NICHOLAS II

O ther books by the author

Russia and the Origins of the First World War

Russia’s Rulers under the Old Regime
The Aristocracy in Europe, 1815-1914
NICHOLAS II
Twilight o f the Empire

DOMINIC LIEYEN

St. M artin s Press

New York
 N ic h o la s ii. Copyright 1993 by Dominic Lieven.
All rights reserved. Printed in the United States o f
America. No part o f this book may be used or reproduced
in any manner whatsoever without w ritten permission
except in the case o f brief quotations embodied in critical
articles or reviews. For information, address St. M artins
Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, N ew York, N.Y. 10010.

Library o f Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Lieven, D. C. B.
Nicholas II : tw ilight o f the Empire / Dominic Lieven.
p. cm.
ISBN 0-312-10510-X
1. Nicholas II, Emperor o f Russia, 1868-1918. 2. Russia— Kings
and rulers— Biography. 3. Russia— History— Nicholas II, 1894-1917.
I. Title.
DK258.L46 1994
947.08'3'092— dc20 [B] 93-37269 CIP

First published in Great Britain by John M urray (Publishers) Ltd.

First U.S. Edition : January 1994

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
For Maxie
 Contents

Illustrations viii
Preface ix

1. The Inheritance 1
2. Childhood and Youth 22
3. Tsar and Family Man 44
4. Ruling Russia, 1894-1904 68
5. Autocratic Government 102
6. The Years of Revolution, 1904-1907 132
7. Constitutional Monarch? 1907-1914 161
8. The W ar, 1914-1917 204
9. After the Revolution, 1917-1918 234
10. Then and Now 247

Notes 263
Index 284
 Illustrations

1. The Emperor Alexander III

2. The Empress Marie and her sister, Queen Alexandra of England
3. The Anichkov Palace in Petersburg
4. Nicholas and Alexandra in 1894
5. The Empress Alexandra
6. The Winter Palace in Petersburg
7. The young Emperor relaxing at a country retreat
8. Nicholas's study in his small 'palace' at Peterhof
9. The Alexander Palace at Tsarskoe Selo
10. The imperial yacht, the Standart
11. The new palace at Livadia
12. Serge W itte
13. Nicholas during his state visit to France in 1896
14. Pilgrims and police await the Tsar's arrival at Sarov
15. General Aleksei Kuropatkin
16. The Tauride Palace, home of the Duma
17. Peter Stolypin with his family
18. Nicholas with George V of England, c. 1909
19. Vladimir Kokovstov
20. Peter Duraovo
21. Michael Akimov
22. Ivan Goremykin
23. Nicholas with his cousin, the Grand Duke Nicholas
24. Nicholas and the Tsarevich Aleksei
25. Nicholas and his children with officers of the Cossack escort
26. Nicholas and Aleksei visit the armies of General Brusilov, c. 1916
27. The imperial family shortly before the revolution
28. The imperial family in captivity at Tobolsk
The author and publishers would like to thank the Hulton Deutsch Col­
lection for permission to reproduce Plates 1 and 28.
 Preface

In recent years there have been a number of biographies of Nicholas II.

W hy then is another one necessary? The answer is that this book has aims
very different to those of its predecessors. The latter have concentrated
their attention on Nicholas as family man, father of a haemophiliac heir,
protector of Rasputin, or victim of the tragedy at Ekaterinburg in July
1918. Some of these books have fulfilled the tasks set by their authors
admirably. Robert Massie’s work, Nicholas and Alexandra (London, 1968),
was a sensitive and moving study of Nicholas and Alexandra’s marriage
and, above all, of their fate as parents of a haemophiliac child. In The Last
Tsar (London and New York, 1992), Edvard Radzinsky unearthed a great
deal of fascinating new material on the murder of the imperial family. But
neither Massie nor Radzinsky ever claimed to be writing a study of
Nicholas not just as a man but also as Emperor, politician and head of
government, which is the main task of this book.
The closest equivalent to my book is the work of Andrew Veraer, pub­
lished in 1990 and entitled The Crisis o f Russian Autocracy. As its sub-title,
Nicholas H and the 1905 Revolution, suggests, the subject of Vemer’s book
is much narrower than this one. Vemer’s work is an interesting and intelli­
gent study, and it includes useful material from the former Soviet archives.
But, quite apart from its narrower scope, both Vemer’s premises and his
conclusions are rather different to mine.
The basic premise of this book is that it is worth presenting to the public
a view of the life and reign of Nicholas II very different to the one
commonly held either in the West or in Soviet Russia. To say that this
book is more sympathetic than most to Russia’s last monarch does not
mean that it is an attempt to whitewash Nicholas II or to deny that he was
by personality and temperament in many ways ill-suited to the task which
fate called upon him to perform. Still less does it attempt to absolve the last
Romanov sovereign from responsibility for a number of important errors
committed during his reign. W hat I do intend is to attack the trivialization
X Preface

of Nicholas and his regime, and to question the unthinking imposition of

Western liberal or socialist assumptions and values on the history of late
Imperial Russia.
This book is very much a study of the reign as well as the man. It
attempts to understand Nicholas’s personality but also the system of
government over which he presided and the empire which he ruled. Russia
in the last decades of the empire was a fascinating, vibrant but by no means
happy society. Unless one understands its problems and the political con­
text in which Nicholas II operated, his ideas and actions are bound to seem
incomprehensible, trivial and absurd to the Western observer. In fact,
there was rather more sense and logic behind them than is usually
imagined.
One basic aim of this book is to explain just how difficult and contra­
dictory were the problems facing Russia’s rulers in this era. Another is to
Alústrate how Russian government actually functioned, in the process
showing what were the limits of a tsar’s power and why in particular
Nicholas II found it so difficult to use that power effectively. Throughout
this book I have tried to make wide-ranging comparisons between
Nicholas II and the Russian monarchy on the one hand, and monarchs and
monarchical systems of government elsewhere in the nineteenth and twen­
tieth centuries on the other. Like the history of other nations, that of
Russia can benefit greatly from international comparisons. One can under­
stand quite a lot about the personality, dilemmas and options of Nicholas II
by looking, for instance, at Imperial Germany, Japan or Iran. These com­
parisons will seldom provide definitive answers to questions concerning
Nicholas’s personality or reign. But they may well challenge assumptions,
open up new visions, and simply give a shake to historians locked into the
traditional debates of a particular nation’s history or obsessed by issues or
approaches which seem ‘relevant’ to their generation of scholars. Putting
in an international, comparative perspective some of the major issues of
Nicholas’s reign - the Rasputin affair, for instance - is one way in which
I have tried to challenge some traditional views of Nicholas and his regime.
Even well-trodden territory can look different when viewed from a balloon
rather than from the traditional national hill-top. Indeed, in my view the
only way to say something genuinely interesting and new about Nicholas’s
political role is by resorting on frequent occasions to the comparative
approach.
In recent years Russia has, to put things mildly, been in the news. The
Soviet regime, seemingly so immovable, has disintegrated in peacetime in
the course of a crisis lasting only a handful of years. The entire Soviet era
has come and gone during a single lifetime. Having spent much time in the
last decade teaching and writing on contemporary Soviet politics, the
parallels between the decline and fall of the imperial and Soviet regimes
 Preface xi

have always struck me powerfully. The last chapter of this book is devoted
in part to drawing these parallels and judging their validity and usefulness.
In addition, I have attempted to place both contemporary events and the
reign of Nicholas II within a broader interpretation of the whole of
Russian history.
This book has been written by someone who has spent most of his
scholarly career ferreting in libraries and archives in order to understand the
history of late Imperial Russia. But for the last few years this task has been
supplemented by the requirement to explain to students and, largely
through the press, to a bewildered public the events surrounding the
collapse of Soviet Communism. Liberated for the last eight months from
Britain’s besieged university system, I have been able to pause for reflection
and to indulge an interest in subjects seemingly remote from the history of
Imperial Russia or the collapsing Soviet regime. This book, written in one
of Tokyo’s quietest comers, is the product of these months.
I could not have written the book without my wife’s encouragement or
the support provided to me in her country. I owe great thanks first and
foremost to Caroline Knox, Grant McIntyre, Gail Pirkis and my British
publishers, John Murray, but also to Mr Tsuneo Taguchi and my Japanese
publishers, Nihon Keizai Shimbun. I am very grateful for support from
Hambros Bank (London), IDS International (Minneapolis), the Fair
Foundation (Tokyo), the Government of Japan (Ministry of Finance) and
Kampo (Tokyo). Professors K. Hirano and K. Nakai, together with the
whole International Relations Department of the University of Tokyo,
provided me with an office, as well as other help. The staff at Tokyo
University’s many libraries and at Harvard University’s Widener Library
were also friendly and very helpful. D r Michael Hughes, formerly of
the London School of Economics and now of Brunei University, was an
invaluable ally and research assistant in this and other projects. The
Director of the LSE, D r John Ashworth, kindly permitted my escape to
Japan, and Professor Gordon Smith, on top of his other sorrows as
Convenor of the Government Department, had to busy himself with even
more chores in order to find a replacement for me. Claire Wilkinson, Ros
Tucker and Vanessa Sulch typed the book. And, thanks to the inventor of
the fax machine, I was able to persecute and exploit my own secretary, Mrs
Marion Osborne, almost as effectively from Tokyo as I had always done
when in London.
Last, but anything but least, my thanks are due to other historians of
Imperial Russia, on whose wisdom and scholarship I have drawn heavily
for this book. In the endnotes I have done no more than provide references
for direct quotations and one or at most two hints about further reading
in the English language on topics I have been discussing. Having worked
in this field for fifteen years, comprehensive notes covering every book or
xii Preface

article I have read on the subject would be longer than the text itself. Since
these sources may not be well known to Russian specialists, I have cited in
rather more detail works on countries other than Russia which I have
found useful for comparative purposes. All dates in this book are rendered
according to the Western calendar, which was twelve days ahead of the
Russian calendar in the nineteenth century and thirteen days in the
twentieth.
 CHAPTER 1

The Inheritance

Nicholas Romanov, the last of Russia’s emperors, was bom on 18 May

1868. As the eldest son of the heir apparent to the Russian throne his
destiny was clear from the moment of his birth. Among his contemporaries
in the 1870s only two men faced an inheritance as awesome as his own.
One was the young Emperor of China, heir to the terrifying Dowager
Empress. He was murdered before he could take up the reins of govern­
ment. The other was the Austrian Crown Prince, Rudolf von Habsburg,
who committed suicide with his mistress at Mayerling in 1889. Nicholas II
lived longer than either of his peers but in the end his fate was to be no
happier.
The empire over which Nicholas II was to reign had been many centuries
in the making. Its earliest origins went back to the tiny principality of
Moscow in the thirteenth century. At that time Moscow was ruled by a
minor branch of the Russian royal dynasty, all members of which traced
their ancestry to the ninth-century Viking chieftain, Rurik, who had
founded the royal house.
The original home of the Rurikid dynasty was Kiev, today the capital of
the Ukraine. It was there that the dynasty’s grand princes lived and there
that the Orthodox Church established its headquarters. By the twelfth
century, however, the power of Kiev’s grand princes was in sharp decline.
Their inheritance had been splintered by divisions between heirs, and the
rival branches of the royal family were in constant conflict with each other.
The Rurikid principalities of southern and western Russia were shattered
by the Tatars in the thirteenth century. In the next two hundred years
their remnants were collected into the Polish-Lithuanian Empire which
grew up on Russia’s western borderlands.
Already in the twelfth century a new centre of Russian power had arisen
amidst the snow and forests of the north-east. As Kiev declined, the grand
princes of Vladimir, a town founded in 1108, emerged as the most power­
ful of R urik’s descendants. Moscow was their creation but for the first
2 Nicholas I I

century and a half of its existence it was a relatively minor possession, ruled
over by a junior descendant of its founder, Grand Prince Yuri Dolgoruky
of Vladimir. Only in the fourteenth century did Moscow become the lead­
ing power of the Russian north-east, ultimately uniting not only the
possessions of the principality of Vladimir but also the whole Rurikid
inheritance and much else besides. But by then Russian life and politics had
been transformed by the Tatar invasions.
Sweeping into Russia in the early thirteenth century, the Tatars
defeated all the Russian princes and devastated their lands. But whereas the
southern and western Russian territories were then absorbed by Lithuania,
in north-eastern Russia descendants of Rurik continued to rule semi-
autonomous principalities under Tatar sovereignty. For two centuries
north-eastern Russia lived under the Tatar yoke, and Tatar approval was
the sine qua non of any Russian principality’s survival. Moscow’s princes
rose to prominence in north-eastern Russia in this era with Tatar consent
and even, at times, outright support. This Moscow won by absolute
obedience, cunning diplomacy and the ruthless collection of taxes to ensure
prompt and generous subsidies to the Tatar khans. In addition, Moscow
out-fought and outwitted its Russian rivals, above all the princes of Tver,
and won for itself the support of the Russian Orthodox Church, whose
patriarchs established themselves in Moscow in the fourteenth century.
The Church came to see the Muscovite princes as the most powerful avail­
able protectors of Orthodoxy and as potential unifiers of Russia’s terri­
tories and her Orthodox flock.
The Muscovite principality was military and despotic. It was not feudal
in the Western sense of the word. In feudal Europe the king and his barons
were linked by a legal contract binding on both sides. England’s Magna
Carta proclaimed that barons had rights vis-à-vis the king and that if these
rights were infringed resistance was legitimate. The ancestors of modem
parliaments were feudal assemblies in which the estates of the realm
gathered to debate whether to grant the king taxes from their own pockets.
In Muscovy neither contracts nor estates bound the rulers’ hands. Princely
power was absolute. Faced by the murderous and increasingly insane
policies of Ivan the Terrible in the sixteenth century, Moscow’s aristocracy
had no legal protection. More important, modem liberalism and demo­
cracy had few roots in ancient Muscovite soil.
In terms, however, of its own priorities the Muscovite political system
was very successful. The prince, who from the mid-fifteenth century called
himself the Tsar, ruled Moscow with the aid of a small group of aristo­
cratic families, whose heads were in general his kinsmen by marriage. In
tribal fashion, relationships within the ruling group were defined not by
law but by face-to-face contacts and family ties. Moscow politics had
something of the air of Al Capone. To outwit rival princely gangs in
 The Inheritance 3

north-eastern Russia, not to mention the Tatars, it was vital for Moscow’s
rulers to stick together and for the prince’s absolute authority to be
recognized. Life was unpleasant for any lieutenant who aroused the boss’s
ire. O n the other hand the princely boss could not rule without his lieu­
tenants. The rewards of unity and ruthlessness were enormous. In six
centuries the tiny principality of Moscow expanded to cover one-sixth of
the world’s land surface. Though individual aristocrats suffered at the
hands of Moscow’s tsars, the leading aristocratic clans survived and were
over the centuries the greatest beneficiaries of tsarist power and Moscow’s
expansion. O n this brilliantly successful example of gangster politics the
Orthodox Church put a religious and patriotic stamp of approval and
nineteenth-century nationalist historians scattered phrases about Russia’s
unity, power and world-historical destiny. In a sense, of course, they were
right. In the wake of the Tatar invasions the north-east was the only
conceivable base from which a powerful Russian state could have emerged.
In the conditions of medieval north-eastern Russia only the ruthless and
cunning despot had any chance of success.
W ithout the monarchy Moscow’s rise would have been inconceivable.
In Moscow as elsewhere in medieval Christendom the idea reigned that
earthly order reflected divine providence and that the powers-that-be
derived their authority from God. For aristocrat, priest and peasant alike it
was difficult to envisage a form of political authority other than monarchy.
More pragmatically, a powerful monarchy was the only force capable of
preventing rival aristocratic families from unleashing anarchy and civil
war.1
The lesson was made clear in Moscow’s case by the Time of Troubles of
the early seventeenth century. W hen the reigning dynasty died out in the
1590s aristocratic claimants to the throne fought each other and encour­
aged foreign intervention in Russian affairs. Anarchy reigned, borderlands
were lost to Swedes and Poles, and a Polish prince was crowned in
Moscow. A Russian revolt expelled the foreigners and in 1613 elected a
new Tsar, Michael Romanov. The Romanovs were not part of the old
royal clan, descended from Rurik, unlike some of the great aristocratic
families who were to throng their court right down to 1917. They were an
old Moscow aristocratic family, one of whose members had married Ivan
the Terrible. Throughout the three centuries of Romanov rule conserva­
tive and nationalist propagandists were to recall the Time of Troubles as an
era of anarchy and national humiliation, reminding their listeners that such
was the inevitable fate of a Russia in which autocratic power was weak­
ened. Faced with doubters, they pointed to the example of neighbouring
Poland, a once great empire laid low by the lack of a strong monarchy
capable of disciplining aristocratic magnates and deterring foreign inter­
vention in domestic affairs.
4 Nicholas I I

