“Amsterdam, Sept. 22.—According to a telegram from Moscow, the Izvestua gives the following description of the obsequies of the ex-Tsar, which, according to newspaper reports, were solemnly carried out by troops of the People’s Army (sic) at Ekaterinburg.
“‘The body of the ex-Tsar, which had been buried in a wood at the place of execution, was exhumed, the grave having been found through information supplied by persons who were acquainted with the circumstances of the execution. The exhumation, says the Soviet journal, took place in the presence of many representatives of the supreme ecclesiastical authorities in Western Siberia, the local clergy, and delegates from the People’s Army, Cossacks, and Czecho-Slovaks. The body was placed in a zinc coffin, encased in a costly covering of Siberian cedar and the coffin was exposed in the Cathedral at Ekaterinburg under a guard of honour composed of the chief commanders of the People’s Army. The body will be temporarily buried in a special sarcophagus at Omsk.’”
Comment is superfluous. The fourth and last of the “precautions” against conviction followed a year later, perhaps under stress of circumstances, but certainly without any regard for the Soviet’s own previous announcements:—
Here it is:—
“On September 17, 1919, in the House of the Executive Committee of the Soviet at Perm, the Bolshevists brought to trial twenty-eight persons arrested on the accusation of having murdered the Tsar and his family. The following report of the proceedings is taken from the Bolshevist paper Pravda:—
“‘The Revolutionary Tribunal has considered the case of the murder of the late Tsar Nicholas Romanov, his wife, the Princess of Hesse, their daughters Olga, Tatiana, Maria and Anastasia, and their suite. In all eleven persons were assassinated. Of the twenty-eight persons accused three were members of the Ekaterinburg Soviet—Grusinov, Yakhontov, and Malutin; among the accused were also two women, Maria Apraksina and Elizaveta Mironova. The account of the murder as gathered from the material under the consideration of the Revolutionary Tribunal is as follows:—
“‘The Tsar and all the members of his entourage were shot—no mockery and no cruelties took place. Yakhontov admitted that he had organised the murder in order to throw the discredit of the crime on the Soviet authorities, whose adversary he became after having joined the Socialist revolutionaries of the Left Wing. The plan of murdering the Tsar was conceived during the latter’s stay at Tobolsk, but the Tsar was too strictly watched. In Ekaterinburg, when the Czecho-Slovak troops were approaching the town, the Soviet authorities were panic-stricken to such a degree that it was easy for him to avail himself of his position as chairman of the Extraordinary Commission (for combating counter-revolution) and to give the order to murder the Tsar and his family. Yakhontov admitted that he personally participated in the murder, and that he took upon himself the responsibility for it. He, however, said that he was not responsible for the robbery of the belongings of the Tsar’s family. According to his deposition, Tsar Nicholas said before he died, “For the murder of the Tsar Russia will curse the Bolshevists.” Grusinov and Malutin stated that they did not know anything about Yakhontov’s plans, and only carried out his orders. Yakhontov was found guilty of the murder and sentenced to death. Grusinov, Malutin, Apraksina, and Mironova were found guilty of robbery committed on the murdered members of the Tsar’s family. They were sentenced to death too. The death sentence was carried out the following day.
“‘Several objects belonging to the household of the Tsar were discovered with a thief named Kiritshevsky, who stated that these things had been given to him by a man named Sorin, who was the chairman of the Local Extraordinary Commission. At the time of the murder Sorin was the commander of a revolutionary battalion. Sorin was a personal friend of Beloborodov, who also participated in the assassination of the Emperor.’—Rossia (Paris), No. 1, December 17, 1919.”[10]
I have carefully compared the names given above with the list of 164 persons mentioned in the dossier as being implicated or even suspected of having acted any part whatsoever in the tragedy; I have perused the cognomens of the twenty-four members of the Ekaterinburg Sovdep presidium. There is not one name in the mock trial that even resembles any of them (one cannot possibly identify Yakhontov with Yurovsky); the very charge is farcical if one compares this report with the text of the official announcement of the “execution.” Alone Beloborodov’s name is familiar. He was nominally president of the Ural sovdep at the time of the murders. I explained his real position—that of a mere helot, a thieving workman, kept in office to serve as a screen for the rulers of Sovietdom. After the murders he was “promoted” to the Tsik, the highest honour of Sovdepia. But they do not stand on ceremony with Russian komisars in the land where Yankel Sverdlov rules, and we read of him in the Pravda as being stigmatised as (1) a thief, and (2) a party to the very murder for which he was promoted—the very same appalling crime that Sverdlov had ordained—the stain whereof haunts the chieftains of the Soviet like a Nemesis, so that they utter things without sense.
Besides, the Soviet of Moscow received a lion’s share of the loot! Between July 20th and 22nd it was taken from Ipatiev’s house and removed to the Red Metropolis. The Bolshevists were fleeing before the advance of the Siberian troops. Yankel Yurovsky, evidently in a hurry to leave Ekaterinburg, took farewell of the death-house on the night of the 19th. His driver thus describes the exodus. That night he had by Yurovsky’s orders called at the chrezvychaika, and thence conveyed two young men, one of them a Jew, to Ipatiev’s house, where Yankel was waiting. These youths went into the house and brought out seven pieces of baggage, among them being a black leather trunk covered with seals. When he had taken his seat in the vehicle, Yurovsky gave his orders to the young men:—“Set everything to rights. Leave twelve men on sentry duty and send the remainder to the station.”