Who killed Tsar Nicholas II and his family in 1918?

Answer 1

Members of the Bolshevik Red Army killed them in July 1918 during the Russian Civil War. The Tsar and his family were being held in Yekaterinburg when their captors learned that a Czech unit of the Russian White Army was nearby and perhaps on its way to free him and his family. The Bolsheviks killed the entire family so that there would be no possibility that the Tsar or any of his heirs could be restored to the throne.

Answer 2

The Russian Civil War became the catalyst for the murder of Tsar Nicholas II.

He had already abdicated his throne in March 1917 after the February Revolution; however the Provisional Government had planned to send him and his family to England so he was kept alive but under guard. When Lenin and the Bolsheviks seized control of the government in the October Revolution, custody of the Tsar and his family was turned over to the Bolsheviks.

In 1918, the Russian Civil War broke in earnest and the Bolsheviks (actually a unit of their secret police the Cheka) held the Tsar in a house in Ekaterinberg. A Czech division of the White Russian Army was approaching the town and about to surround it. In order to prevent the White Army from rescuing and perhaps restoring the Tsar to the throne, Lenin decided to kill the Tsar and his family in order to prevent the White Army and its supporters from using the deposed Tsar as a banner for their cause.