The first two hundred years of their rule were a triumphant period for
the Romanovs. Inheriting a weak country on Europe’s borderlands, by
1814 they had turned it into the continent’s most formidable military
power. Admittedly Russia’s expansion had begun before the Romanovs
acquired the throne. The conquest of Siberia was nearing completion by
1613 and Ivan IV had already broken Tatar power on the river Volga and
opened up the route to the Caspian Sea half a century before Michael
Romanov was crowned. In the seventeenth century, however, the
Romanovs recaptured Smolensk from the Poles and began Russia’s
absorption of the Ukraine. The Russian frontier was pushed further and
further south across the Steppe in the teeth of Tatar raiders from the
Crimea, in the process providing vast and fertile agricultural lands on
which Russians from the barren north-east could settle. In the next cen­
tury Peter I (‘the Great’) established Russia as the leading power in the
Baltic region and Catherine II smashed the Ottoman armies and brought
Russia’s border to the Black Sea. W ith the conquest of southern Siberia
and the Caucasus already well under way by 1800, the Romanovs had
created one of the most formidable expansionist empires the world had
ever seen. In 1812, having subjugated the Hohenzollems and the
Habsburgs, Napoleon invaded Russia in an effort to cement his hold over
all Europe by destroying the continent’s last great independent military
power. Two years later, on 31 March 1814, the Emperor Alexander I rode
down the Champs-Elysées in the French capital as the arbiter of
Europe, followed by the superb regiments of the Russian Guard.2
The Romanovs' empire was based on the principle that every subject
must serve the state and its military power. Peter the Great proclaimed that
the monarch himself was the state’s first servant and devoted his life to
fulfilling this role. Some of his successors, most notably Nicholas I, shared
his sense of duty and dedication. Russian society was divided by law into a
number of ‘estates’, each of which was largely hereditary and was defined
by the type of service it performed. Nobles dominated the army and upper
bureaucracy. The labours of peasant serfs supported the nobility, and
peasants also paid the state’s taxes and were recruited into its armies.
Priests prayed to God and upheld public morals and the people’s loyalty to
the crown. The urban population created wealth, traded, paid taxes and
helped the state to rule the towns.3
By the early eighteenth century some men from ordinary gentry back­
grounds, and a sprinkling of complete outsiders, had risen through state
service and imperial favour into the ranks of the wealthy court aristocracy.
By the 1860s the state’s bureaucracy was increasingly displacing the aristo­
cratic landowning magnates as Russia’s true ruling class. In twentieth-
century urban Russia rapid economic development made the old estate
divisions meaningless. In the countryside, however, nobles, priests and
 The Inheritance 5

peasants still lived entirely distinct lives and remained largely hereditary
social groups. Right down to 1917, moreover, the traditional legal ‘estate*
categories were carried in every Russian subject’s passport and shaped the
way in which conservative Russians thought about their society.
The system of ‘estates’ was one aspect of the Russian government’s
attempt to control Russian society, turning the latter into a mere instru­
ment of the state and its goals. In Russian history a great tension existed
between, on the one hand, the all-devouring and all-controlling state and,
on the other, the freedom of a vast and open frontier. Traditionally, people
were the state’s scarcest and most valuable resource. Unless subjects could
be controlled, taxed and recruited, the state could never compete with its
great-power rivals. Even European Russia, let alone Siberia, was huge and
empty: Russia’s population in 1750 was less than that of Louis XV's
France. The open frontier was a haven to which Russian peasants could
flee from state and landlord, an area beyond the government’s control
from which vast insurrections erupted in the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries. Russia’s empty plains, thick forests and open borders help to
explain the traditional obsession of her rulers with order and control. To
outsiders indeed it sometimes seemed that not only Russian politics but the
Russian personality itself was the seat of an unremitting conflict between
the anarchical freedom of the open frontier and the harsh, authoritarian,
externally imposed order of the state. If in the end, at least in the political
sphere, the state always seemed to win, that had much to do with the fact
that the Russian frontier was very different to the American one. Even the
eighteenth-century conquest of the Bashkirs in southern Siberia required
large military forces. Pushing out Russia’s frontiers against Swedes, Poles
and Turks was a formidable military task. The state and its needs could
never be avoided for long on the frontiers. In time even the cossacks ceased
to be free-living communities on Russia’s boundaries and became the
Tsar’s auxiliary cavalry, bulwarks not just of the state’s external military
glory but also of its authoritarian domestic political order.
The forty years between Napoleon’s abdication in 1814 and Russia’s
entry into the Crimean W ar in 1854 were a period of political stability and
conservatism in the Romanov empire. Countries which win great wars are
seldom likely to question the foundations of their society and government.
Nicholas I, who ruled from 1825 to 1855, believed that serfdom was
immoral and inefficient but, confident in Russia’s external security and her
great-power status, he lacked the motivation to risk radical domestic
reform. Old fears of peasant anarchy if the serf-owners’ power was abol­
ished were reinforced by new worries about the influence of French revolu­
tionary doctrines, in whose name military radicals (the so-called
Decembrists) had attempted a coup d'état in the first days of Nicholas’s
reign. Gradual, cautious though sometimes intelligent reform was the
6 Nicholas I I

watchword of Nicholas’s reign. The Tsar’s chief ideologue was his Minis­
ter of Education, Count Serge Uvarov, who coined the trinity of ‘ortho­
doxy, autocracy and nationality’ as Russia’s answer to liberty, equality and
fraternity. Yet Uvarov was not a blind or thoughtless reactionary. Like
many contemporaries he disliked some of the values which underlay capi­
talist development in Western Europe and feared the social and political
instability it would bring. Like many statesmen in post-war Third W orld
countries he wanted to borrow Western ideas and technology while
preserving as much as possible of the traditions, self-esteem and cohe­
siveness of his own society. But Uvarov’s vision of balanced progress based
on a mix of Russian and European principles was blown apart in 1854-6
during the Crimean W ar.4
Not only Russians but also many foreigners had regarded Nicholas I’s
empire as Europe’s leading military power. Defeat in the Crimea under­
mined the regime’s prestige and its leaders’ self-confidence. During the
war Russian artillery had often been outranged by English and French
rifles. Russian reinforcements took longer to reach the Crimea on foot
from the Russian heartland than British and French reserves travelling
from Western Europe by rail and steamship. Administration and medical
services collapsed under the strain of war and, once deprived of senior
commanders, Russian troops lacked energy and initiative, proving easy
targets for the more mobile allied armies. Underlying all these facts was
one basic point. When a pre-industrial society like Nicholas’s Russia
confronted more modem, educated and industrialized countries like
Britain and France a war’s outcome could not be in doubt. In the wake of
the war few intelligent members of the ruling class could doubt that if
Russia was to remain a European great power it had to modernize itself
quickly. The Tsar’s own son, the Grand Duke Constantine, commented
that *we cannot deceive ourselves any longer; we must say that we are both
weaker and poorer than the first-class powers, and furthermore poorer not
only in material but in mental resources, especially in matters of
administration’.5
In 1855, in the middle of the Crimean W ar, Nicholas I died and was
succeeded by his son, Alexander II. In the sixty-two years that separated
Alexander II’s succession and the fall of the monarchy in 1917 the basic
problem facing Russia’s rulers never changed. For both international and
domestic reasons it was clear that if the empire was to survive it had to
modernize itself rapidly and move into the ranks of the urban and indus­
trial world. Equally obvious was the fact that rapid modernization would
create grave threats to domestic political stability and the regime’s con­
tinued existence. Like politicians and ruling classes throughout history
Russia’s rulers attached a very high priority to their own survival. The
basic dilemma facing Alexander II, Alexander III and Nicholas II was that
 The Inheritance 7

it was impossible to ignore the demands either of external military security

or of internal political stability and that these demands pulled hard in
opposite directions. This helps to explain why the policies and govern­
ments of the last three Romanov monarchs so often seemed crisis-ridden
and at cross purposes.
In its broad outline the dilemma facing the Russian old regime was
sometimes similar to that encountered by many Third World monarchies
since 1945. O f course Russia did not have the vast wealth and tiny popula­
tions which together enabled many Arab monarchies, at least temporarily,
to buy off opposition. But the domestic pressures for rapid modernization
were at least as great in the post-1945 Third World as in old Russia. A
regime which was seen to be hesitant about modernization would quickly
forfeit the sympathy of most elements of educated and urban society.
Attempts to insulate a country from foreign ideas seldom work for long
and destroy any hope of economic and military competitiveness in the
international arena. Even the Soviet regime, despite its formidable indus­
trial and military technology, experienced this truth in the end. Moreover
in the Russian case the educated classes, and above all the aristocracy, were
extremely cosmopolitan, and enforced national isolation was never a
remotely feasible policy for the imperial regime.
Rapid modernization, then as now, was inevitable. But the monarchy
which instigated radical changes in society was itself a highly conservative
institution, whose existence was rooted in the totally un-modem idea that
power and status in society came by divine right and heredity. This was as
true for Nicholas II as it was for Haile Selassie or is for King Hassan of
Morocco. Traditionally monarchies enjoy support from the clergy, the
aristocracy and the peasantry. As a secular society develops, the clergy is
weakened, and the same fate awaits a landowning aristocracy in an increas­
ingly urban and industrial world. Both priests and aristocrats may oppose
the monarchy’s reforms as attacks on their vested interests, but aristocrats
in particular will often wrap up this opposition in liberal and constitu­
tionalist phrases. After all, European liberalism’s oldest roots lie in the
opposition of the feudal aristocracy to the power and pretensions of royal
despots. Meanwhile the awe with which an illiterate, religious and tradi­
tion-bound peasantry regard their monarch may well be dissipated by the
spread of education and exposure to the world outside the village.
At the same time as the monarchy weakens and annoys its traditional
supporters, its policies will create new classes on whose loyalty it cannot
count. Urban and industrial workers, particularly in the first phase of
industrialization, are far less reliable monarchists than are tradition-bound
peasants. Still worse are the growing intellectual, professional and com­
mercial classes. In the eighteenth century enlightened royal despotism was
intellectually fashionable. Since 1789 this has ceased to be true. Particularly
8 Nicholas I I

in a poor country conscious of its backwardness, radical and socialist

doctrines are much more likely to appeal to the new middle classes than are
conservative and royalist ones. The Russian intelligentsia’s attitude to the
Romanovs found many equivalents in the post-war Third World. A king
may well tremble for his dynasty as he watches the growth of this new
middle class. Perhaps the ruler understands that the crown’s only hope for
survival is to abandon its power and take shelter in a contemporary Euro­
pean version of constitutional monarchy. But his country is much poorer
and less stable than those over which modem European monarchs reign.
Will the new political forces which move into the power vacuum left by
the monarchy’s retreat respect and preserve the dynasty? Will they prove
capable of creating stable, coherent government able to carry forward the
programme of modernization? In a state or empire made up of many
different peoples, will not the demise of an absolute monarchy bring about
the disintegration of the country itself? These questions were as relevant
for the rulers of Imperial Russia as for many monarchs in today’s develop­
ing world.6
Unlike contemporary monarchs, however, Russia’s emperors were the
rulers of a great power. For the Russian old regime it was impossible to
resign from the club of great powers. The struggle to join the club had
been intense and costly: membership was vital to the Romanovs’ self­
esteem and their regime’s prestige in Russia. But even had such consider­
ations counted for nothing, resignation would still not have been an
option. In the wicked world of imperialism, great powers that weakened
went to the wall. In 1900 a number of once great empires were near or
even in the grave and the future appeared to belong to a small club of great
powers which dominated, directly or otherwise, the rest of mankind. The
Americas, South-east Asia, Africa, India and Australasia had fallen to
European armies and colonists. The ancient Ottoman, Persian and Chinese
empires were on the verge of dissolution, their final collapse postponed less
by their own strength than by disputes between their would-be imperialist
predators over the division of the spoils. Russia was a great power control­
ling one-sixth of the world’s land surface but by English, French, German
or American standards it was still backward. Would it remain one of the
dub of world leaders or decline into the ranks of disintegrating empires?
During the 1905 revolution, as Russia was threatened with bankruptcy
and the collapse of government, the Tsar’s ambassador in London,
Alexander Benckendorff, was terrified lest the Romanovs’ empire go the
way of Peking and Tehran. The road began with international control over
a bankrupt country’s debts and finances but it ended in national humilia­
tion and disintegration.7
Russia was not Spain or Japan, insulated against the full impact of
great-power rivalries by huge distances or a Pyrenean mountain chain
 The Inheritance 9

along its frontiers. In the late nineteenth century Russia was a full member
of the great-power club with huge indefensible frontiers in an era when the
European balance of power was collapsing and the threat of all-out war
between the continent’s leading powers was becoming more and more
real.
For two centuries before 1914 a rough balance of power existed between
Europe’s leading capitals: London, Paris, Petersburg, Vienna and Berlin.
In the Americas the United States was dominant and in East Asia the same
was traditionally true of China. But in Europe the attempts of any one
state or dynasty to dominate the whole continent had always been beaten
off. First the Spanish Habsburgs, then Louis XIV and finally Napoleon had
tried and failed. By the nineteenth century the balance of power was not
merely a fact but also a theory about how international stability should be
preserved. Most European statesmen believed that the balance preserved
peace and stability because it ensured that any power that sought to
dominate the continent would almost automatically be deterred by a
coalition of other powers determined to stop it. Britain was to the fore in
promoting balance-of-power diplomacy, but there was an element of
hypocrisy in its advocacy. As Europe’s greatest power in the nineteenth
century, it sought sovereignty of the seas and colonial pre-eminence while
checking potential rivals through the pursuit of a balance-of-power policy
on the continent. Nevertheless, the fact that the world’s richest country
supported a balance of power rather than attempting to dominate the
continent contributed greatly to international stability in Victorian
Europe.
In 1871 many of Europe’s German-speaking communities were united
into a single state. In the next four decades the German economy boomed
and Germany supplanted Great Britain as Europe’s leading economic
power. Germany also had Europe’s finest army, its second-largest navy, its
best educational system and its most efficient administration. As its eco­
nomic and political interests grew, Germany began to compete with other
countries in areas which previously the latter had regarded as their special
sphere. W ith Britain this competition was colonial and maritime. W ith
Russia it occurred in the Ottoman Empire and Persia. The fact that, for all
its might, the Kaiser’s Reich contained less than half the world’s Germans
gave food for thought about Germany’s ultimate potential for expansion.8
The threat to the European balance of power was serious. Combined
with the ideas that dominated pre-war Europe it was lethal. In the decades
before 1914 European society had been turned upside down. Peasants
flooded into towns. Mass education and the growth of industry greatly
widened horizons while destroying the old certainties of a village-bound
existence. For many inhabitants of this bewildering new world the nation
replaced God as a focus for their ideals and values, while providing them
10 Nicholas I I

with a sorely needed sense of community. Governments and ruling classes

in general encouraged nationalism in order to unite communities, provide
them with common values, and defeat radical and socialist movements. To
speak of the ‘sacred egoism of the nation’ and of ‘my country right or
wrong’ was intellectually respectable, for nationalism appeared to be the
wave of the future. The belief was widespread that a vigorous and self-
respecting nation must assert itself aggressively and must compete, by war
if necessary, to be the standard-bearer of progress and history.9
Nowhere were such ideas held more strongly than in Germany. Russian
visitors to Wilhelm II’s empire often came back horrified and terrified by
the confident chauvinism they had encountered there. However, not only
did virulent nationalism encourage the aggression of powerful nation­
states, it also threatened the existence of the great multi-ethnic empires
that dominated most of Eastern and Central Europe and the Middle East.
The Romanovs* own empire, only 46 per cent of whose people were
Russians, was vulnerable. Still more so were the Ottoman and Habsburg
empires. By the 1880s it seemed clear that the Ottoman Empire was slowly
but inexorably disintegrating. The Ottoman retreat from the Balkans
turned this region into the most unstable area in Europe, with rivalries
between the Balkan peoples being exacerbated by great powers competing
for clients and influence. When and if the Ottomans collapsed altogether,
the whole Middle East would be up for grabs. If, as many predicted, the
Habsburg Empire also began to totter, the chances of Russo-German
conflict would further increase. The Habsburg Empire was largely com­
posed of German-Austrians and Slavs, to whose fate neither Petersburg nor
Berlin could afford to be indifferent for domestic political reasons. In
addition, even a cursory knowledge of European geopolitics taught that if
either Germany or Russia came to dominate the people and resources of the
former Habsburg Empire their power would grow to such an extent that
they would inevitably become Europe’s masters. Thus in the decades
before 1914, on top of an increasingly strident worldwide competition for
territory and influence, a new phase seemed to be beginning in the old
story of great-power rivalry to dominate Europe. No study of the life or
reign of Nicholas II makes much sense unless it recognizes that such was
the alarming international context in which the Russian Emperor and his
regime were forced to operate.
In the longer term, the grave risk existed that great-power conflict
would drag Russia into a war which would stretch her society and govern­
ment beyond endurance. The everyday result of international military
competition was that the Russian budget was put under enormous strain,
for a developing country was attempting to hold its own with the world’s
leading military powers. The problem was not merely that Russia was
poorer than Britain, Germany and France but also that it was far more
 T he Inheritance 11

