the truth of the matter and that particularly ugly royal family. But it’s not always easy to keep one’s cool and be collected in the moment with the perfect things to say.

Still you should apologize and try to explain a bit. Reframe it and explain how awful the Romanovs were as people and how you don’t see them as being like that at all.

Romanovs did deserve it though and not the asshole for holding that point of view.

My friend (who played Tzar Nicholas) asked me something like:"Would you shoot the Romanov’s even if it was me?! "

Czarist detected

“Would you ahve shot the Romanovs, even if it was me?”

“Yes”