Grigorii Yefimovich Rasputin

[Aerosolhalos]

What's the general consensus of him around here? Holy hedonistic hero? Or demonic dynasty destroying dick? (I like alliterations).

[BlueBong83]

Almost a tabloidish non-entity when you come down to it...
The only reason we remember him was because the Russians were desperate to pin a face on the incompetence of the tsarist bureacracy.

[samson]

Actually, Rasputin has quite the influence on the politic of his day, and even down to a great little story about his attempt to warn a relative of the Czar just before he was killed. The relative...Archduke Ferdinand, who we all know was also assasinated beginning a snowball effect that led to at least two world wars.

He was however, one creepy looking bastage! Not to mention notoriously hard to kill.

[BraveSirRubin]

Well, he partially led to the assasination of the Czars, and then to the uprising of Communism. Russia would have been the strongest and probebly most advanced country in th world if it was not for Communism... so he did not benefit Russia historically.

[Aerosolhalos]

Well, he partially led to the assasination of the Czars, and then to the uprising of Communism. Russia would have been the strongest and probebly most advanced country in th world if it was not for Communism... so he did not benefit Russia historically.
Are you sure? As of 1910, the majority of Russians outside the upper classes were still illiterate.. many in rural areas actually worshipped the Tsar as some form of earth-bound deity.. Russian troops went in on horseback with swords and one-shot rifles up against the Germans, who had tanks, chemical warfare and an advanced air force. Russia was probably in many ways 100 years behind the rest of the West.. their modernization came by Stalin's iron hand, paid for by blood.

[BraveSirRubin]

Are you sure? As of 1910, the majority of Russians outside the upper classes were still illiterate.. many in rural areas actually worshipped the Tsar as some form of earth-bound deity.. Russian troops went in on horseback with swords and one-shot rifles up against the Germans, who had tanks, chemical warfare and an advanced air force. Russia was probably in many ways 100 years behind the rest of the West.. their modernization came by Stalin's iron hand, paid for by blood.
If there was no Staln, then Germany would not have felt itself pressured to attack Russia and Hitler would have never come to power. No one would fight tanks agianst cavarly. The lower class could have just as easily been educated, if they would have wanted to. Stalin just murdered them instead of educating them. Stalin did not modernize Russia, he militarized it, paying by blood, yes.

If intellegence was to rule instead of power and hunger for blood, then all inventions and such would be developed on a peaceful basis as they should be, and not forced by war.

[Aerosolhalos]

If there was no Staln, then Germany would not have felt itself pressured to attack Russia and Hitler would have never come to power. No one would fight tanks agianst cavarly. The lower class could have just as easily been educated, if they would have wanted to. Stalin just murdered them instead of educating them. Stalin did not modernize Russia, he militarized it, paying by blood, yes.

If intellegence was to rule instead of power and hunger for blood, then all inventions and such would be developed on a peaceful basis as they should be, and not forced by war.

I am in NO WAY defending Stalin. Personally I think the best system for Russia would have been to continue under the liberal Kerensky government, perhaps reintroducing the Romanovs as ceremonial figureheads. I'm just arguing with the above poster that claimed the Revolution set back "the most advanced nation in the world", which is hardly the case.

[BraveSirRubin]

I did not say that they were the most advanced. I said that they had the potential.

[Burbot]

What's the general consensus of him around here? Holy hedonistic hero? Or demonic dynasty destroying dick? (I like alliterations).
technically he want hedonistic...he believed that through confession of sins, God loves you [this is acctually a sect, not something he made up], so then the more he sinned and confessed, the more God loves him...

[Casperthesheet]

I'd just like to say that he was one tough son of a b****. After being poisoned, shot, beaten, sodomized, casterated and thrown into under the ice of a frozen river while being bound and gagged they still found rope marks on his wrists from trying to get escape while underwater. Scary stuff indeed.

[Nimrod's Apprentice]

Rasputin just dicked all the Romanovs cuz they were dirty sluts, and the man had a horse cock. Don't know why Hustler hasnt made a video yet.

[Aerosolhalos]

That Rasputin had a sexual relationship with any of the royal family is very doubtful, most likely propaganda spread by various revolutionary and/or anti-tsarist groups. Alexandria was too much of a prude to even get exceptionally freaky with her own husband, nonetheless a Siberian monk.