difficult to tax effectively a predominantly rural population of smallholders

scattered across a vast country. In 1900 the central government spent more
even on the navy than on agriculture and education combined. The army
cost more than all local government expenditure, but it was the latter
which bore almost the whole burden of providing the huge rural popula­
tion with schools, hospitals, roads, bridges and a range of agricultural
services. In a countryside of almost 100 million peasants there were less
than 10,000 state policemen in 1900 and even most of these were paid far
less than the average factory worker. The clergy were potentially a power­
ful conservative force in the countryside but, despite having seized the
Church’s lands in the eighteenth century, the state was too poor to pay
them. Largely dependent on handouts from peasant parishioners, the
village priest’s authority and independence inevitably suffered.
Russia lacked private capital and its huge distances greatly increased the
cost of bringing schools, hospitals, roads, agronomists and vets to its
peasant villages. The irony was that in the last two decades of the nine­
teenth century the armed forces’ share of the state budget was actually
decreasing quite sharply as the government sought to pour its resources
into railway construction and industrial development. The Ministry of
W ar complained bitterly, and with justice, that the army was lagging
dangerously behind its competitors. There was simply not enough money
to go round. The result was an impoverished army, a lack of modem
sanitation and street-lighting in towns, bitterness among underpaid
teachers, and clerics humiliated by the need to beg from their parishioners.
Maladministration worsened Russia’s problems but poverty was very
often at their core. One result of this poverty was ferocious conflict
between ministries, not to mention between central and local government,
over the division of Russia’s inadequate budgetary cake.10
Backwardness was not just a fiscal and economic problem but also a
political and psychological one. Nineteenth-century Russia often had a
chip on its shoulder about Europe. In Great Britain or Germany a citizen
could take pride in belonging to one of the world’s most admired coun­
tries. Not only the psychological but also the economic benefits of citizen­
ship could reconcile the Scotsman or Bavarian to rule from London or
Berlin. Something of this existed in Russia. Newly literate Russians
often took pride in being the leading people of a huge empire, and even
Polish businessmen acknowledged the benefits of access to the imperial
market. But on the whole it was difficult to be very enthusiastic about
belonging to Europe’s most backward and ‘Asiatic’ great power, whose
record in war and diplomacy between 1854 and 1914 was less than glori­
ous. Bismarck had won tremendous prestige for the Hohenzollem dynasty
and the Prussian upper classes by uniting Germany in two spectacularly
successful wars between 1866 and 1871. The Russian old regime was
12 Nicholas I I

unlikely to emulate him partly because the Russian army was a good deal
less efficient than that of the Prussians but also because its great-power
rivals were much more formidable than Austria and France had been in the
1860s.
The Japanese example illustrates how much the Russian old regime lost
by its failures in war and diplomacy. From the 1860s the Japanese too had a
chip on their shoulder about Europe, and Japanese intellectuals often
tended to worship all things Western. The nationalist and conservative
reaction which gathered pace from the 1880s was greatly strengthened by
Japan’s success in war and diplomacy in the 1890s and 1900s. Tokutomi
Soho and Fukuzawa Yukichi were famous liberal and Westernizing intel­
lectuals of the Meiji era. After Japan’s victory over China in 1894-5
Tokutomi wrote, ‘now we are no longer ashamed to stand before the
world as Japanese . . . now that we have tested our strength, we know
ourselves and we are known by the world. Moreover, we know we are
known by the world. *Fukuzawa commented, ‘one can scarcely enumerate
all our civilised undertakings since the Restoration . . . Yet among all
these enterprises, the one thing none of us Western scholars ever expected,
thirty or forty years ago, was the establishment of Japan’s imperial prestige
in a great war . . . W hen I think of our marvellous fortune, I feel as
though I’m in a dream and can only weep tears of joy.’11
During the nineteenth century, nationalism in Europe tended to move
from the left of the political spectrum towards the right. Disraeli in
England and Bismarck in Germany both went far to capture the nationalist
vote for conservatism. As the mass of the population became more edu­
cated and more independent, the old appeal for loyalty to church and
dynasty was no longer sufficient. Faced by liberal and socialist doctrines,
the right needed an idea with mass appeal, and nationalism came closest to
fitting the bill. Even in Russia Alexander III, convinced autocrat though
he was, believed strongly that his regime must satisfy Russian nationalist
aspirations. Since the Russian imperial government suspected any indepen­
dent political activity, however, its relationship with nationalist writers
and newspaper editors was always difficult. Remembering the late 1870s,
when nationalist agitation in the press and society had forced Russia into a
costly war with the Ottoman Empire, attempts by nationalist spokesmen
to influence the state’s foreign policy caused particular alarm.12
But the problem with nationalism went much deeper than this. Britain
and Germany came close to being nations as well as states. Japan was even
more homogeneous. The Romanovs, however, ruled an empire less than
half of whose population were Russians. Even if, like most members of the
ruling class, one regarded Belorussians and Ukrainians as mere offshoots of
the Russian tribe, one was still left with more than one-third of the
population who were unequivocally not Russian. Loyalty to the Tsar
 The Inheritance 13

alone was no doubt inadequate and anachronistic as a guarantee of imperial

unity in the modem age but at least the dynasty could be a supra-national
symbol to which non-Russians could give their loyalty. The more the
imperial regime stressed its allegiance to Russian national aspirations and
cultural values, the likelier it became that non-Russian subjects would feel
neglected, and increasingly persecuted, second-class citizens.
In 1900, however, non-Russian nationalism was not yet a major threat
to the Romanovs’ empire. The great majority of the Tsar’s non-Russian
subjects were peasants or nomads. These people’s village and clan horizons
and loyalties made them largely invulnerable to the appeals of nationalist
intellectuals, even to the extent that these could penetrate government
censorship. The Tsar’s Muslim subjects, especially in Central Asia and the
Caucasus, often greatly resented his rule but they were held in check by
recent and painful memories of Russian power and ruthlessness. In an
imperialist age the chances for small peoples to enjoy genuine independence
seemed slim, and Latvians and Estonians - to take but two examples -
had no desire to swop the Tsar’s rule for that of the German Kaiser. Still
less did Christian Armenians or Georgians wish to fall under Ottoman
Muslim control. Enormously diverse and scattered around the empire’s
periphery, the non-Russians had no opportunity to co-ordinate their
opposition to the Romanovs. On the contrary, a government which con­
trolled the Russian heartland could stamp out rebellion in the various
borderlands one after another, as the imperial regime indeed did after the
revolution of 1905. In the long term the growing resentment and national­
ism of the non-Russians were a great danger to Petersburg. In the short
term, however, they would only become really dangerous if the govern­
ment was weakened by war, opposition within Russia or its own bungled
efforts at domestic liberalization.13
In the early twentieth century, the main threat to the Romanovs came
less from the minorities than from the Russian population itself. In the
cities the problem was on the whole a familiar one in societies in the throes
of early industrial development. Rural labour poured into the towns in
search of work, swamping municipal services and living in overcrowded,
insanitary, wretched conditions. Its anger could lead to attacks on property
and privilege, as happened in 1905 and 1917, but in many cities it also
frequently exploded in anti-Semitic pogroms. On a day-to-day level,
drunkenness and hooliganism were outlets for frustration. It is doubtful
whether conditions were worse than in the Liverpool of the 1820s or
Berlin of the 1840s, though in Petersburg the city’s awful climate and high
cost of living added an extra twist to life’s misery.
In the factories class hatreds ran high. The conditions of early industrial
development seldom leave much room for generosity or compromise on
the side of either capital or labour. By Western and Central European
14 Nicholas I I

standards Russian workers in 1900 were underpaid and worked excessive

hours in conditions which were often unhealthy and sometimes dangerous.
Management was always authoritarian, often insulting and usually arbi­
trary in its treatment of workers. From management’s perspective labour
was very unproductive by European standards. Theft and absenteeism
were endemic. Imposing the regular rhythms and disciplines of factory
labour on a semi-peasant workforce used to a quite different tempo was a
gruelling task. In the Russian case it was particularly difficult. The Tsar’s
peasant subjects were not Chinese or Japanese farmers, trained over
centuries in the careful, intensive year-round cultivation of tiny rice fields.
The Russian peasant in old Muscovy had learned the careless and migra­
tory habits which tend to exist in countries where the land is poor but
abundant, and labour is scarce. The harsh Russian climate imposed an
agrarian regime which combined months of inactivity in the winter with
back-breaking work in the short growing season. This was not a good
preparation for the rhythms and requirements of the capitalist factory. In
addition, the Russian peasant had become accustomed to frequent move­
ment over a huge and empty plain. There existed an age-old tradition,
celebrated in peasant and Cossack folklore, of flight to the country’s
borderlands beyond the reach of any authority which might seek to control
and discipline the peasant’s life.
The complaints of foreign capital that profit margins in Russia were
often small, overheads excessive and uncertainties great were truer than
Russian public opinion liked to admit. The government itself was divided
over economic and labour policy. The Ministry of Finance tended to stress
that, if a growing population was to be employed and Russia was to
become a great economic power, as few obstacles as possible must be placed
in the way of capitalist development. The Ministry of Internal Affairs,
responsible for public order and obsessed by the danger of socialist revolu­
tion, combined repression of strikes with welfare legislation as generous as
Russia could afford, and even attempts to set up its own trade unions for
workers.14
In comparison to earlier European experience it was not the ban on
strikes or free trade unions which was unusual but rather the range of
action taken to avert working class discontent. Russia did not go quite as
far as Japan, whose government began to study foreign factory laws in
1882 when ‘there were fewer than fifty factories using steam power in all
of Japan’. The Russian government, like its Japanese equivalent, had,
however, studied the history of Europe’s labour movement and well
understood the connection between industrialization, the emergence of a
working class and socialism. During the early decades of the English, and
even the German, industrial revolutions liberal ideas in both economics and
politics ruled supreme. No coherent socialist ideology existed to oppose
 The Inheritance 15

them. The Russian government, intensely alive to the threat of revolution,

knew that this was no longer the case by the 1880s and 1890s, when
Russian industrial development really began to take off.15
Even more alarming was the fact that from the 1860s Russia had
possessed an underground socialist revolutionary movement committed to
the destruction not only of tsarism but also of private property and all
other vestiges of European bourgeois life. In the 1870s revolutionary
terrorism combined with attempts to incite peasant uprisings had panicked
the imperial government and persuaded even as sober an onlooker as
Bismarck that the overthrow of the Romanovs and socialist revolution
were distinct possibilities. In the event, the rural population in the 1870s
proved largely invulnerable to the socialist propaganda of city intellectuals.
W hether the same would be true of a literate urban working class
uprooted from the influences of village life caused intense concern to the
Russian police from the moment Russia's industrial revolution began.
Even in 1914, however, Russia was still largely a rural society with
more than four-fifths of the population in the countryside. Thus the
Romanovs' survival depended above all else on developments in rural
Russia. This was indeed the normal pattern as regards European mon­
archies and conservatism in the nineteenth century. No European old
regime drew its major support from the cities, least of all in the early
decades of industrial development. On the contrary, in France and Prussia
urban revolutions had overthrown conservative regimes in 1848 and
1871, only themselves to be suppressed by rural conservatism and armies
conscripted largely from the peasant population. The greatest single
weakness of the Russian old regime in 1900 was that this type of rural
conservatism could not be relied upon. This did not mean that the Russian
peasants themselves would take the lead in overthrowing the Romanovs.
It did mean that if government was weakened or destroyed by urban
revolution, the Russian peasantry was unlikely to join the ranks of
counter-revolution but rather would seize the opportunity to settle scores
with the landowning nobility and destroy government authority in the
countryside.
One reason why Russia was different was that its landowning aristoc­
racy was weak by the standards of England or Prussia. In nineteenth-
century England 7,000 individuals, almost all of them from the aristocracy
or gentry, owned over 80 per cent of the land. Prussian landowning was
never this aristocratic but its rural nobility owned a much larger share of
the land than its Russian counterpart. In Russia even before the abolition
of serfdom in 1861 just over half the peasantry lived on lands belonging not
to the nobility but to the state. Typically, whereas in England or Prussia
the Church's lands had largely fallen into aristocratic hands after the
Reformation, the Russian state had held on to them for itself. In 1861 the
16 Nicholas I I

emancipation settlement divided aristocratic estates between noble land-

owners and their former serfs. Between 1863 and 1915 the nobles sold over
60 per cent even of the land that remained to them, above all because in
many areas of Russia it was extremely difficult to make profits from large-
scale agriculture, a fact that Soviet collective farming was later to confront
as well.
In a sense the Russian landowning nobility in 1900 was either too weak
or not weak enough. It could not control the countryside in English or
Prussian style but in many districts it still owned quite enough land to be
very unpopular. In addition, as nobles attempted to exploit their farms and
forests in modem capitalist fashion rents shot up, many customary peasant
rights were infringed and peasant anger mounted. In the European per­
spective there was nothing particularly unusual about these sorts of rural
tensions in the early decades of capitalist agriculture. The English country­
side, for instance, had witnessed similar tensions in the Tudor era when
‘sheep ate men9 and rural capitalism took root. The strange thing about
Russia was that the rural nobility was relatively weak, and government
authority in the cities collapsed both in 1905 and 1917 in the midst of this
period of rural change. Seen in the longer perspective, the Russian coun­
tryside may well have been heading in the same direction as that of western
and southern Germany. In 1848 these regions of Germany had witnessed
violent disturbances in the countryside, which forced many landowners to
flee their estates. In the second half of the nineteenth century, however,
with all remnants of serfdom gone and nobles seldom owning more than
about 5 per cent of the land in western or southern Germany, peasant
antagonism decreased sharply. Peasant and noble farmers could often unite
in defence of agrarian interests and in dislike of modem, secular, urban
culture. Rich aristocrats, most of whose wealth now came from stocks and
bonds, could become generous and welcome patrons of the local commu­
nity. In the countryside as elsewhere for the Russian old regime, longer-
term perspectives were not entirely black. The worst problem was to
survive an era of transition.16
Even in 1900 it was evident to those with eyes to see that what really
mattered in Russian agriculture and the Russian countryside was not the
nobility but the peasantry. The Russian farming community was, how­
ever, totally different from its English or Prussian counterpart. In England
aristocrats owned the land but it was actually farmed by tenants, most of
whom were rich by continental standards. These big tenant farmers exer­
cised a tight control over their agricultural labourers, stamping firmly on
any manifestations of socialist or trade union sympathies. Beside the tenant
farmers in the ranks of order and property stood the Anglican clergy,
whose wealth and status were also extremely high by European standards.
In Prussia, too, the rural clergy were solidly conservative and relatively
 The Inheritance 17

