4 ms·

> Tsar To be fair you have to go really far to get back to the times when the Tsar could and would execute random people for arbitrary reasons and without that

> Tsar To be fair you have to go really far to get back to the times when the Tsar could and would execute random people for arbitrary reasons and without that the joke is no longer funny.

mc32 3y ago
Indeed, the later tsars were pretty liberal and were the ones who ended slavery/serfdom in the Russian empire.
- ak217 3y ago
  Tsar, singular. One tsar was relatively liberal, Alexander II. He did well under the circumstances, but his good deeds were overwhelmed by the imperial family and system that he was a part of.
082349872349872 3y ago
> ...go really far to get back... While I did appreciate Ivan Grozny seeing the Repin painting in Shurik's apartment in Ivan Vasilevich menyaet professiyu (1973), I was a bit disappointed in that (at least with the youtube version?) the actor turned his back before crossing himself in the elevator, which would've told us if Gaidai knew/cared about Old Believer sibboleths.
cyberax 3y ago
The last czar (Nickolas II) was pretty brutal. He instigated a reign of terror after the failed revolution in 1905. Vladimir Korolenko described it pretty well in "Everyday Phenomenon" (1910), and "Features of Military Justice".
- 082349872349872 3y ago
  As I understand it, the KGB inherited their dirty tricks bag from the Cheka, whose members had learned them the hard way from being on the receiving end, taught by the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Okhrana https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Okhrana .
  - cyberax 3y ago
    Not really. The USSR did not allow any members of the Imperial police to join the USSR secret service (it was initially called OGPU). They also functioned quite differently, the Imperial security had never had a fraction of OGPU's power, so the methods were different. OGPU didn't care at all about planting evidence or manipulating witnesses, they could just torture people into signing confessions (called "the queen of all kinds of evidence" by the USSR chief prosecutor). So any similarities are probably just a result of parallel evolution.
- ffgjgf1 3y ago
  Sure the Tsarist regime was very brutal and oppressive however it still had a somewhat functioning and somewhat independent judicial system (of course extrajudicial murder/executions still occurred quite frequently but not even remotely as frequently as in the USSR). But more importantly in this case Nicholas didn’t have nearly as much direct power as Stalin did (he was extremely incompetent as outright stupid as a person) and had to rely on his government to actually make the tough decisions.

> Tsar To be fair you have to go really far to get back to the times when the Tsar could and would execute random people for arbitrary reasons and without that the joke is no longer funny.

mc32 3y ago

Indeed, the later tsars were pretty liberal and were the ones who ended slavery/serfdom in the Russian empire.

ak217 3y ago
Tsar, singular. One tsar was relatively liberal, Alexander II. He did well under the circumstances, but his good deeds were overwhelmed by the imperial family and system that he was a part of.

082349872349872 3y ago

> ...go really far to get back... While I did appreciate Ivan Grozny seeing the Repin painting in Shurik's apartment in Ivan Vasilevich menyaet professiyu (1973), I was a bit disappointed in that (at least with the youtube version?) the actor turned his back before crossing himself in the elevator, which would've told us if Gaidai knew/cared about Old Believer sibboleths.

cyberax 3y ago

The last czar (Nickolas II) was pretty brutal. He instigated a reign of terror after the failed revolution in 1905. Vladimir Korolenko described it pretty well in "Everyday Phenomenon" (1910), and "Features of Military Justice".

082349872349872 3y ago
As I understand it, the KGB inherited their dirty tricks bag from the Cheka, whose members had learned them the hard way from being on the receiving end, taught by the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Okhrana https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Okhrana .
- cyberax 3y ago
  Not really. The USSR did not allow any members of the Imperial police to join the USSR secret service (it was initially called OGPU). They also functioned quite differently, the Imperial security had never had a fraction of OGPU's power, so the methods were different. OGPU didn't care at all about planting evidence or manipulating witnesses, they could just torture people into signing confessions (called "the queen of all kinds of evidence" by the USSR chief prosecutor). So any similarities are probably just a result of parallel evolution.
ffgjgf1 3y ago
Sure the Tsarist regime was very brutal and oppressive however it still had a somewhat functioning and somewhat independent judicial system (of course extrajudicial murder/executions still occurred quite frequently but not even remotely as frequently as in the USSR). But more importantly in this case Nicholas didn’t have nearly as much direct power as Stalin did (he was extremely incompetent as outright stupid as a person) and had to rely on his government to actually make the tough decisions.