(continued from page 29)

The execution does appear to bear a striking resemblance to the masonic Third Degree ritual.  I am not a member myself but I am very close to some who are and I feel that I must apologize at this point if anyone might find this interpretation of the facts in evidence in any way offensive. My only purpose is to find the truth and get it out there in the open where it must be seen.  I am reminded here of the old legal maxim that "justice must not only be done, it must be seen to be done".

There were at least a few members of the Masonic Order involved in our story.  The second head of the Provisional Government, Alexander Kerensky, was known to be a member of The Craft.  He fled the Bolsheviks in 1917 and died in New York in 1970. 

After the Second World War ended our Alexei had a private audience with King Gustav V of Sweden who was crowned in the latter half of the nineteenth century and was on the throne until the middle of the twentieth when he died at the age of ninety-two.  King Gustav knew the Tsarevich before the revolution and recognized him without question.  In 1947 King Gustav was the Honourary Past Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of England.

There are too many military men in this story to begin naming them all but it was very common at the time for soldiers to be Masons.  Kaiser Wilhelm II was not known to be a member of the Grand Lodge of the Orient which was active in Germany, but his father and grandfather were both members.  I also note with some interest that Wilhelm struck up an instant friendship with U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt... who was a mason.  History makes it clear that the man who was president during the First World War, Woodrow Wilson, did not like the Kaiser at all.  Wilson was not in The Craft.

But what about the Bolsheviks?  There is something very curious about the dates that Lenin chose to overthrow Russia's Provisional Government.  On the evening of the seventh day of November 1918 the battle cruiser Aurora drew up in front of the Winter Palace and fired a single shot.  (As an aside here I cannot resist pointing out that the very first shot fired in the Bolshevik Revolution WAS A BLANK!)  The few ministers remaining in the palace gave up without a fight and the first full day of the Bolshevik régime was November 8th.  That same date marks the commemorative day of the Patron Saints of the Building Trades.  Those saints are known as the Four Crowned Martyrs.  Masons know them as the Quatuor Coronati... the same name that identifies the Research Lodge of England.  There is probably nothing in Lenin's choice of dates, but it does seem a bit odd.

Let me go back to the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk for a moment.  What does etiquette dictate is the first thing that people on either side of a dispute will do before they sit down at the negotiating table?  The answer is that they shake hands.  Even if they are enemies at war, the instant one Freemason grasps the hand of another he knows by that handshake that he is dealing with a brother in the Craft.  Without even saying a word, the atmosphere in that meeting room has been changed by that secret signal.

I have explained earlier in this tale that if you want to be sure that something will be kept hidden then you should NEVER WRITE IT DOWN.  The Masons constitute what is acknowledged to be the largest secret society in the world.  For centuries, they have been the past masters at handing down secrets of handshakes and code words and it has always been by word of mouth alone.  That is the very best way to keep a secret.

© J. Kendrick 1997                                                                                                                                            (Continued on page 31)