There doesn't need to be a good side in a battle. The communists were evil. The czars were... at least, extremely incompetent; and their screw-ups also cost lives... at the end, including their own.
To simplify it a lot, for the last two or three centuries before the communist revolution, the czars couldn't make up their mind about what type of country they wanted to have, so they kept radically changing policies every generation. On one hand, they wanted absolute tyranny, Asia-style. On the other hand, they wanted material progress just like in the West. So, one day they opened many schools, allowed independent press, hoping that this will bring progress and wealth. Then, ten or twenty years later, they panicked, seeing that there was too much independent thought and heresy, so they closed all those schools and put all journalists in prison. Then again, ten or twenty years later, they decided they needed some progress and prosperity, so they opened the schools and allowed the press again... then banned everything again... then allowed everything again... then banned again... and so on, for centuries. If you keep giving people freedoms and then taking them away, they will be pissed off way more than someone who was consistently oppressed for generations. The pre-communist Russia had tons of potential revolutionaries, and strong oppressive secret police to keep control over everything.
The last czar deserves a Darwin award, because he was repeatedly warned about the danger of communists and asked for permission to crush them mercilessly (that is, to apply more than just the usual routine persecution of everyone), but instead he fired the boss of the secret police, accusing him of wasting resources on trivialities and ignoring the real danger -- the Jews. (The Protocols of the Elders of Zion were published in Russia in 1903.)
Then, WW1 happened, and communists got the extremely intelligent and ruthless leader Lenin, who promised everyone whatever they wanted, made alliances, broke all promises, kept stabbing all his former allies in the back as he was making new allies, until he got to the top. Then he established his own version of secret police which, after many rebrandings, still remains one of the pillars of Russia, surviving even the fall of communism. And yes, it is a "coincidence" that many celebrities of the revolution were also upper middle class intellectuals of the previous regime. (Except for Stalin, I think.)
And in some sense this yes-then-no-then-yes-then-no style of government persisted during communism and later, as if it's inextricably a part of Russian politics no matter the regime. Peasants were considered the enemies of progress, then the driving force of progress; capitalism was evil, then good, then evil, then good, then evil again; etc.
As the French saying goes, the more things change, the more they stay the same.
To simplify it a lot, for the last two or three centuries before the communist revolution, the czars couldn't make up their mind about what type of country they wanted to have, so they kept radically changing policies every generation. On one hand, they wanted absolute tyranny, Asia-style. On the other hand, they wanted material progress just like in the West. So, one day they opened many schools, allowed independent press, hoping that this will bring progress and wealth. Then, ten or twenty years later, they panicked, seeing that there was too much independent thought and heresy, so they closed all those schools and put all journalists in prison. Then again, ten or twenty years later, they decided they needed some progress and prosperity, so they opened the schools and allowed the press again... then banned everything again... then allowed everything again... then banned again... and so on, for centuries. If you keep giving people freedoms and then taking them away, they will be pissed off way more than someone who was consistently oppressed for generations. The pre-communist Russia had tons of potential revolutionaries, and strong oppressive secret police to keep control over everything.
The last czar deserves a Darwin award, because he was repeatedly warned about the danger of communists and asked for permission to crush them mercilessly (that is, to apply more than just the usual routine persecution of everyone), but instead he fired the boss of the secret police, accusing him of wasting resources on trivialities and ignoring the real danger -- the Jews. (The Protocols of the Elders of Zion were published in Russia in 1903.)
Then, WW1 happened, and communists got the extremely intelligent and ruthless leader Lenin, who promised everyone whatever they wanted, made alliances, broke all promises, kept stabbing all his former allies in the back as he was making new allies, until he got to the top. Then he established his own version of secret police which, after many rebrandings, still remains one of the pillars of Russia, surviving even the fall of communism. And yes, it is a "coincidence" that many celebrities of the revolution were also upper middle class intellectuals of the previous regime. (Except for Stalin, I think.)
And in some sense this yes-then-no-then-yes-then-no style of government persisted during communism and later, as if it's inextricably a part of Russian politics no matter the regime. Peasants were considered the enemies of progress, then the driving force of progress; capitalism was evil, then good, then evil, then good, then evil again; etc.
As the French saying goes, the more things change, the more they stay the same.