well-off. Unlike Russia, many middle-class tenant farmers existed on the

extensive Prussian royal domains even in the eighteenth century, and their
descendants subsequently became doughty allies of the gentry in defence of
property and ‘order9. W hat really distinguished Prussia from Russia was,
however, its peasants. Even in the days of serfdom, at a time when capitalist
agriculture had not yet developed, there were great differences both in the
wealth and the legal status of Prussian peasants. In 1800 the Prussian coun­
tryside contained many landless agricultural labourers. As agriculture
developed in the nineteenth century, peasant society increasingly split into
relatively rich peasant farmers on the one hand and impoverished landless
labourers on the other. Though the terms on which serfdom was abolished
caused conflict between noble and peasant, in time peasant farmers and
gentry landowners came to share a common interest in reducing labourers9
wages and ‘insubordination9, and defending agrarian interests against the
growing urban population and its demands. Meanwhile both the law and
economic realities made landless labourers very dependent on the goodwill
of their employers.
The situation in the Russian countryside was entirely different. The
picture usually drawn is of an increasingly poverty-stricken peasantry
crushed by excessive taxation and growing over-population. The reality
was not this simple. In 1904 peasants paid less than a quarter of the state’s
taxes though they generated between 40 and 50 per cent of the country’s
income. The Russian population was growing rapidly but agricultural
production, most of it from peasant farms, was outpacing it. By 1914
Russia was not merely feeding itself, it had also just replaced the United
States as the world’s leading grain exporter. Although Russian peasant
agriculture was less efficient than that of Central or Western Europe, the
Russian peasant’s farm was usually much bigger than that of his French or
German counterpart and he was much more likely to own a horse. Russian
peasants had more ample and healthier diets than a large proportion of
the German population in 1900. Indeed even under serfdom the Russian
peasantry in the early nineteenth century was much better fed than agricul­
tural labourers in southern England at that time. The latest, immensely
thorough, German study of the Russian peasantry in 1900 concludes that
its diet was roughly comparable to that of the West German population in
the early to mid-1950s.17
Although some Russian villagers were poor, even by the undemanding
standards of pre-1914 rural Europe, and many more were vulnerable to
cholera epidemics, drought and occasional but dramatic crop failures, the
basic reason why the old regime was shaky in the countryside was not
peasant poverty. Rather it had to do with the nature of Russian village
society and the way it looked on the outside world.
By European standards the Russian peasant village was a very egalitarian
18 Nicholas I I

world. Most land was owned collectively by the village commune and
periodically redistributed to match the number of adult workers in a
family. Peasant farms were at the disposal not of the head of the household
but of the family as a whole. When sons grew up and married, the farm
was divided among all male heirs. Very few Russian peasants employed
hired labour on their farms. The Russian word for village society was mir,
which also meant ‘peace* and ‘the world*. As this suggests, a sharp distinc­
tion existed between members of the village community and outsiders.
The community stuck together and woe betide a peasant who flouted its
values or decisions. Intense hostility often existed between neighbouring
villages but the greatest suspicion was reserved for complete outsiders, in
other words members of Russian educated society. Educated Russia was
European in its culture, values, dress and even, in some aristocratic circles,
in its preference for using foreign languages. In addition, since the tradi­
tional reason for educated Russians to involve themselves in village affairs
was to exploit the peasantry in one way or another, this hostility was
unsurprising.
The village had its own values and moral code which did not correspond
to those of educated or propertied Russia. Peasants, for instance, tended to
believe that the land belonged by right only to those who farmed it them­
selves, which was not at all the view either of the landowning nobility or
of the imperial legal code. Though the traditionalist patriarchal landowner
might be tolerated, the noble capitalist who sought to extract maximum
profits from his estate would be deeply disliked since he would either raise
rents or remove estate land from peasant use and try to farm it himself. The
spread of education and increased contact with the cities tended in any case
to make the younger peasant generation more radical than its elders and
less tolerant of private landowning. In strictly economic terms peasant
agriculture had proved more viable than the big estates in most regions of
Russia between 1861 and 1905. Given the political opportunity, most
peasants would resort to strikes, riots and arson to give noble agriculture
a further push. Since the Romanov regime traditionally rested on the
support of the landowning class but could not survive without at least the
acquiescence of the peasantry the growing hostility between noble and
peasant was a major threat to the rulers in Petersburg.18
Given its problems with peasant and worker Russia, it was important
for the regime that it possess the united support of upper and middle-class
citizens both for itself and for its programme of modernization. This was,
however, far from being the case. The entrepreneurial class, natural bearer
of capitalist values, was still quite small in 1900, and the fact that capitalists
were very often foreigners or from despised non-Russian minorities such
as Jews, Poles or Armenians further weakened their prestige. The
landowning nobility and state bureaucracy were equivocal about capital-
 T he Inheritance 19

ism. Most of the professional middle class and almost all intellectuals were
hostile.19 /
The rift between the Romanovs’ regime and many educated Russians
can be traced back to the years after 1815. By 1860 a still small but
nevertheless important number of educated young Russians were wedded
to radical and socialist ideas. These were derived largely from French and
German political writers but found fertile soil in Russia among intelligent
and impatient young people angry at the constraints of life under an
absolutist regime and ashamed at Russian backwardness and poverty in
comparison to Western Europe. Initially enthusiastic about the string of
liberal reforms introduced by Alexander II in the late 1850s and early
1860s, young radicals were inevitably soon disillusioned, for the imperial
government, even in its most liberal mood, was not going to satisfy their
aspirations. Disillusion led some to conspiracy and even terror.
W ithin eight years of the demise of Nicholas I’s very conservative
regime in 1855 a radical counter-culture had emerged, drawing some
sections of Russian educated youth into a separate world, isolated from
their parents, the state and the masses. Here they preached the abolition of
monarchy, property and marriage. By 1863 a number of underground
revolutionary groups were plotting to incite peasant rebellion and mutiny
in the army, as well as to assassinate the Tsar. The first actual attempt to
kill Alexander II occurred in 1866. Three years before this, the govern­
ment’s efforts to reduce repression in Poland and find a modus vivendi with
moderate Polish public opinion had led to full-scale revolution in much of
Russian Poland, which was crushed with great difficulty and brutality
after the deployment of tens of thousands of Russian troops. Inevitably
these developments scared the government and were grist to the mill of
conservatives and authoritarians who argued that reform had gone too far
and that the country was slipping beyond control. Repression became the
order of the day and from the mid-1860s down to the monarchy’s fall in
1917 the war between the government and the various branches of the
revolutionary socialist movement never ceased. Over the decades revolu­
tionary and socialist ideas gained a considerable following among urban
workers. In the twentieth century they even began to make converts
among the peasantry. Most Russian intellectuals were firmly on the left,
detesting the old regime and all its works. Public opinion and instincts
were much more hostile to government than was the case in most of
Central and Western Europe. The regime’s own response to conspiracy
and terror led to wholesale infringements of the population’s civil rights
and further contributed to the alienation of much of educated society.20
By 1900 both the business and the professional middle class were much
larger and more solidly established than had been the case four decades
before. In the Marxist schema, it should have been the capitalists who put
20 Nicholas I I

the most pressure on the regime for a share in political power. There were
signs of discontent among industrialists in the run-up to the 1905 revolu­
tion, partly in response to the regime’s own efforts to patronize and
protect labour unions, but on the whole the capitalists caused the imperial
government little trouble. The professional middle class was more of a
problem, partly because it was closer to the intellectuals and partly because
the government stood in the way of its desire to run its own professional
activities autonomously and to have a commanding voice in all matters
pertaining to its own sphere of interest and expertise.
Between 1861 and 1905, however, the landowning nobility, tradi­
tionally the Tsar’s most loyal ally, caused the government as many head­
aches as any other section of educated society. The difficulties facing agri­
culture on the big estates, especially during the Europe-wide agricultural
depression of the 1870s and 1880s, led to attacks on government economic
policy. These reached a crescendo in the 1890s when government-sponsored
industrialization began to have spectacular results. Since the landowning
nobility controlled the elected local government councils (zemstvos) in the
countryside, arguments between the landowners and Petersburg over
economic policy quickly turned into conflicts between central and local
government. One element in these battles was the aristocracy’s contempt
for and resentment of a bureaucracy which had pushed aside Russia’s tradi­
tional noble ruling class and taken control of government policy. More­
over, like all sections of Russian educated society, the Russian aristocracy
compared itself to its peers in the rest of Europe and resented its lack of the
civil and political rights which they enjoyed.
For many educated Russians it was self-evident that the regime was
responsible for blocking Russia’s entry into Europe. It denied them the
freedoms and rights to which, as civilized Europeans, they were entitled.
As a result - in their view - it isolated itself from the most educated and
competent sections of Russian society and systematically dug its own
grave. This interpretation of events, initially created by the pre­
revolutionary liberal and radical intelligentsia, became after 1917 the
guiding orthodoxy of Russian history whether written in the Soviet
Union or the West. It remains the generally accepted interpretation of
Nicholas II’s reign and the causes of the monarchy’s fall. In this inter­
pretation the role and opinions of Russia’s last tsar get much attention
and are trivialized. If Nicholas II had been a pragmatic, constitutionalist
Englishman like his cousin George V, rather than an ignorant and reaction­
ary mystic, revolution could have been averted and his life and throne
preserved.
In reality, however, matters were more complicated and difficult. The
wealth, skills and European culture of upper and middle-class Russia set
them well apart from the mass of the population. If the divide was not as
 The Inheritance 21

great as that between European and native in many colonies of the Victo­
rian era, it was nevertheless greater than the gap between rulers and ruled
in Europe. Nor were there yet in Russia large and relatively comfortable
layers of middle- and lower-middle-class citizens bridging the divide
between top and bottom in society. In the last decades of the old regime
these layers were growing quickly and the booming capitalist economy
was making Russia much more European. But the rapid growth of indus­
try, cities and education itself caused much conflict and instability. Capital­
ism was not yet popular among either élites or masses. By 1905
most educated Russians were demanding a liberal or even democratic
political system. But it was far from certain that a liberal or democratic
government would be sufficiently strong to defend the interests of
Russia’s Westernized, property-owning minority or of its developing, but
still weak, capitalist economy.
In the 1860s and 1870s a young revolutionary called Peter Tkachev had
prophesied tsarism’s fall. Tkachev was in some ways a lunatic. His fanatical
egalitarianism terrified even Marx and Engels. But as a tactician Tkachev
was very clever and in many ways foreshadowed Lenin. Tkachev’s slogan
as regards revolution was ’now or never’. At present, he argued, tsarism
was weak. The old order - rural and serf-owning - had gone but a new
capitalist Russia had yet to be bom. In an era of transition, capitalists were
relatively few and weak, and the landowning nobility was not merely in
decline but also increasingly angry at government policy. The peasants
were as yet far from being capitalist farmers. The regime hung in mid-air,
unsupported by society and relying on its bureaucracy and army alone. If
these were weakened or destroyed, perhaps by a major war, revolution was
more than possible. And once a revolutionary élite was in power,
socialism could be created in Russia.21
Tkachev was an accurate prophet. It was the misfortune of Nicholas II
that fate made him responsible for guiding his country through one of the
most difficult periods in its history.
 CHAPTER 2

Childhood and Youth

Nicholas’s father, the Emperor Alexander III, acended the throne in 1881
and reigned for thirteen years. He looked like a Russian tsar. All the
Romanov men in Alexander’s generation were tall but the Emperor stood
out even among his brothers. His niece, the Grand Duchess Marie
Pavlovna, recalled her only meeting with Alexander, who died when she
was still very young. ‘Once when we were having our bread and milk our
father . . . came into the nursery accompanying a giant with a light beard.
I looked at him with open mouth as we were bidden to tell him goodbye.
They explained that this was my uncle Sasha (my father’s eldest brother),
the Emperor Alexander III.’1
Alexander was neither elegant nor handsome. By the 1880s he was bald­
ing rapidly and his face was dominated by a high forehead and a sizeable
beard. The baggy uniforms he favoured sometimes seemed to hang on his
enormous figure like sacks. But his height, his huge shoulders and his girth
gave an impression of strength and resolution which his conversation and
manner confirmed. Fifteen years after Alexander’s death, a statue of him
was unveiled on Petersburg’s Znamenskaya Square, opposite the capital’s
main railway station. A huge, determined-looking Tsar bestrides a horse of
almost rhinoceros-like dimensions. The statue was a political statement. It
expressed the massive immovable resolution that a Russian autocrat was
expected to embody. Reminiscent in style ‘of representations of the
hogatyri, the warrior heroes of ancient Russia’, it reminded onlookers that
Alexander III had been a great Russian patriot, opposed to the spread of
Western liberal ideas. At a time when the regime was shaken by the
revolution of 1905 and coming under increasing pressure from liberals and
socialists, such reminders of Russian tradition and monarchical resolution
were timely. But for Nicholas II, much smaller and less authoritative than
his father, the statue might almost have seemed a reproach for not being a
tsar in the true autocratic tradition.2
Alexander III was immensely strong. His daughter, the Grand Duchess
 Childhood and Youth 23

Olga, commented that ‘my father had the strength of a Hercules’ and
remembered how ‘oncean th e stu d y h e b e n t an iro n _ p nlcpr and then
straightened it out’. W hen the imperial train crashed at Borki in 1888
Aléxander lifted the carriage roof so that his wife and children could crawl
to safety. The Tsar was formidable and terrifying when angry. His lan­
guage could be blunt and even crude. Ministers did not disobey his orders
or hide things from him lightly. No one argued with him. Combined with
the aura that surrounded an absolute monarch, the Tsar’s personality and
size were all the more impressive. D .N . Lyubimov, later a senior official
under Nicholas II, recalled the awe he felt on first encountering Alexander
III and commented that the Tsar radiated power and majesty. Although
the Emperor was not an easy person, on the whole ministers liked work­
ing for him. Once chosen and trusted, they were neither quickly nor
lightly discarded and Alexander would back their policies in the teeth of
opposition from both within the government and in society. Serge W itte,
who began his career as Minister of Finance under Alexander, commented
that the Emperor ‘was a man of stature who could go against prevailing
attitudes and opinions . . . If he made a decision on the basis of a minister’s
report, he would never rescind the decision. Or, to put it another way, he
never betrayed a minister on the basis of whose report he authorised some
measure.’3
Alexander III was hated by Russian liberals, and their condemnation has
been echoed by virtually all subsequent historians, Soviet and Western. By
stopping, even to some extent reversing, the programme of liberal reforms
initiated under his father, Alexander II, the Tsar is blamed for fatally
widening the gap between his regime and Russian educated society,
thereby contributing mightily to the later revolutionary overthrow of his
dynasty. This was not how matters were seen by all Russians at the time
and least of all, of course, by Alexander Ill’s own family and the officials,
courtiers and aristocrats with whom they came into contact. In these
circles the Tsar was widely praised for restoring the government’s prestige
and self-confidence after the crisis of 1878-81, as well as for instilling
greater order in Russian society. In the last years of Alexander IPs reign
the government had been bankrupted by the Russo-Turkish W ar of
1877-8 and shaken by a terrorist campaign that culminated in the
Emperor’s own assassination in March 1881. Alexander III smashed the
terrorist and revolutionary underground, tightened government control
over the universities and elected local government bodies (zemstvos), and
created a new official, the Land Commandant, to supervise justice and
administration among the peasant population in the villages. He cut
expenditure, especially on defence, avoided confrontations with foreign
powers and thereby managed both to salvage the state’s finances and to
restore Russia’s international prestige. The last years of his reign witnessed
24 Nicholas I I

unprecedented industrial growth in his empire. To those who had the ear
of Nicholas II when he ascended the throne in 1894 it seemed clear that
Russia was much more stable and prosperous than had been the case in
1881, and the government’s authority much more secure. From the per­
spective of 1894, it was not at all difficult to paint Alexander Ill’s reign as a
triumphant success. Returning from the Tsar’s funeral in November 1894,
General A.A. Kireev wrote in his diary: ‘A good, honest heart, a Tsar who
loved peace and was a very hard worker; a man who could serve as an
example to every one of his subjects both in his private and his public life.’
Russian prestige in Europe ‘was not so great even in the reign of the
Emperor Nicholas I’. W ith Russia beginning at last to develop her huge
economic potential and Western society increasingly decadent, ‘time is on
our side, the same time which is against the W est’.4
In his personal tastes Alexander III was extremely simple and frugal.
Quite unlike his father, who had installed his mistress and their children
over his wife’s head in the W inter Palace, Alexander III was a faithful and
devoted husband. He loathed corruption, dishonesty and loose morals.
Not averse to vodka, he was as indifferent to haute cuisine as to most other
worldly refinements. In his day the imperial kitchens were notorious for
the awful food they produced. Surrounded by beautiful palaces, his favour­
ite was the ugliest of them, Gatchina, in which he lived and worked on the
rather cramped and low-ceilinged second floor. The Tsar carried out his
ceremonial duties with his usual conscientiousness but he did not enjoy life
in high society, was no great conversationalist and felt rather ill-at-ease in
large gatherings. Personal experience of the Russo-Turkish W ar had bred
in him a positive distaste for flashy militarism with its gorgeous uniforms
and grandiose parades. Though Alexander enjoyed playing the trumpet,
neither books nor paintings meant much to him.
The Grand Duchess Olga recalled that her father ‘loved purely family
occasions, but how he grudged even a few hours given up to formal
entertainment’. For him, Gatchina’s great attraction was its enormous
park. The Tsar liked to be out of doors, particularly in the company of his
children. O f his five children it was the youngest two, Olga and Michael,
who tended to be his favourites. ‘W e would set out for the deer park’,
recalled the Grand Duchess Olga,

just the three of us - like the three bears in the fairy tale. My father always
carried a big spade, Michael had a smaller one, and I had a tiny one of my own.
Each of us also carried a hatchet, a lantern and an apple. If it was winter he
taught us how to clear a tidy path through the snow, and how to fell a dead
tree. He taught Michael and me how to build up a fire. Finally we roasted the
apples, damped down the fire, and the lanterns helped us find our way home.
In summer he taught us how to distinguish one animal spoor from another.
 Childhood and Youth 25

We often ended up near a lake, and he taught us how to row. He so wanted us

to read the book of nature as easily as he read it himself.5

Alexander’s other great opportunity to relax was during visits to his

father-in-law, the King of Denmark. Once the doors were closed to out­
side observers, the Danish royal family and their numerous cousins revelled
in a totally unintellectual, bourgeois existence, which included a good deal
of horseplay and practical jokes. Courtiers, English as well as Russian,
who caught a glimpse of the private world of Danish royalty were very
often either bored to death or scandalized. In London, for instance, even
after she became Queen, Alexandra of Denmark, the sister-in-law of Tsar
Alexander III,

did not give up her family's passion for practical jokes and on one occasion
made her nephew, Prince Christopher of Greece, dress up in the outfit Queen
Victoria had worn in the days of her youth to open the Great Exhibition in
Paris under Napoleon III. Arrayed in this with a feathered bonnet on his head,
and equipped with a lace parasol, 'Christo' was trooped by the Queen through
the corridors of Buckingham Palace, past scandalized servants, to entertain his
sick aunt, the Dowager Empress of Russia.6

Alexander III, quite unlike his more sophisticated and sybaritic brother-
in-law, Edward VII of England, flourished in Copenhagen.

