Communist Leaders

[Karumichan]

=o Cliffhanger in a lecture, never thought it would happen. Tell me more sensei!
Oh, I want to know more about Rasputin too. I forget what he did.

[Shinta_Himura]

It's uncertain who Rasputin really was or how even old he was. They were saying that he's really a yong man who looked like an old guy, but most importantly, he was a mystic. Gregory Rasputin had an unusual power of hypnotism or something like that.

The only son of Nicholas II, Alexis had an illness called Hemofelia that prevented his blood from clothing. Which meant that even the slightest injury could cause him bleed to death. Rasputing seemed to be able to stop any bleeding of Alexis if such were occuring. Therefore he was in favor of Nicholas and Alexanra (Nicholas' wife). There were some relatives of Nicholas who felt that Rasputing had too much influence over Nicholas and Alexandra and ploted to kill him.

The ploter of this was Prince Usupov and others who felt the same way. Originaly they wanted to poison Rasputin and invited him over to the dinner. However, somehow poison didn't had any effect on Rasputin. Then, when Rasputin felt that they wanted to kill him, he headed for the exit and someone shot him from the gun few times. That didn't stop him and he mannaged to get outside while bleeding. There, the group threw themselves on him and tried to strangle him and to break his head. At long last they had tied him up and threw him into the Neva river, under the ice.

The most sinister thing became known when the body was recovered frozen in the last pose of the dead man. It was obviouse that Rasputin had his hand raised as if he was about to make a sighn of cross as he already was under the water.

It seemed like this mysteriouse man was able to survive a lot of things that suposed to kill him. Moreover, he felt that his end was comming before and he even told to the Tzar that his death would be something like a curse to Nicholas and his family.

If I remember it correctly, he said that if a common Russian man would kill him, nothing would happen to Nicholas and his family, but if Nicholas's relatieves would kill him then the Russian people will kill Nicholas and his family.

At the end it was Nicholas' relatives who had killed Rasputing and you all know that that part of curse really did work.

Now, Rasputin was killed in 1904 or 05 and that was the begining of all the troubles; including Russo-Japanese War, Bloody Sunday (Revolution of 1905), World War I, abdigation and arrest in March of 1917, Bolsheviks's Revolution in October of 1917, Civil War in 1918 and finaly execution of entire family of Nicholas in summer of 1918. Those troubles supposedlyj connected to the murder of Rasputin, but who knows what exactly was that.

[Karumichan]

Weird. I knew that he wouldn't die, I just never knew why they wanted him dead. Thats pretty strange though.

[chibipyroduo]

yeah it is. But that does make a lot of sense. That curse is really creepy though, do you think he made it up to scare Nicholas and his family or that he knew something they didn't?

[Shinta_Himura]

It's hard to say, but I must admit that that curse did came true years later. If you are skeptic, you should believe that it might have been a scare tactic and coincidence, but if you're not, then you might belive that there indeed was something to it. Anyways, In my opinion Rasputin is one of the most mysteriouse figure in history and searching for the answers about him raises even more questions and at the end it's hard to answer any of them. They belived that rasputin is some sort of magician or a witch, he was indeed something like a witch doctor. He was saying that his gift is from God, but most of people around him belived that it's really comes from the Devil.

That was the main reason why they decided to kill him in the first place and also the influence he had on Imperial couple.

There was even a cartoon showing Rasputin sitting on a trone, Nicholas is kissing his hand and Alexandra kissing his feet.

After a political cartoon like that, someone had to think that Rasputin having too much influence in the Imperial court and have to be eliminated to avoid scandals.

[Karumichan]

Yeah that seems to be the downfall of alot of people actually. Like Bush being a puppet of congress...
In the movie Anastasia, he was a necromancer or something, but he was already dead too.
I wouldn't mind looking into Rasputin alittle deeper, it's very interesting.

[chibipyroduo]

yeah gotta look into the bios at b&n next time I work. Yeah K-chan I believe he was with that little bat thing. Of course Disney fluff is so much fun isn't it?

