Why was the Romanov family executed?

[Astonished]

Sorry, but if you'd gut children because being poor sucks and they just happened to be born rich, you're not worth the air you breathe. Now, you're probably being hyperbolic, which is understandable. Poverty is tough. If you're not, maybe see a psychiatrist?

Depends how old. And what method I'm using to do it; if I've got a minigun or rocket launcher trained on the family and they're all clustered together it's not like I'm not going out of my way to aim judiciously.

But even if they did get spared, what then? Witnessing their family's execution, ending up in an orphanage in the same shitty poverty they had a few years' borrowed time against during their first few years of luxury, unlike the commoners beneath them, and stigmatized for life because of their name (if not actively targeted for more direct retaliation immediately or later)? Not really much more merciful (but then having gone through that kind of shit, I know more about it than the average person.) Granted I don't have anyone hunting me down because my family fucked over a whole country but prospects aren't exactly positive. Just doesn't seem to make much difference if you make a clean sweep of the scourge or not. At least not when you look at it critically.