He loved getting into mischief. He'd lead us into muddy ponds to look for
tadpoles, and into orchards to steal Apapa’s apples. Once he stumbled on a
hose and turned it on the King of Sweden, whom we all disliked. My father
joined us in all the games and made us late for meals, and nobody seemed to
mind. I remember that couriers sometimes came with despatches but there was
no telephone to St Petersburg, and the three weeks in Denmark meant such a
refreshment to him. I always felt that the boy had never really died in the man.7

Alexander’s simple, blunt personality did not endear him to the more
sophisticated, refined and cosmopolitan members of Petersburg high
society. Count Vladimir Lambsdorff, who later served as Foreign Minister
under Nicholas II, commented in his diary that Alexander III and his
family were rather commonplace and ill-bred, lacking either intellectual
interests or refinement. Their entourage was made up of unintelligent
people incapable of providing useful information or advice. Count Aleksei
Bobrinsky, a well-known amateur genealogist and archaeologist of great
wealth, who was descended from Catherine II’s illegitimate son, filled his
diary with gloomy comments after spending two evenings with Alexander
and his brothers in January 1881. Behind the ridiculous etiquette which
26 Nicholas I I

fenced them off even from members of the high aristocracy, the younger
generation of Romanovs were, in Bobrinsky’s view, uneducated and
without any depth. Not one serious or sensible word had been spoken all
evening. The atmosphere had even been somewhat crude, rather heavy
jokes being greeted with loud laughter. Alexander was a decent, well-
meaning young man and his brothers were lively, but the touch of
vulgarity reminded Bobrinsky of ‘Peter the Great at the court of Louis
XV’.8
Alexander Ill’s aunt, Queen Olga of Wiirttemburg, agreed with
Lambsdorff and Bobrinsky’s judgements. Visiting Russia in 1891, she
confided to Lambsdorff her dismay that the tone of the Romanov family
had deteriorated sharply since the days of her father, Nicholas I, and of her
brother, Alexander II. ‘She remembered about meals at the court of her
father, the Emperor Nicholas, and recalled the glorious memory of the
Emperor Alexander II. Many interesting guests were present at these meals
who could talk about serious or political matters. “ I’m accustomed to this
and don’t like watching while people throw pellets of bread across the
table,’’ ’ the Queen said to Lambsdorff, commenting sourly about the
table manners of her imperial nephew and his children.9
Sometimes it was not just the personality and behaviour of Alexander
but also the activities of his government which caused sophisticated aristo­
crats to cringe. Themselves cultured Europeans, they shuddered at the
Tsar’s crude anti-Semitism and his policemen’s widespread disregard for
legality or civil rights. They were concerned for their own prestige, and
that of Russia, in Europe, whose educated classes were much inclined to
dismiss the Romanovs’ empire as barbaric and Asian. Alexander II’s
favourite minister, P.A. Valuev, pondered: ‘Where are we? In Europe?
No. In Asia? No. Somewhere between the two in half-Europe, in Belgrade
or Bucharest.’ Surveying the methods used to crush Polish nationalism in
the western borderlands in the wake of the Polish revolution of 1863,
Valuev commented to Alexander II: ‘Permit me to say that I feel that I love
my country less . . . I despise my compatriots.’ To which the Emperor
nodded assent, adding: ‘I also feel the same; I don’t say so to others but to
you I admit that I feel the same as you.’ No minister would have dared to
speak in these liberal and European terms to Alexander III. Had they done
so, they would have received a crude and forceful response.10
Not even Alexander Ill’s most fervent admirers pretended that he was
very intelligent. In addition, until the death of his elder brother in 1865 he
had not been heir and had therefore reached adulthood with the mediocre
education of an emperor’s younger son. For many high officials, however,
particularly those of conservative and nationalist views, Alexander’s intel­
lectual weakness was more than offset by his ‘great and noble personality’,
his ‘high morality’, his love for his country and his deep awareness of the
 Childhood and Youth 27

responsibility that came with his position. Alexander Mosolov, for

instance, wrote of the Tsar in his memoirs that ‘my respect for his per­
sonality, poorly gifted but morally high and sensible, grew all the time.
W ith his calm and firm mind and his deep patriotism he did Russia invalu­
able service. He showed the need and the possibility of broad intellectual
and economic development in full agreement with the basic, historically-
created special conditions of our national life.’ Serge W itte, himself a
statesman of great intelligence and forcefulness, would have agreed with
every word written by Mosolov.11
Beside her enormous husband, the Empress Marie Feodorovna appeared
tiny. Not so beautiful as her elder sister, Queen Alexandra of England, the
Empress was nevertheless a very attractive woman who for long main­
tained her family’s tradition of appearing eternally youthful. Her superb,
luminous eyes, which her son Nicholas II inherited, were her most striking
feature. In many ways the Empress was the perfect consort to a monarch.
She thoroughly enjoyed her role as leader of society, revelling in great balls
and ceremonies, superb clothes and fine jewellery. Her sociability offset her
husband’s taciturnity and she was on the whole very popular in the world
of Petersburg’s aristocracy. She had great charm and the royal knack that,
‘when she smiles she seems to single one out of the crowd, and each
separate individual appropriates her smile as personally intended’. After
fifteen years as wife to the heir before ascending the throne, Marie
Feodorovna knew the Petersburg aristocracy very well. She did her home­
work before great events and, ‘gifted with a retentive memory for faces,
she is particularly gracious at presentations, and puts such pertinent ques­
tions to the ladies who are being presented as to show the interest she takes
in the circumstances of everyone’s life. She sympathises with people’s grief
and rejoices in their gladness.’ In addition, ‘in all emergencies the . . .
Empress seems to know by intuition what is the right thing to be said’.12
The Empress Marie was bom Princess Dagmar of Denmark, changing
not only her title but also her name upon conversion to Russian Ortho­
doxy when she married the heir to the throne. Though her parents ulti­
mately became King and Queen of Denmark, in their early married life
they were neither well-off nor in direct line of succession to the throne.
Their lifestyle was homely and bourgeois, and it remained so even after
they inherited the Danish crown. Neither they nor most of their children
had any intellectual or aesthetic interests. ‘Among the Danish royal family
and their offshoots, the Greeks, the special joke was to make funny noises
and yell if they saw anyone trying to write a letter. There were no “ in”
jokes to play on anyone bold enough to read a book since none of them
did.’13
Queen Mary of England once commented that ‘the women of that
Danish family make good wives. They have the art of marriage.’ This was
28 Nicholas I I

quite true in Marie Feodorovna’s case. Natural kindness and generosity

were allied to strict moral principles, a simple Christian faith and great
devotion to her children. But, as was often true in the Danish royal family,
strong maternal instincts were also linked to intense possessiveness and the
attempt to keep her children young for as long as possible. Even her
brother. King George of Greece, refused to understand that his sons were
grown-up, causing much misery and trouble as a result. Kenneth Rose,
King George V of England’s biographer, describes Queen Alexandra as
‘that most possessive of mothers’ and quotes her comment - vis-à-vis her
son’s marriage - that ‘nobody can, or ever shall, come between me and
my darling Georgie boy’. Aged 21, the Prince still described himself in
letters to his mother as ‘your little Georgie dear’.14
In the end sons could usually escape their mothers to some extent.
Daughters sometimes could not. Queen Alexandra turned her daughter
Victoria into an unmarried slave. Her sister, the Empress Marie, caused
great trouble when her elder daughter, the Grand Duchess Xenia, married;
and she pushed her younger daughter Olga into marriage with her dread­
ful homosexual cousin, Peter of Oldenburg, in order to keep her firmly
under her mother’s thumb in Petersburg. Even in 1905, Marie’s youngest
son, the Grand Duke Michael, already 27 years old, could accurately be
described by his sister-in-law as a ‘darling child still’. Ten years later, an
intelligent and worldly man who became a good friend of the Grand Duke
commented: T have never met another man so uncorrupted and noble in
nature; it was enough to look into his clear blue eyes to be ashamed of any
bad thought or insincere feeling. In many ways he was a grown-up child
who had been taught only what was good and moral. ’ By universal consent
the 26-year-old Nicholas II was not only inexperienced when he ascended
the throne in 1894 but also very innocent and immature for his age. To
some extent this was the natural consequence of life in a secure and happy
family, especially one as cloistered from the outside world as that of the
Romanovs. But it is hard to doubt that, unwittingly, the Empress Marie’s
influence contributed greatly to her son’s unreadiness for the task thrust
upon him by his father’s death.15
Contemporaries frequently noted the extraordinary physical similarity
between Nicholas II and his first cousin, George V. In fact the cousins
were alike in more than looks, though George was no doubt much more
peppery and outspoken than Nicholas, whose reticence and self-restraint
were legendary. Because he was a second son the English prince had an
academically inferior but much less cloistered naval education than his
Russian cousin, who was taught by tutors in his father’s palaces. In time
too, inevitably, the very different traditions of the English and Russian
monarchies influenced the two men in contrasting ways.
Yet, even in trivial matters, great similarities existed. Nicholas II’s diary
 Childhood and Youth 29

is the despair of his biographers. The time he awoke, the party he attended
and the anniversary to be noted are seldom forgotten. Meanwhile earth-
shattering political events are passed over in silence or granted a laconic
mention. George V was no different. Kenneth Rose comments that ‘after
a false start in 1878 which lasted less than two weeks’. Prince George
began his journal again

on 3 May 1880 and continued a sparse but unbroken record until three days
before his death. Written in a dear schoolboy hand that hardly changed in half
a century, it reveals the methodical pattern which governed his leisure as well
as his work. He breathed little life and no colour into his discreet daily
chronide. The perspectives of history failed to move him; he was enthralled
less by events than by their anniversaries, which he noted again and again . . .
Each morning, whether on land or at sea, he recorded the direction of the wind
and other meteorological detail. It is idle for his biographer to sigh for the
richer fare of a Pepys or a Creevey.16

Similarities, however, went well beyond the trivial and were due in part
to the two monarchs’ mothers. Both George V and Nicholas were at heart
country gentlemen. They revelled in outdoor life and rural sports. Because
his father and grandmother were alive in the 1890s, the English prince
could still indulge this passion to the full, pushing governmental issues to
the margin of his life. Nicholas II was less fortunate. Both cousins had
served as junior officers in the armed forces, absorbing the simple patriotic
military code of command and obedience. Neither found the ambiguities
and subtleties of politics easy. Nicholas and George inherited from their
mothers a simple Christian faith that steered them through life. Both men
loved their wives, preferred family to social life, and thoroughly distrusted
the ‘smart set’ in high society. In aesthetic terms both were blind, deaf and
dumb. Possessing some of the finest paintings and buildings on earth they
lived amidst Victorian monstrosities. Many Russian aristocrats, heirs to a
fine cultural tradition, quailed before the Victorian furnishings of Nicholas
H’s family’s rooms at Tsarskoe Selo or the Gothic cottage, Alexandria,
whose ugliness was buried in the grounds of the superb palace of Peterhof.
Yet not even these could compare in awfulness with George V ’s beloved
York Cottage, its walls decorated with the same red cloth as was used for
the trousers of the French army.
Whereas the Empress Marie’s influence on her son is relatively easy to
define, that of his father is more difficult and contentious. Inevitably,
Alexander was a role-model for his son as both man and monarch. Indeed
he was Nicholas’s only possible role-model - Alexander II had died when
Nicholas was 13. Alexander III died before his heir had sufficient experi­
ence of politics and administration to build up an independent conception
30 Nicholas I I

of an autocrat’s role. Had Alexander lived even for another ten years
Nicholas would have come to know many senior officials and some of their
brighter would-be successors of the younger generation. Both through
acquaintance with their views and as a result of his own experience he
would have better grasped the realities of autocratic power and how these
could be fitted to his own personality and goals. As it was, however,
particularly in the first years of his reign, he was fated not merely to
attempt to emulate his father’s role but also to know that he was doing so
very inadequately. He lacked Alexander’s experience, his authoritative
manner and, very important given the symbolic nature of the Tsar’s posi­
tion, his majestic physical stature. Through gossip and tale-telling at court
he know only too well that unfavourable comparisons between his father
and himself were rife in Petersburg. Nicholas loved and admired his father,

ity and progress to Russia. In his heart too there may have lurked the
suspicion that his father himself had had doubts as to whether his heir had
the toughness and maturity required for the job. Vladimir Ollongren,
who studied and played with Nicholas for three years in the 1870s, later
remarked that the small prince had at times seemed to him rather girlish in
his looks and behaviour. Alexander III agreed and feared lest his son should
turn into a hot-house plant, shying away from straight and honest fights
with other boys, unable to cope with a tough world. On one occasion
when, after a piece of mischief, Ollongren took all responsibility and
Nicholas denied it, his father grew angry. ’Volodya is a boy and you are a
little girl.’ Many years later, when Nicholas was already 23 years old,
Alexander described him to one of his ministers as ’nothing but a boy,
whose judgements are childish’. Subsequently Nicholas’s sister-in-law was
to comment that ’his father’s dominating personality had stunted any gifts
for initiative in Nicky’.17
There were perhaps some similarities between the last Emperor of
Russia and Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, Iran’s last shah. The Shah’s father.
Reza, was a large and extremely tough man whose reign brought Iran a
degree of order and unity unprecedented for generations. Reza was known
to express fears about his son’s manliness and whether he had the necessary
maturity and strength to rule. In 1941 Reza abruptly departed the political
scene, his 22-year-old son being catapulted unexpectedly on to the throne.
Some historians have explained the Shah’s personality in terms of the
attempts of a sensitive and rather feminine man to live up to the tough
model set by his father. Though the Shah’s public image, boastful and
grandiose, was totally different to that of the modest and gentlemanly
Nicholas II, those who knew him well realized that when faced by hard
decisions he was weak and vacillating. W ith somewhat less justice, the
same view of Nicholas was widespread in Russian aristocratic and govern-
 Childhood and Youth 31

ment circles. Still more current were the accusations of shiftiness and
duplicity levelled against the Tsar. The monarch, so it was said, would
never confront a minister but would appear to agree with him and then
undermine him when his back was turned. High officials would be greeted
warmly by the Emperor at audiences only to find a letter of dismissal await­
ing them in their office the next day. Almost identical accusations were
frequently raised against the Shah who, 'because of his extraordinary shy­
ness . . . never sacked anyone personally’ and always left ‘the task of con­
veying the bad news . . . to court officials’.18
Attempts at comparative psychoanalysis need, however, to be handled
with an element of caution. Mohammed Reza Pahlavi’s parents quarrelled
bitterly and separated. The Crown Prince was removed from his mother’s
house at the age of 6 and spent most of his childhood under military tutors
before being dispatched to a boys’ boarding school in Switzerland at the
age of 12. His sister, Princess Ashraf, comments that Reza Shah was ‘an
awesome and frightening father. Whenever I saw a trouser leg with a red
stripe approaching, 1 would run, on the theory that the best way to avoid
my father’s displeasure was to stay out of his way. ’ This was a far cry from
Alexander III, whose daughter Olga used to sit under his desk as he
worked, on occasion affixing the imperial seal to documents, and whose
son Michael could get away with emptying buckets of water on the Tsar’s
head as a practical joke. Alexander III was a devoted and warm-hearted
father, extremely close to all his children. Vladimir Ollongren’s memoirs
are good testimony on this point, since as a 10-year-old he lived alongside
the heir in the bosom of the imperial family. He described Alexander III as
‘a quite exceptionally cheerful and simple man; he played with us children
at snowballs, taught us to saw wood and helped us to build snowmen’. If
Alexander sought to toughen his sons a little and pulled their ears when
they got up to pranks this was scarcely wicked or unusual. The Tsar no
doubt reflected on the fact that when he was gone and his son was an
adult no human being would ever argue with him or tell him he was
wrong. Given the challenges and temptations that would face a future tsar,
a father had good reason to fear any weakness or lack of discipline in his
heir.19
By the standards of European royalty the extraordinary thing about
Nicholas’s childhood was the atmosphere of love, security and attention in
which he lived as a boy. Since most royal marriages were made for dynastic
reasons few monarchs were as devoted and faithful to their consorts as
Alexander III. Relations between fathers and sons were very often cold and
distant, on occasion being shot through with jealousy and fear lest the heir
become a focus for opposition to his royal father. This was, for instance,
the pattern in the eighteenth-century Hanoverian dynasty in Britain and in
the nineteenth-century house of Savoy, rulers of Italy after 1861.
32 Nicholas I I

