It seemed innocent enough to start. “In 1919, Lenin had all of Moscow’s Boy Scouts shot. (From John Gray’s ‘Seven types of atheism’).” Gray is a retired scholar of philosophy, not a historian so it sounds legitimate. Unless one looks deeper into the matter. Being as I do have more than a passing interest in the USSR, history and was a Boy Scout, I looked into this claim. On its face it sounds suspect. Why? Boy Scouts? Massacred? They rounded up kids, 12- 15 years old and shot them? And I have not heard of it? Ego aside. Not going to happen that I would not have heard or seen something about this somewhere before in all the reading, research and study I have done.
To wit, I turn you to “Sergei Eisenstein: October Ten Days that Shook the World (1928)” A great film by Russian propagandists on the Winter Revolution. It shows the valiant storming of the Winter Palace and how it was a great victory of the people. Despite being protected by elite troops who knew they would fail in the face of the revolution, so they surrendered with no causalities. While all of that is wrong, it is right sort of. Making it fake news. The peasants, were in fact Soviet troops who prior to rebelling had been front line soldiers on the Eastern Front fighting the Germans. In other words, they were experience veterans who knew how to fight and wage war. The Winter Palace was protected by Elite guards. So one can assume SAS, Green Beret, and SEALs, that sort of Special Forces who can kill with their hands and take on armies by themselves, chew glass, leap tall buildings, basically the expression of military might, agility and alacrity that can easily hold off the assault by mere peasants. In fact, this was protected not by one but two special units of troops. Really? Yes really. They had the circus squad filled with odd type people like a modern day freak show; Dwarfs and bearded ladies  such like. But they were in the army so they qualified as special soldiers. Okay, maybe not them then, but what of the other Elite unit that was stationed to guard the Palace? Well they were the personal bodyguards of the Czarina, an all female personal bodyguard, who were trained to shot pistols. Sort of like the training a modern police officer might have. Lastly, the part about the no casualty claim that they made? In fact there was one; a minor injury. Best as can be explained. One of the so called “peasants” saw an elite lady bodyguard and pinched her behind. She promptly turned around and kicked him very hard in the special male spot. He went down and she returned to be marched out the gate. See how the words used while seemingly correct are misleading into fake news?
Before return to the subject, we must admit this is not something the Russian would not do. In fact, in May and June, 1940, the Katyn Massacre was an example of just this sort of behavior, the Russians killing officers, nobles and their children, including a bunch of children from a Polish military high school. So, they could very well have lined up a bunch of kids, boy scouts, to a wall in 1919 and shot them all dead.
With those two stories in mind, let us return to Boy Scouts of Russia. Today, anyone can join; rich or poor, male or female and all colors and ethnic background. There is even a troop of boy scouts for gay members. This is completely and totally not the case for Russia. The Boy Scouts were for the sons of the rich and nobles, and no one else. Those same sons who would take up arms to lead the Czars troops into battle as the officer corps, be the leaders of the resistance to the new rule by Lenin and would be expected to cause trouble. Thus many of them would have been otherwise out of town; either in prison camps, (German) at the front, (Russia side), dead, or horrible injured. The few that remained and emphasis on the word few, those who survived the brutal fighting on the Eastern Front after 4 years of war were no longer teens but battle trained and hardened men. These men were also the leaders of the White Army resisting the takeover by the socialists/communists aka the Red Army. So even if they might have been innocent in their actions, some might not have been trying to overthrow the government, they were class traitors as well by being part of the rich or noble class. People traditionally opposed to this government of the Soviets.
So yes, they did order the death of these men, who would be ordered, put to death for rebellion, treason and host of other things. They ordered them to their death for being boy scouts, because it was from that rank that leaders emerged who were thwarting the Revolution not for being able to learn how to tie a sheep-shank knot. They were killed for trying to taint the revolution, not for doing a “good deed” each day.
The result is this; anyone reading the first report will see the nuisances are more important than the headline as the headline clearly does not tell the full story and easily can mislead the uninformed. They did not line up a bunch of kids, boy scouts, but ordered men put to death who would be leaders in rebellion.

See why is fake news and the other is history?