Today, July 17th 2013, marks 95 years since the assassination of the Tsar Nicholas II, his wife, children, and most of their household at the hands of the Bolsheviks in the Russian town of Yekaterinburg following a period of imprisonment. This marked the end of the Russian autocracy and the start of the road to Communism in Russia. Many were pleased to see the Tsar go, but how well had he performed as Tsar? Below the cut: the problems facing Nicholas II in his reign as ruler, how effectively he played his role, and the eventual lead-up to the demise of himself and his family.
The late imperial Russia of 1894 was one of political backwardness, social unrest and economic failure. Despite the attempts at reform from numerous previous rulers including Alexander II (emancipator of the serfs) the country still dragged far behind the rest of the world in terms of modernisation and revolution, as a strict autocratic regime remained aided in its oppression by the seemingly medieval Orthodox Church. Amidst all of this, Nicholas II abruptly ascended to the throne, taking upon himself the challenge of transforming the nation and meeting the anticipation and the hopes of the one hundred and thirty million subjects he presided over.
Nicholas had grown up in the shadow of his father, Alexander III. At the peak of his power in his late 40s, many started comparing Alexander III to Alexander the Great, largely due to his no-nonsense approach to governance and his dedication to patriotism and policies such as Russification. Nicholas, in contrast, was described generally as pleasant and was clearly very intelligent with excellent schooling, but had been brought up far from the throne. He had not thought to become Tsar so soon, and his father had stalled in preparing him for such a role for the same reason.
Nicholas's Inheritance
Russia was a difficult country to govern largely due to its huge diversity and geographical size. As Russia had expanded and assimilated other cultures, so too had it gained people of differing nationalities and languages. The variety in ethnicity made it difficult for Nicholas to communicate with all of his subjects and for them to communicate with each other as no 'official' language united them. There was no education to speak of so it is unlikely that the people could learn any language other than their own. It could be said that the only thing holding the fabric of the country together was the Tsar, but it is important to realise that the peasantry were the backbone of Russian society.
However the peasants had their own problems, as they were still paying off the redemption payments to their landlords that had started prior to their 'freeing' in 1861 at the hands of Alexander II. They were largely responsible for the cultivation of the land, but the agricultural methods were in dire need of modernisation, with no machinery to speak of. Little had been done to tackle the problem of regular droughts and famines and unsuitable temperatures that Russia faced all year round. In addition the working and living conditions of the peasantry and particularly the working classes were appalling: most died in the same villages they were born in and faced regular famines. The industrial workers from the cities lived in workhouses where they shared beds with several other people and worked long shifts.
Discontent against the Tsarist regime came from all angles: the middle classes, who wanted press freedom; the working classes, who wanted better living and working conditions; the political activists, who wanted the Russian people to have a voice; and the members of various ethnic groups, including the Jews, who were subject to discrimination. This was mainly owing to the fact that the ruling classes (consisting of the Tsar, the royal family and the ministers, and who made up a miniscule 0.5% of the population) were so distant from the classes below them.
Russia was also developing very slowly economically, especially when compared to the super-powers of the time such as the United States and Britain, where major industrial growth was setting in. It was not that Russia did not have any industry (in fact reasonable amounts of iron, cotton and coal were being produced all around the country) but each link was too small scale to form any kind of major network. The lack of developed transport systems across Russia's great terrain made it near impossible to support the take off of industrial expansion, despite the Trans-Siberian railway.
At this point in time, even as the rest of the world was on the brink of the twentieth century, Russia was still functioning under a feudal system the likes of which had not been seen in Britain since the Middle Ages. Here, it was considered tradition that the country should be run in this way, as the Romanov Dynasty had ruled Russia for centuries. The regime was heavily autocratic (kept by Nicholas in a vow to stay true to his father's policies, as well as a way of sustaining the so-called 'Russian Character'), supported further by the Russian Orthodox Church. Unlike the religious bodies of the other nations, the Orthodox Church was independent from papal authority, and thus was deeply conservative. As a result the lower classes were constantly fed the idea that the Tsar had been appointed by God. This acted as a useful system of suppression, as the peasantry became suspicious of change despite that the fact that they may benefit from it.
Revolutionary extremism was already well established by the time Nicholas ascended to the throne in 1894, encouraged by the successful assassination of Tsar Alexander II in 1881. The Social Democrats demanded radical change with a switch to communism, following the theories of Karl Marx and building towards a future in which the peasantry would rule. Whilst relatively peaceful, there were particularly activist bodies such as the Socialist Revolutionaries that aimed to kill off the ruling classes to achieve such ends. Others simply wanted the public to have a say in the running of the country. Whatever the view point, at this time there was no stage for political debate in Russia, and this as well as the growing discontent amongst the majority classes meant that tensions were becoming fraught.