The Savoy dynasty was traditionally so distrustful of each new generation that
the heir to the throne was given no training in government and allowed no
serious experience of public life . . . To a quite extraordinary extent [princes]
were kept austerely in a state of personal subjection where in private and public
they had to kiss their father’s hand and stand to attention in his presence.
Often they were shown little affection, with results that can be imagined.20

Nicholas was spared the fate of his almost exact contemporary, King
Victor Emmanuel III of Italy, who, ‘reticent and taciturn by nature . . .
evidently resented [the fact] that neither parent showed him much atten­
tion, and a solitary, introverted childhood was further embittered by
physical disabilities. . . As a boy, he had been forced to wear a variety of
orthopaedic instruments to strengthen his legs, and his stunted growth no
doubt explains much of his shyness and lack of self-assurance.’ Nor was the
future tsar like his cousin Wilhelm II of Germany, also a victim of physical
disability, but in addition born into a family riven by the conflict between
the Prussian militarist values of his grandfather and the Anglophile liberal
court of his father and mother. Queen Victoria’s eldest daughter.
Admittedly Nicholas’s grandfather, Alexander II, with whom the imperial
grandchildren had close and affectionate ties, was assassinated in 1881, but
this was an occupational hazard common to most of European royalty. By
their often rather bleak standards, Nicholas’s childhood was one of inno­
cent happiness.21
From the age of 7 to the age of 10 Nicholas was taught all subjects by his
governess, Alexandra Ollongren. He studied the normal syllabus for entry
into Russian middle schools, passing the entrance examination with ease in
1879. His only companions in the schoolroom were his younger brother,
the Grand Duke George, and Alexandra Ollongren’s son, Vladimir. From
the latter’s recollections come the fullest description of the young prince’s
life as a child, though in view of the way Ollongren’s memoirs were
written down, they have to be treated with some suspicion.
As an old man, Ollongren recalled Nicholas’s ‘happy, always laughing
eyes, velvet and radiant’ and his ‘charming, playful almost girlish laugh’.
The young prince loved hopscotch and watching birds fly. Already it was
clear that Nicholas had an excellent memory. ‘He adored his mother’ and
envied Ollongren because the latter’s mother was always with him. The
young grand dukes in the late 1870s, at least when living in Petersburg,
saw their mother twice a day, once at 11 a.m. and again at bedtime. The
morning meeting was the longer one, with both parents asking about their
sons’ days and their mother giving them rides on the train of her dress. It
was typical of Marie Feodorovna’s tact and kindness that Ollongren, a
nobody and an outsider, was always given the first ride. Nicholas was
enormously impressed by religious services, which all the children attended
 Childhood and Youth 33

regularly. The superb theatre and music of the Orthodox mass gripped the
young Grand Duke, and he and his companions used later to act out the
roles of priest and deacon when they were on their own. But Nicholas was
also deeply excited and impressed by the story of the Passion and the
Resurrection.22
Ollongren comments that the palace servants ‘loved the family*. Many
of them came from veritable dynasties of court servants who had worked
for the Romanovs for generations. ‘The old-timers were great grumblers,
like Chekhov's Firs, who were not shy to tell the imperial family home
truths directly to their faces.’ Not all these servants were Russians. The
Grand Duchess Olga, for instance, recalled ‘old Jim Hercules, a negro,
who spent his annual holiday in the States and brought back jars of guava
jelly as presents for us children*. In her recollection, the servants ‘were all
friends’, as indeed were many of the soldiers and sailors guarding the
imperial palaces, who ‘used to play games with us and toss us in the air’P
An enormous gulf separated the Romanovs from ordinary soldiers,
peasants or servants. The latter were also in general simpler and less
questioning than members of Russian educated society. For these reasons
natural, friendly and human relationships were generally easier with them
than was the case when the Romanovs came face to face with members of
the upper and middle classes. Former peasant wetnurses would address
their old imperial charges in the most friendly and intimate manner which
no educated Russian would have dared to use to a tsar or his children.
Peasant soldiers bathing in the streams near Peterhof would thunder their
cheers, standing stark naked, as the Tsar’s carriage passed. In contrast a
wall of etiquette divided the Romanovs from educated Russians.24
The son of Nicholas II’s court doctor recalled his mother’s first meeting
with the heir to the throne in 1908:

My mother when leaving the palace after her first presentation to the Empress,
met at the entrance the little Alexis who was then a tot of four years. She
bowed to him according to all rules, and said: ‘How do you do, Your Imperial
Highness?’ But to my mother’s dismay the Imperial Highness, instead of
acknowledging her greeting, frowned angrily and turned away his head.
When my mother returned home and told of this incident to my father, he
began to laugh and said: ‘Of course the Heir was angry with you. You should
have bowed to him in silence, for you have no right to say anything before he
himself has started to talk to you. ’25

As an adult Nicholas II tended to idealize the Russian peasantry. His

attitude towards Russian educated society was much more equivocal. The
same was true of his younger sister, Olga. For this there were many
reasons, some of which were well-established elements in the Russian
34 Nicholas I I

tradition of autocratic monarchy while others had more to do with the

personal difficulties that Nicholas and his wife had with Petersburg society.
But one factor in the Tsar’s attitude may simply have been a childhood
memory of a life in which human relations were much easier with peasants,
soldiers and servants than with educated Russians.
Aged 10, Nicholas was handed over to a military governor, General
G.G. Danilovich, a man ‘better known for his military discipline and
plodding uprightness than for the brilliance of his mind or breadth and
tolerance of his views’. Danilovich himself invited specialists to come to
the palace to teach the heir a range of subjects including four modern
languages (Russian, French, English and German), mathematics, history,
geography and chemistry. O f the subjects Nicholas was taught, history
was much the closest to his heart. His membership of the Imperial Histori­
cal Society from the age of 16 was more than merely honorary. Many years
later, in the enforced leisure of his Siberian exile, he returned to reading
works of history. He commented to his son’s English teacher, Sydney
Gibbs, that ‘his favourite subject was history’ and that he ‘had read a good
deal when he was young, but had no time for it later’. In his youth and
adolescence Nicholas had, however, also read fiction in English, French
and Russian. Someone capable of mastering four languages and coping
with Dostoevsky and the historians Karamzin and Solovyov at this age
cannot have been without brains.26
The young Grand Duke does not appzar to have been very fond of his
governor, referring to him on one occasion as ‘cholera’. O f his tutors,
Charles Heath seems to have been closest to the heir. Heath was not an
intellectual and had never been to university. He had the late Victorian
English schoolmaster’s love of the open air and manly sports. Heath had
been a tutor at the Alexander Lycée, Russia's most prestigious
civilian school, where he enjoyed an excellent reputation. Whereas com­
ments of old boys about some of the other tutors at the Lycée were
distinctly ambivalent, Heath was remembered as the Lycée’s model
teacher, a man with a warm heart, great energy and a respectable brain
who trusted his pupils and had a deep sense of decency and fairness. Heath
neither spied on his charges at the Lycée, all of whom came from
upper-class families, nor made up to them or sought to curry favour with
the school’s director. Nicholas liked Heath and, when he visited Britain in
1894 with his fiancée, reported to his mother that ‘I was very glad
to see Mr Heath, whom I presented to Granny’, in other words to Queen
Victoria. Mr Heath was initially not overly impressed by the royal chil­
dren, whom he found ill-disciplined, with table manners akin to those of a
country bumpkin. His life as a tutor was not made easier by a green parrot,
Popka, which belonged to the Grand Duke George, Nicholas’s younger
brother and his constant companion until he developed tuberculosis and
 Childhood and Youth 35

was forced to decamp to the warm climate of the Caucasus. ‘Popka . . .

hated Mr Heath. Every time the poor English master entered Georgie’s
room the bird would fly into a rage and then imitate Mr Heath with the
most exaggerated British accent. Mr Heath finally became so exasperated
that he refused to enter Georgie’s room until Popka had been removed.’
It was partly under Charles Heath’s guidance that Nicholas developed a
calm and self-control far more characteristic of an Englishman than of a
member of the pre-revolutionary Russian ruling class. General V.N.
Voeykov, the last Commandant of the Imperial Palaces in Nicholas’s
reign, knew the monarch well. He commented that ‘one of the Emperor’s
outstanding qualities was his self-control. Being by nature very quick
tempered, he had worked hard on himself from his childhood under the
direction of his tutor, the English Mister Heath, and had achieved a
tremendous degree of self-possession. Mister Heath frequently reminded
his imperial pupil of the English saying that aristocrats are bom but gentle­
men are made.’27
At the age of 17 the heir began his instruction in the art of government,
for the first time coming into close contact with some of the leading
political, military and academic figures in his father’s realm. Peter Bark,
who served as Minister of Finance from 1914 to the monarchy’s fall, made
the following comment in his memoirs about Nicholas’s education:

As heir, from a young age he had a thorough training under the direction of
the best teachers in Russia. His professor in political economy, who intro­
duced him to financial questions, was Bunge, an outstanding man who served
as Minister of Finance for five years. Zamyslovsky was his professor of history
and Kaustin his teacher in international law. Generals Mehr and Dragomirov
taught him military sciences and Beketov taught chemistry. Among his teach­
ers, the one who exerted the greatest influence on him was undoubtedly
Pobedonostsev, a professor of civil and political law. Pobedonostsev was Chief
Procurator of the Holy Synod [lay administrator of the Orthodox Church] in
the reigns of Alexander III and Nicholas II. He was a convinced and extreme
conservative and thanks to his powerful character had great influence on both
emperors.28

W hether Pobedonostsev’s influence on Alexander III and Nicholas II

was actually quite as great as Peter Bark imagined is a moot point. Never­
theless, he certainly did have some impact in shaping their views as young
men. Pobedonostsev was highly intelligent, widely read and very hard­
working. He had a typically conservative disbelief in the power of legisla­
tion to change morals. His view of human nature was even gloomier than
that of most European conservatives: the majority of human beings were
weak, selfish, gullible and largely immune to the call of reason. Given this
36 Nicholas I I

reality, democracy was likely to turn into a chaotic sham, with professional
politicians, plutocrats and press barons pandering to the prejudices and
short-sighted greed of the electorate. In the Anglo-Saxon and Scandinavian
countries, with their centuries-old tradition of individualism, an educated
and self-disciplined citizenry had emerged which might just be able to
sustain democratic politics, especially in a land of plentiful resources like the
United States. Russian traditions were different, however, and the country
was both more primitive and multi-national. In consequence, liberalism and
democracy would bring disaster in their wake. Only the power and symbol­
ism of an autocratic monarchy, advised by an élite of rational expert
officials, could run the country effectively. Russia was built on communities
- the peasant village, the Church and the nation - and these must be
preserved and protected from the attacks of Western-style individualism.
The educated classes, including the aristocracy, were bearers of this bacillus
and were therefore dangerous. The religious and patriotic instincts of the
peasantry were a firmer basis for political stability and Russian power, but
the simple people must be protected from outside influences which would
sow doubts among them about values and loyalties, thereby undermining
the Russian national solidarity between ruler and people on which the
empire’s future depended.29
Apart from Pobedonostsev, Nicholas’s best-known teacher was Nicholas
Bunge. As both a professor of economics and a former Minister of Finance,
Bunge was uniquely fitted to the task of teaching the heir about the history
of economic thought and of Russia’s economy. These two themes were the
subject of the lectures which he gave to the Tsarevich in 1888 and 1889.
Nicholas did not simply listen to the lectures but also took tests. Neverthe­
less, it is questionable how much of Bunge’s lectures on economics the heir
really understood. Years later, faced by the collapse of the Russian economy
in 1916, Nicholas was to write to his wife, ‘I never was a businessman and
simply do not understand anything in these questions of supplying and
provisioning.’30
When in 1893 Nicholas was appointed chairman of the committee which
was responsible for all matters linked to the construction of the Siberian rail­
way, Bunge was appointed the committee’s vice-chairman. He was thus in a
position to supplement his earlier theoretical guidance in economic affairs
with practical advice and support on an issue which was very important for
Russia’s future and in which the heir took a great interest. In Bunge
Nicholas encountered a high official who stood at the opposite pole of the
spectrum, both politically and personally, to Pobedonostsev. A more
humane, selfless and warm-hearted man than the Chief Procurator of the
Synod, Bunge was also much more liberal and much more au fa it with the
new capitalist world of banks and industry which was beginning to develop
rapidly in Russia in the late nineteenth century.
 Childhood and Youth 37

At the age of 19, Nicholas was commissioned into the Preobrazhensky

Guards, the senior regiment of the Russian army. Subsequently, to give
him some insight into other branches of the army, he also served in the
Guards Hussars and in the Horse Artillery. This was not, and probably
was not expected to be, a real training in the military art. Not only in
Russia but everywhere in Europe, the most exclusive regiments of the
Guards came closer to being a pleasant and sociable finishing school for
wealthy young aristocrats than a serious professional training for a military
career. In the great majority of cases the rich young lieutenants and
captains who officered these regiments had neither the need nor the incli­
nation to forge careers. The officers’ mess was a pleasant club, duties were
light and the lieutenant’s relationship with his soldiers was akin to that of
the heir to a great estate and his father’s labourers. Neither professional,
political nor other serious matters were often discussed in the mess, and
much time was given over to amusements. Having never been to school or
lived outside his father’s palaces, all of this represented great excitement
and liberation for the young heir. Nicholas had always loved the army, its
traditions, uniforms and values. In later life, the officers’ messes of the
Guards regiments were almost the only environment where he felt at ease
and at home among educated Russians. To the extent that he truly trusted
anyone or had personal friends, they tended to come from this milieu. As
for many other people, the time between leaving school and taking up the
responsibilities of work and adulthood was more fun than any other period
of Nicholas’s life. Comradeship, hunting, carousals, visits to Petersburg’s
‘gipsy ladies’ - these were all part and parcel of the heir’s life, as of those of
other aristocratic young men in the Guards. The heir’s famous affair with
the ballerina Mathilde Ksheshinskaya was also a normal rite of passage.
There is no reason to think that Nicholas’s parents looked on any of this
with great disfavour. Soon enough the life of the Tsarevich would be
burdened with obligations, constraints and hard work. A few years of
carefree amusement in the very safe and loyal company of Guards officers
would do him no harm.31
If service in the Guards was one traditional stage in a young nobleman’s
upbringing, the Grand Tour was another. It was designed to widen hori­
zons, to add culture and polish, and to allow a young man to gain worldly
experience away from his parents while still under the supervision of
trusted older men. In the past the Grand Tour had usually taken a young
man to courts, museums and galleries in Italy and France. Making use of
the Victorian revolution in communications, Nicholas’s parents decided to
send him round the world by railway and steamship.
The heir left Gatchina in October 1890 and did not return until August
1891. His expedition began with a stop in Vienna and the customary
reception at the Hofburg. It continued through Greece, Egypt, India,
38 Nicholas I I