[Shinta_Himura]

Actually it wasn't from disney. The different company made Anastasia. If she was made by Disney, she would be one of the Disney Princesses, ne?

Anyways, what should we study next? How about Russian Civil War, or perhaps Chinese Revolution ^^;;

[Karumichan]

Oo, china. Though that be a new topic under world chat. I like chinese stuff, so learning about their history more then watching Mulan would be cool. XD

[Shinta_Himura]

Well first of all, I believe that the road to the first Chinese revolution began somewhere around opium wars in 1890's which proved that the system of that time in China was outdated and China was no match for European nations. At that time China was ruled by a Manchu dynasty called Quin (sp?) and on the throne was Empress Tsu Ci (sp?) she was amoung the last noticiable rulers of Imperial China and she was noticable because she was able to hold control of the government for many years after her husband died and her children came of age and also because she was holding on to the past, rejecting any kind of European inovations.

The opium wars themselves began because major colonial powers in Asia needed to trade with China and China was closing their ports from trading with Europeans, because at that time they were bringing a lot of opium to China with trade and it was killing a lot of people. Therefore Chinese Imperial government was doing whatever they could to stop the import of opium in their nation, which ofcourse wasn't welcomed by Colonial Powers of Europe.

Just like that a conflict broke out and because China used very little of inovative warfare, compared to their European enimy; they suffered a humiliating defeat.

That conflict showed that's the old Empire was crumbling under it own weigh and around 1911-1912, a revolution broke out. That revolution deposed baby Emperor Pu Yi who fled to Japan and established a republican government lead by Dr. Sun Yat Sen (sp?)The government of that time was nationalistic, not communist. The communist revolution in China would not occur until 1927-28 and then there would be a civil war, that would be briefly halted by the WWII and Japanese invation. Howver, the civil war would resume afterwards and would beover in 1949 with the defeat of nationalistic government in China.

The remains of guomindang party (national party of China) would flee to the island of Formosa and would establish Republic of China there, lead by Generalisimo Chen Kai Shek (sp?). The mainland would remain communist starting 1949 and would be lead by Mao Dzedung well into 60's or 70's if I'm not mistaken.

I guess this can conclude the first lecture on the Chinese comunism and it's origins.

[chibipyroduo]

interesting. I noticed how most countries fall to communism after they just came out of a long reigning monarchy? Is that a pattern that continues throughout the rest of history or just a coincidence?

[Karumichan]

probably pattern. Everyone is ruled under one person and not equal, so the idea of communism sounds good, until everyone finds out it never works. XD


@himura-sensei: sorry about that story you were telling over IM, I can't log on because some port is screwed up, and IM doesn't work anymore. ;_;

Do you know any further back history of china btw? Like 1500/1600?

[Shinta_Himura]

Well further back in history becomes complicated and confusing, since China had largest amount of dynasties then any other nations. Just take the period of Three kingdoms when the oId dynasty of Han crumbled and dynasties from three kingdoms fough each other for the control in the land making and betraying aliances. I think it happened somewhere around 3rd Century AD. I belive that during 1500 and 1600 hundreds they had the same Manghu dynasty over there, before it there was a Mongol Dynasty called Yuan, but I'm not too sure. I have to look at my sourses for more certain information, And it's alright Karumi, I just assumed that you had to go since you said before that you don't have much time online.

[Karumichan]

Yeah it is a pretty big history. My favorite part of their history is their myths. I have a big book on everything from the very beginning of china and all of their myths and stuff. I got interested in it from the anime Saiyuki.

[Shinta_Himura]

Myths and legends are important parts of any folklor and the more ancient the nation, the more legends they have. China probably the oldest civilization in the Far East. The first emperor of China began his reign in about 2nd century BCE if I'm not mistaken where as the semilegindary Jimu of Japan began his around 30th year BCE. However, in case of Japan, it's an unbroken dynasty line of Imperial succession from then, until today. In China, they had no less then five different dynasties trough out the Imperial history of it and the Empire of China is no more. Whereas Japan still have their Emperor, although it is not an Empire anymore.