Problem solving
Perhaps the most successful thing Nicholas did as Tsar was to appoint Sergei Witte as his Minister of Finance, which went part of the way to dealing with the economic problems facing Russia. Witte sought to modernise the economy so it could compete with other nations worldwide. The evidence of his success is in the figures: coal production quadrupled in the years between 1890 and 1910 and steal production increased from 390,000 tonnes to 3,314,000 tons over the same twenty year period. This led to an improved railway system in order to move equipment and troops. Nicholas allegedly did not share Witte's enthusiam for reform but it is important that he saw the potential in Witte, and this support helped achieved 'The Great Spurt' of the 1890s and massive economic growth in the country.
Nicholas also agreed to concessions in 1905. By this time Nicholas's reputation as 'The Little Father' had all but vanished and opposition was beginning to unite against him. His ministers, seeing that the autocratic hold on the country was weakening, urged him to give in and compromise with the people. Nicholas relented and agreed to the creation of a legislative Duma, which would become Russia's first elected parliament. He also legalised trade unions, allowed freedom of speech, assembly and worship, and granted political parties the right to exist. This pleased the Liberals. He diminished the redemption payments of the peasants, which paved the way for their eventual abolition under Nicholas too.
Nicholas's policy of Russification -- pushing the Russian language to the forefront and encouraging the non-Russian minorities to adopt the Russian way of life -- whilst fairly harsh, could be seen as an attempt to deal with the issues surrounding the melting pot of cultures and societies that made governance a little tougher. It could be viewed as an effort on Nicholas's part to make the country more unified. Although he perhaps did not go about it the right way, he at least recognised that the problem existed.
Factors in Nicholas's downfall
The Russo-Japanese war and Russia's failed attempts to expand into China were undoubtedly large stains on Nicholas's reputation as Tsar. They only highlighted how inferior Russia was as a military force, as Japan easily defeated them with their extremely up-to-date fleet.
Bloody Sunday, in which peasants attempting to present a petition to Nicholas were brutally gunned down by the army, essentially shattered any remaining illusion that Nicholas was a godly, father-like ruler and only encouraged political activists to present him as incapable and careless.
Russification as a general policy, whilst perhaps moral in its intentions, only achieved a greater distance between the different cultures living in Russia. Jews especially received a harsh treatment. Russian authorities encouraged the public to treated the Jewish community with hostility. They became easy scapegoats for and a distraction from the social problems circling in the country.
Ultimately Nicholas weathered the storm of the 1905 uprising, but once it had died down he soon began to go back on some of these promises and as a result by 1917 nobody could trust his word. He created the Duma yet rendered it worthless by giving it no power and reinstated the autocratic regime despite his promises to grant the people their freedoms.
One of the most commonly cited causes for Nicholas's fall from grace is the interference of Rasputin in royal affairs. Many felt that with Nicholas dealing with the war and Rasputin in cohort with the Empress, the power was being held elsewhere. It is important to note however that the Russian public were unaware of the young prince Alexei's condition of haemophilia, which was the very reason that Rasputin was in court at all.
World War 1 took its toll on the stability of the country in general but also on Nicholas's leadership. Whilst in the 1905 he had retained the support of the army, he led the charge in the War and as such any losses were blamed directly on him. The general consensus was that the war should be ended, but the ruling classes knew that the could not do without the money they were gaining from staying in the conflict.
The tempting promises of the Bolsheviks were also key in the downfall of the last Tsar -- 'Peace, Bread and Land' sounded good to many of the Russian people, and it is likely that this pull factor added to the reasons for them why Nicholas had to go. Lenin, unlike Nicholas, realised that the peasantry held the power and thus appealed directly to them. Thus the Bolsheviks faced no resistance when they stormed the Winter Palace in the beginning of the October Revolution; the people were making their choice.
Conclusion
The public generally expected great things from Nicholas, including reform, but in effect he did almost the opposite. Witte's reforms were a start but even they were not a simple fix for the outdated political system. Political opposition multiplied over the course of Nicholas's reign and were key in the 1905 revolution, which Nicholas only survived due to the sound advice from his ministers and the decision to make concessions. In the end he had lost all of his support: the army had deserted him; the peasantry and the workers did not trust his word any longer; even the elite classes urged him to abdicate all responsibility to his brother or his young son. The former refused and the latter was too ill to take charge, and as such the Provisional Government (a combination of the Duma and the Soviets) stepped in and exiled the royal family, initially for their own safety. On July 17th 1918, in their final safe-house in Yekaterinburg, the family and their household were executed
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