Ceylon, the East Indies, Siam, parts of China and Japan. Returning across
Siberia, Nicholas became the first heir ever to visit this part of his father’s
dominions, in which he thereafter always retained a tremendous interest.
On occasion during his journey, Nicholas complained that he was seeing
nothing of value, because his time was taken up with receptions and meet­
ings with colonial officials. This was, however, the inevitable consequence
of such an expedition. For reasons of both security and protocol, the heir
to the Russian throne could not travel incognito through foreign countries
and their empires. Nevertheless, in the course of his ten-month journey
Nicholas saw some of the world’s most splendid sights, visited scores of
museums and galleries, and came into contact with a wide range of societies
and people often quite different to anything that he had previously encoun­
tered. Even meetings with colonial officialdom were not always without
interest. In India, for instance, the heir was accompanied by Sir Donald
Mackenzie Wallace, the secretary to a former Viceroy but also fluent in
Russian and Britain’s leading expert on the Russian Empire. This was to
be an acquaintance subsequently renewed when Wallace visited the
Emperor at Tsarskoe Selo.32
Moreover, if Nicholas’s entourage, like that of any other European
crown prince, was largely made up of aristocratic Guards officers, some of
its members were interesting men, knowledgeable about the areas they
were visiting. M.K. Onu, an intelligent man and an expert on Middle
Eastern and Asiatic affairs, travelled with Nicholas in Egypt and India.
Prince E. Ukhtomsky, an authority on Asian religion and culture, accom­
panied him on the whole journey. Ukhtomsky believed, then and after­
wards, that Russia’s future lay in Asia. He argued that, unlike Western
and Central Europeans, Russians had a spiritual affinity with Asians.
There seems’, he wrote, ‘to be nothing easier for Russians than to get on
with Asiatics. W e agree so well with one another in our views of the most
important and vital questions, that a certain close spiritual kinship soon
comes to the front.’ Asking rhetorically, ‘when will the Christian nations
of the West acknowledge the right of Asia to equality and really humane
treatment’, Ukhtomsky claimed, with little historic justice, that ‘the idea
of invading a complex foreign life, of using Asia as a tool for the selfish
advancement of modem, so-called civilised, mankind, was repugnant to
us’. Ukhtomsky’s particular bête noire was the British colonial empire, and
he may have encouraged Nicholas in his irritation with the red coats by
which the Tsarevich was continually surrounded in India. But although
Ukhtomsky was in some ways a misguided and prejudiced man he was not
an unintelligent one, and his views were a novel and refreshing antidote to
the conventional stereotypes about European cultural supremacy by which
Nicholas was surrounded not just in his father’s palaces but also when he
visited his European relatives.33
 Childhood and Youth 39

Back in Petersburg, having narrowly escaped assassination at the hands

of a policeman during his tour of Japan, Nicholas began to take a more
active role in affairs of state, while still spending as much time as possible
on regimental duties and living a free and easy bachelor life. Like all heirs
to the throne, he was appointed a member of the State Council and the
Committee of Ministers, the empire’s highest legislative and executive
bodies, on his twenty-first birthday. As one might expect of a young
member of the ‘leisured class’ enjoying the first fling of freedom, Nicholas
was less than enthralled at the idea of ploughing through the vast mounds
of paperwork which were the day-to-day reality of Russian government in
the highest echelons. In November 1891 he was appointed to chair the
Special Committee on Famine Relief and in February 1893 the Siberian
Railway Committee. Both of these committees were much closer to
Nicholas’s heart than the day-to-day business of the State Council and the
Committee of Ministers. He began to express independent views in both
committees, read their papers conscientiously and came to know some of
his father’s leading officials. It was through the famine committee, for
instance, that he first encountered Vyacheslav Plehve, later to serve as his
Minister of Internal Affairs. Nicholas’s indoctrination into the treadmill of
administration was beginning but it had not got far before his father’s
sudden and totally unexpected death, at the age of 49, in 1894 pushed his
horrified heir into a role for which he felt himself to be thoroughly
unprepared.34
No one either before or since has ever doubted Nicholas’s assessment of
his own lack of preparedness. Even his sister, the Grand Duchess Olga,
deeply loyal to the memory of Alexander III, wrote ‘it was my father’s
fault’. O n ascending the throne, Nicholas was, in her words,

in despair. He kept saying that he did not know what would become of us all,
that he was wholly unfit to reign. Even at that time I felt instinctively that
sensitivity and kindness on their own were not enough for a sovereign to have.
And yet Nicky’s unfitness was by no means his fault. He had intelligence, he
had faith and courage - and he was wholly ignorant about governmental
matters. Nicky had been trained as a soldier. He should have been taught
statesmanship, and he was not.3S

To what extent is the judgement of Nicholas’s sister correct? As regards

her brother’s intelligence, she was right. The myth is widespread that
Nicholas was a stupid man. This was far from true. Peter Bark, who knew
the Emperor quite well, wrote that he possessed ‘remarkable intelligence’.
V.I. Mamantov, who worked very closely with the Emperor for two
decades, remembered the speed with which he grasped complicated issues,
the sharpness of his memory, and the elegance and clarity with which he
40 Nicholas I I

expressed his written views. Admittedly, both Bark and Mamantov were
loyal servants of the crown, writing their memoirs after their master’s
terrible death, and almost universal disparagement gave them much
encouragement to defend his memory. Serge W itte, however, wrote
before the revolution, much disliked Nicholas II and compared him very
unfavourably with Alexander III. Nevertheless W itte commented in his
memoirs that Nicholas ‘has a quick mind and learns easily. In this respect
he is far superior to his father.,36
Alexander Izvolsky, who later served as Foreign Minister under
Nicholas, claimed that the Tsar’s education ‘was really that of a lieutenant
of cavalry in one of the regiments of the Imperial Guard’. This is unfair.
Guards cavalry officers were not taught by some of the empire’s leading
statesmen and professors. But it is true that the heir’s education was
inferior to that of his grandfather, Alexander II, whose tutor was the poet
Zhukovsky, and to that of some of the eighteenth-century Romanovs.
Here, however, one is encountering a cultural and intellectual decline
common to late nineteenth-century royalty and aristocracy as a whole. In
the eighteenth century some monarchs could converse comfortably with
the leading thinkers of their day and could patronize some of the best
artists and musicians. By 1900 the middle class dominated the intellectual
and cultural world, with the aristocracy and royalty abandoning these
fields and stressing instead the virtues of character, piety and proper behav­
iour. The world of Stravinsky and Freud was alien and incomprehensible
not just to Nicholas II but also to Franz Josef, Wilhelm II and George V.
As Countess Dönhoff recalls, ‘not only did the landed aristocrats lay no
claim to being part of the world of the poets and intellectuals, but they
took pride in rejecting it . . . To the very end, this [upper-class] society
remained à private, hermetically sealed world confident of the validity of
its mores.’37
If Alexander III and his wife cannot fairly be blamed for falling victim to
the ‘spirit’ of their age and class, for some failings in their son’s education
they can be held responsible. Nicholas’s problem was not really that he was
badly taught, still less that he was stupid. Much more to the point was the
fact that the heir was naïve and immature for his age, which made it
difficult for him to absorb the full value of his lectures and meant that even
in his twenties he had an adolescent’s view of the world. This was due in
part to the fact that he was educated, together with his brother George,
without outside companions of his own age. He grew up within the
confines of the imperial palaces in a devoted but very cloistered family
circle.
Many years later Nicholas’s only son, the Tsarevich Aleksei, was
brought up in a similar manner. His tutor, Pierre Gilliard, commented that
a child educated in such isolation
 Childhood and Youth 41

is deprived of that basic principle which plays the main role in developing
judgement. He will always feel the lack of that knowledge which is obtained
independently of study through life itself, by means of free relationships with
his peers, exposure to various influences - sometimes contrary to the views by
which he is surrounded, and by the possibility of regular contact and direct
observation of people and things. In a word he will be deprived of everything
that in the course of time develops intellectual horizons and provides essential
knowledge. In such circumstances one needs to be an exceptionally capable
person to acquire correct views, a normal way of thinking and the ability to
express one's will at the opportune moment. An impenetrable barrier separates
such a person from real life and makes it impossible to understand what is
happening on the other side of the wall, on which people draw false pictures to
amuse and occupy the person in question.38

Nicholas’s isolated education was unlike that enjoyed by his cousins,

George V or Wilhelm II, who as adolescents were dispatched to a naval
college and a high school (gymnasium) respectively. Even the Emperor
Hirohito, despite the divine status of the Japanese monarchy, was educated
with other boys at a special class at the Peer’s School, Gakushuin. In
Nicholas’s case considerations of both tradition and security would never
have allowed him to attend a school but it would not have been impossible
to select boys to be taught alongside him at the palace. Failure to do this
contributed to the fact that in his twenties the heir to the throne was
extraordinarily innocent in many ways. This suited some strands of the
ideology of Russian autocratic monarchy. The Emperor, it was asserted,
must stand not merely above all classes and factions but almost above the
human condition itself. Not prey to normal human temptations, interests
or frailties, he ruled on the basis of a pure heart and an Orthodox Christian
conscience. But though Nicholas’s immature innocence might match this
saint-like vision of kingship, it was very far removed from the day-to-day
business of politics in any country, let alone the bitter realities of ruling
Russia in an era of acute tension and difficulty.39
A harsh critic might add that Alexander III and Marie Feodorovna did
not approach their son’s education with the same intense seriousness of
purpose as, for instance. Prince Albert or his daughter Victoria, the
German Empress and the mother of Wilhelm II. Popka the parrot would
have been banished very speedily from anywhere near the classroom of the
Prince of Wales or one of Victoria’s sons. But, in Alexander and Marie’s
defence, educating an heir to the throne was a very difficult business. A
boy had to be trained for a position for which his character might be
unsuited. Even a constitutional monarch benefits from a wide range of
knowledge and absolutely requires a great sense of responsibility, tact and
self-discipline. The requirements for educating a young man to be head of
42 Nicholas I I

state and head of government for life are terrifying. Too rigorous and
joyless an education could backfire badly. Edward VII, a Hanoverian at
heart, revolted against the austere Coburg training imposed by his father
and turned into a pleasure-loving, self-indulgent but rather human adult.
His nephew Wilhelm II was not merely irresponsible and notoriously
incapable of consistent self-disciplined work, he also turned against the
liberal values which, together with an austere Protestant work ethic, his
parents had tried to inculcate into him. By these standards Nicholas II’s
education was quite well-balanced and successful. Nor, until the age of 18,
was it in any sense military.40
It remains true, of course, that when he became Emperor in 1894
Nicholas was unprepared either psychologically or technically for the job.
He exaggerated a little when he said to his Foreign Minister, Nicholas
Giers, *1 know nothing. The late emperor did not foresee his death and did
not let me in on any government business.’ But it was certainly the case
that he knew nothing of state secrets (such as the Franco-Russian alliance)
and had little overall grasp of policy. In addition, he had a thoroughly
inadequate grounding in the workings of the machinery of government.
The main reason for this was obvious enough. An enormously strong and
seemingly healthy man does not expect to die suddenly at the age of 49. In
his early years as Emperor, Nicholas undoubtedly suffered seriously from
his father’s oversight. Even so, it is possible at least to understand
Alexander’s position. There is no evidence that, unlike the kings of Italy or
some earlier Romanovs, he saw his heir as a threat or rival. There seemed
every reason to believe that Alexander would live for many years. He knew
better than anyone the endless chores and responsibilities of a tsar’s life.
Loving his son, he no doubt wished him to have at least a few carefree years
before his future role engulfed him. Talking about his heir, Crown Prince
Reza, the last Shah of Iran once commented that ‘at his age too much
responsibility might put him off administrative work for life’. Perhaps
Alexander III was too much influenced for too long by similar thoughts.41
In one sense, moreover, it is wrong to say that Nicholas was psychologi­
cally ill-equipped to rule. No doubt he was appalled that responsibility had
been thrust on to his shoulders so soon and so unexpectedly. As has been
said, as an autocrat he had no other role-model than his father and yet both
was, and felt himself to be, unable to meet his father’s standard. Certainly
he quaked, as any rational man would, before the immense burden and
responsibility of ruling Russia for the rest of his life. Much of the routine
even of a constitutional monarch is utterly tedious and demands inhuman
self-discipline. Maybe in his heart Nicholas cursed fate for imposing on him
these duties rather than allowing him the far easier life of one of his cousins
or even of an ordinary member of the leisured class. That would have been
very natural. But fate, interpreted as God’s will, was something that
 Childhood and Youth 43

Nicholas not only accepted but positively believed in. The old European
order did not glorify the individual or believe in one’s right to choose one’s
own path in life. Nicholas belonged in his innermost values entirely to
that order. Human beings served God’s purpose in the role to which He
assigned them. Nicholas was furious with other Romanovs who, in marry­
ing commoners or divorcees, thereby put individual happiness before
loyalty to the family collective and their inherited God-given responsibili­
ties. If he could not easily cope with the task of being an effective autocrat
there were good down-to-earth reasons for this, beginning with the
immense difficulty of the job. But the young man who ascended the
Russian throne certainly identified with his role, believed in its worth and
necessity, and proved obstinately determined not to shed the responsibility
which, in his view, God Himself had placed upon him.42
 CHAPTER 3

Tsar and Family M an

On 1 January 1894 the Tsarevich Nicholas wrote in his diary, ‘Please God
that the coining year will pass as happily and quietly as the last one. ’ In fact
1894 was to transform Nicholas’s existence. At the beginning of the year
the heir was first and foremost a young Guards officer, much of whose life
was devoted to reading, dancing, skating, the opera and his mistress,
Mathilde Ksheshinskaya. Twelve months later he was Emperor of all the
Russias, the bearer of theoretically absolute power over a vast empire. He
was also a married man.1
Nicholas’s bride was Princess Alix of Hesse, the youngest daughter of
Grand Duke Louis IV of Hesse and his wife Alice, who was herself Queen
Victoria’s second daughter. In 1884 Alix’s elder sister, Elizabeth, had
married the Grand Duke Serge, younger brother of Alexander III. Alix
had her first experience of Russia, aged 12, when she attended her sister’s
wedding. There she met the 16-year-old Tsarevich Nicholas for the first
time. Subsequently they met again, both in Russia and abroad. In Decem­
ber 1891 Nicholas confided to his diary that it was his ‘dream - to get
married one day to Alix of Hesse’?
The heir’s choice was eminently suitable. Many of Nicholas’s Romanov
relations were to marry a bewildering collection of ballerinas, commoners
and divorcees in the quarter century before the 1917 revolution. By con­
trast the heir’s eye had lighted on a very beautiful young woman closely
connected to many of the greatest royal families in Europe. There is no
evidence that Alexander III or the Empress Marie opposed their son’s
choice of bride. On the contrary, almost Nicholas’s first thought after his
engagement was that the news would delight his parents. The problem
with Alix was quite different. A Russian Empress had to be of the
Orthodox faith. Therefore any foreign princess marrying the heir to the
throne must convert to Orthodoxy. This the young Princess of Hesse was
not prepared to do.
Not until April 1894 did Alix change her mind. O n 2 April Nicholas
 Tsar and Fam ily M an 45

had set off with a large contingent of Romanovs to attend the wedding of
Alix’s brother. Grand Duke Ernest Louis of Hesse, to another grandchild
of Queen Victoria, Princess Victoria (‘Ducky’) of Edinburgh and Saxe-
Coburg-Got ha. Much of Europe’s Protestant royalty descended on
Darmstadt for the occasion, including Queen Victoria herself and the
Emperor Wilhelm II of Germany. On 5 April Nicholas was left alone with
Alix for a time. ‘She has grown wonderfully more beautiful’, wrote the
Tsarevich in his diary, ‘but was looking very sad. They left us alone and
then began between us the conversation which I had long since greatly
wanted and yet very much feared. W e talked until twelve but without
success, she is very opposed to a change in religion.’3
Three days later the young princess gave in. ‘A wonderful unforgettable
day in my Ufe,’ wrote Nicholas,

the day of my betrothal to my beloved Alix. After 10 o’clock she came to Aunt
Miechen and, after a conversation with her, we sorted things out together.
God what a mountain has fallen from my shoulders; how this joy will make
dear Mama and Papa rejoice! I walked around as if in a dream all day, not fully
understanding what had happened to me! Wilhelm [the Kaiser] sat in a
neighbouring room and awaited the end of our conversation with the aunts
and uncles.4

No one can be sure what caused Princess Alix to change her mind. It
was certainly not overt pressure from her relatives nor a simple desire to
wear a crown, for not long before she had stoutly resisted attempts to
marry her to the eldest son of the Prince of Wales, ‘Eddie*, the Duke of
Clarence. Perhaps the atmosphere surrounding her brother’s wedding and
the ill-suppressed hopes of many of her relatives influenced her. Perhaps she
felt a little insecure at the thought of losing her position as leading lady in
Hesse-Darmstadt to her brother’s bride. The advice of her sister, EUzabeth,
who became a voluntary and passionate convert to Orthodoxy in 1891 may
have been important. W hen staying on her sister’s estate at Ilinskoe, near
Moscow, Alix seems to have conceived that romantic love for the Russian
peasantry and viUage Ufe which was so strongly to mark her thinking as
Empress. But probably the simplest answer is the best one. Not even Alix’s
worst enemies ever denied that she loved her husband devotedly. And if
love for a handsome, sensitive man with high ideals was alUed to a romantic
excitement at the prospect of life in Russia and the chaUenge of a throne,
no young woman could fairly be blamed for that.5
Alix’s father. Grand Duke Louis IV, had died in 1892. Though she
loved her father and was greatly upset by his death, it does not seem that
Alix inherited much of his personaUty. The Grand Duke was a rather
amiable, easy-going and uninteUectual man. He was a professional soldier,
46 Nicholas I I

and in later life Alix used to take pride in calling herself a soldier’s
daughter. She shared her husband’s liking for military pageantry and the
officer’s code of values and behaviour. Perhaps her love of flowers was also
inherited from her father, an enthusiastic gardener. Darmstadt in the
broader sense did, however, influence the young princess in ways that
mattered later in Russia. The Grand Duchy and its royal family were not
rich, especially after the wars of 1866 and 1870-1. Managing the house­
hold first of her father and then of her brother, the young princess learned
habits of thrift and careful accounting which were to contribute to her
unpopularity among the extravagant, generous and often reckless aristoc­
racy of Petersburg.6
Alix was in some respects very similar to her English mother, Princess
Alice. Alice was an intelligent woman, who shared the intellectual inter­
ests and the seriousness of purpose of her father, the Prince Consort, and
her elder sister, Victoria, the mother of Wilhelm II of Germany. Like
Victoria she encountered much criticism from German courtiers because
of her English ways and sympathies, but Alice was more tactful than her
elder sister and Darmstadt a less difficult place for an English princess than
the intrigue-ridden and arrogant Prussian capital.
Alice was a deeply serious and thoughtful Christian.

The princess’s absorption with religion began in the period of nervous strain
after the death of her father. She read Professor Jowett’s E sssays an d R eview s
and F.W. Robertson’s Serm ons, starting her along the path to spiritual free­
dom. She conversed with the leading churchmen, who were among the few
visitors to the Queen in the initial mourning period, and before she was
twenty had engaged Dean Stanley in an earnest discussion of the Apocalypse
and the Psalms.

In Darmstadt Princess Alice became a great friend and admirer of David

Strauss, the author of Life o f Jesus and a biblical scholar of worldwide
renown and radical views. The two used to discuss not merely religious
questions but also Voltaire. Strauss read lectures on religious topics to the
Princess, and when these were published he dedicated them to her. Strauss
did this unwillingly, knowing that in parochial and God-fearing
Darmstadt the association of Princess Alice with unorthodox religious
ideas would cause a stir. But where her personal friendships and her
religious convictions were concerned, Princess Alice was prepared to scorn
public opinion. Later, in the much wider, crueller and more important
context of Russia, her daughter Alix was to do the same.
An intelligent and well-informed friend wrote of Princess Alice that
’Christianity to her was not a profession to be made lightly. If she could
not embrace its essential doctrines with her whole soul and without
 Tsar and Fam ily M an 47

reservation it became a meaningless lip-service which it was her clear duty

to abandon.’ Like her mother, Alix was a fervent Christian. She aban­
doned Protestantism only after a great struggle. In her bedroom at
Tsarskoe Selo ‘was a little door in the wall, leading to a tiny dark chapel
lighted by hanging lamps, where the Empress was wont to pray*. When in
Petersburg, the Empress used to go to the Kazan Cathedral, kneeling in
the shadow of a pillar, unrecognized by anyone and attended by a single
lady-in-waiting. For Alix life on earth was in the most literal sense a trial,
in which human beings were tested to see whether they were worthy of
heavenly bliss. The sufferings God inflicted on one were a test of one’s
faith and a punishment for one’s wrongdoings. The Empress was a deeply
serious person who came to have great interest in Orthodox theology and
religious literature. She loved discussing abstract, and especially religious,
issues, and her later friendship with the Grand Duchesses Militza and
Anastasia owed much to their knowledge of Persian, Indian and Chinese
religion and philosophy. Alix ‘zealously studied the intricate works of the
old Fathers of the Church. Besides these she read many French and English
philosophical books.'7
As Empress, Alix held to an intensely emotional and mystical Orthodox
faith. The superb ritual and singing of the Orthodox liturgy moved her
deeply, as did her sense that through Orthodoxy she stood in spiritual
brotherhood and communion with her husband’s simplest subjects. But
alongside this strain of Christian belief, Alix was also a bom organizer, an
efficient administrator and a passionate Christian philanthropist. Though
her interests included famine and unemployment relief, and professional
training for girls» her charitable work was above all concerned with help
for the sick and the world of medicine. Typically, even on holiday in the
Crimea, Alix toured the hospitals and sanatoria in the neighbourhood,
taking her young daughters with her because ‘they should understand the
sadness underneath all this beauty’. Setting up medical rehabilitation
centres for the wounded, busying herself with training young women, and
organizing hospitals and medical services in war-time - all of this was very
reminiscent too of the activities of Alix’s mother. Like her daughter, Alice
was an efficient, practical, down-to-earth administrator who loved orga­
nizing a range of charitable activities. Also like Alix, the world of nursing
and care for the sick was closest to her heart. Princess Victoria of Hesse
recalled the Franco-Prussian W ar in her memoirs, when ‘my mother was
very busy with Red Cross work and regularly visited the wounded, both
German and French, and I often accompanied her’.8
In both mother and daughter the spirit was a good deal stronger than
the flesh. Both were exhausted by numerous pregnancies. Already tired
and ill by her late thirties, Alix once wrote that ‘Darling Mama also lost
her health at an early age.’ Devoted mothers, both women insisted on
48 Nicholas I I

nursing their own children whenever they were sick. When Nicholas II
contracted typhoid in 1900 Alix nursed him herself, day and night. ‘I
rebelled at a nurse being taken and we managed perfectly ourselves.’
Unfortunately, she added, ‘now I suffer from head and heartache, the
latter from nerves and many sleepless nights’. When her children went
down with diphtheria in 1878 Princess Alice exhausted herself looking
after them. When she too contracted the disease she was unable to resist it
and died on 14 December 1878, aged only 35.
Alix and her mother were similar not only in their physical frailty but
also in their highly strung, passionate temperaments. Princess Alix was a
proud, strong-minded, very emotional woman who fought to control her
anger and nerves. Her mother once complained to Queen Victoria that
‘people with strong feelings and of nervous temperament, for which one is
no more responsible than for the colour of one’s eyes, have things to fight
against and put up with, unknown to those of quiet, equable dispositions,
who are free from violent emotions, and have consequently no feeling of
nerves. . . One can overcome a great deal - but alter oneself one cannot. ’9
When her mother died Alix was 6 years old. Simultaneously she lost
her sister and playmate. May, also to diphtheria. One can only guess at the
impact of these deaths on the small child, though Baroness Buxhoeveden
may well be right in suggesting that they ‘probably laid the foundations of
seriousness that lay at the bottom of her character’. The gap in the chil­
dren’s lives left by their mother’s death was to some extent filled by Queen
Victoria. The Queen frequently visited Darmstadt, and the Hesse family
took a long annual holiday in England. As the youngest and most vulner­
able of the Hesse children, Alix was the Queen’s favourite. Grandmother
and granddaughter always adored each other. As Empress, the only time
when Alix was seen to weep in public was at the memorial service for
Queen Victoria at the English church in Petersburg. Lili Dehn, who knew
Alix very well, believed that she owed a good deal to Victoria’s influence.

The Empress inherited much of her illustrious grandmother's tenacity of

purpose, and she refused to be dictated to . . . her morals were the ultra-strict
morals of her grandmother . . . in many ways she was a typical Victorian; she
shared her grandmother’s love of law and order, her faithful adherence to
family duty, her dislike of modernity, and she also possessed the 'homeliness’
of the Coburgs, which annoyed Society so much . . . Queen Victoria had
instilled in the mind of her granddaughter the entire duties of a Hausfrau. In
her persistent regard for these Martha-like cares, the Empress was entirely
German and entirely English - certainly not Russian.

In the first days of the 1917 revolution, when all the imperial children were
ill with méasles. Lili Dehn discovered to her surprise that the Empress not
 Tsar and Fam ily M an 49

only knew how to make a bed, but was also ‘especially expert in changing
sheets and nightclothes in a few minutes without disturbing the patients’.
Alix commented, ‘Lili . . . you Russian ladies don’t know how to be
useful. W hen I was a girl, my grandmother, Queen Victoria, showed me
how to make a bed . . . I learnt to do useful things in England. ’10
It may well be partly true that Alix’s ‘English point of view on many
questions in later life was . . . due to her many visits to England at this
most impressionable age’, in other words during childhood and adoles­
cence. In any case. Princess Alice had always remained ‘intensely English’,
and ‘life in the Palace was organised on English lines, and was so carried on
after the Princess’s death’. The nursery, ruled over by Mrs Orchard,
operated according to the English system of fresh air, simple food and a
strictly observed timetable. Thence, Alix graduated to an English govern­
ess, Miss Jackson, an intelligent woman under whose direction ‘the prin­
cesses were trained to talk on abstract subjects’. Not surprisingly, ‘English
was, of course, her natural language’ and England the focus for many of
her loyalties. During the First W orld W ar, Alix was to be deeply reviled
in Russia as a ‘German’, whose sympathies lay with Russia’s enemies.
There was no justice whatever in this, for Alix never had the remotest
loyalty to the Prussian-dominated German Reich or to its ruler, Wilhelm
II. Had war broken out between Russia and Britain, however, as was
entirely possible at any time between 1894 and 1906, Alix would most
certainly, and more justifiably, have been denounced as an Englishwoman.
Such was the inevitable fate of a foreign consort amidst the nationalist
passions of late Victorian Europe. In later life Queen Victoria became
doubtful of the wisdom of dynastic marriages through which her daugh­
ters and granddaughters were exposed to the strains and perils that faced
foreign queens at European courts. It was Alix, for whom the Queen had
particular affection, who was to confront these perils in their most cruel
form. Not surprisingly, Victoria’s joy at her granddaughter’s love for
Nicholas and her splendid marriage was tempered by fear for her fate on
such a great, but also such a dangerous, throne.11
The most tragic inheritance Alix received from her mother and grand­
mother was, however, the disease of haemophilia. This hereditary ailment
is generally transmitted through females but strikes only males. Its effect is
to stop the blood from clotting which, in the era before blood transfusions,
was a certain recipe for prolonged suffering and offered the probability of
an early death. Queen Victoria’s son, Leopold, was killed by this disease,
from which Princess Alice’s younger son also appears to have suffered. At
first glance, therefore, it might seem extraordinary that the Romanovs
could allow the heir to the throne to run the medical risks that marriage to
Alix entailed.
In fact, Alexander III and his wife clearly knew nothing about the
50 Nicholas I I

disease or the risks involved. Although Alix’s elder sister had married the
Grand Duke Serge the couple were childless, so the Russian imperial
family had had no reason to confront the issue of haemophilia. O f course,
having seen the disease destroy one of her sons. Queen Victoria herself
must have known something about it. But the Queen can hardly be accused
of deceiving the Romanovs or exposing them deliberately to danger, since
she had done her utmost to persuade Alix to marry the Duke of Clarence,
who stood in the direct line of succession to the British throne. The issue
of haemophilia was ‘a highly delicate matter rarely discussed in royal
circles. . . The whole subject was more or less taboo while Queen Victoria
was alive. ’ The question was in any case complicated by the random nature
of the disease. O f Queen Victoria’s four sons only one was affected. Nor
was haemophilia transmitted through her eldest daughter, Victoria, to
Kaiser Wilhelm II, as could very easily have happened. Instead it was the
descendants of her second and fourth daughters, Alice and Beatrice, who
were affected.
Even had the risks been better understood, however, it is by no means
certain how Nicholas and his parents would have reacted. In Japan in 1920
a huge political storm was caused by revelations that the intended bride of
Crown Prince Hirohito came from a family in which colour blindness was
a common affliction. The idea that any kind of hereditary ailment might be
introduced by marriage into the imperial family caused justified consterna­
tion. By contrast European royalty appears to have been extraordinarily
careless about such matters. To preserve royalty’s status, cousins inter­
married with no regard to eugenics. Haemophilia was treated no differ­
ently. In 1914, for instance, the possibility of a marriage between the
Romanian Crown Prince and Nicholas II’s eldest daughter was widely
canvassed without anyone, seemingly, raising the issue of haemophilia.
Unlike in Nicholas II’s case, when in 1905 King Alfonso XIII of Spain
proposed to marry Princess Victoria Eugénie of Battenburg, another
of Queen Victoria’s granddaughters, the Spanish court does appear to have
been warned of the risks involved. Alfonso seems, however, to have
shrugged off these warnings, subsequently never forgiving his wife for the
fact that two of his four sons were haemophiliacs. Nicholas II’s case was
more tragic than that of Alfonso in the sense that his only son, bom at the
end of his wife’s child-bearing days, was struck by the disease. It is a
measure of the Tsar’s sensitive and chivalrous nature, not to mention his
deep love for Alix, that never once did he blame her for ‘the fact that’, in
Alfonso’s words, ‘my heir has contracted an infirmity which was carried
by my wife’s family and not mine’. Haemophilia helped to destroy
Alfonso’s marriage, causing him to turn away from his wife in bittemess
and even revulsion. If it were possible, their son’s disease seemed to bring
Nicholas and Alix closer together than ever.12
 Tsar and Fam ily M an 51

In the summer of 1894, however, all thoughts of tragedy and disease

were far from Nicholas’s mind. The Tsarevich and his fiancée were
deeply in love. In June he received his parents’ permission to visit Alix in
England. The day after his arrival he wrote in his diary, ’W hat happiness I
felt, waking up this morning, when I remembered that I was living under
one roof with my dear Alix. ’ The next few weeks passed blissfully, though
not even the claims of his fiancée could stop Nicholas from visiting
the barracks of the British Guards and revelling in the drill and horse­
manship of the troops. From the moment of his departure every day that
passed without a letter from Alix was torment. To guard against such
misadventures Alix had carefully inserted loving messages in his diary for
weeks in advance. Told by Nicholas of his affair with Ksheshinskaya, Alix
wrote, ’God forgives us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to
forgive us . . . your confidence in me touched me, oh, so deeply and I pray
to God that I may always show myself worthy of it. *13
The Tsarevich’s idyllic mood was, however, to be destroyed in the early
autumn of 1894 by his father’s illness. In January 1894 Alexander had been
very unwell, his doctors stating that the problem was influenza. Alarm
spread in court and government circles, where it was recognized, in the
words of General Kireev, that for all his 26 years the heir was still a child,
with little training to take over the reins of government. By early March
fears for Alexander’s life had passed, but Lambsdorff reported that ’our
monarch appears thinner, above all in the face; his skin has become flabby
and he has aged greatly’. By late summer the Tsar’s increasing tiredness
was again causing worry, though not yet alarm. Professor Zakharin,
brought in for consultations from Moscow, calmed the imperial family by
saying that' Alexander’s life was not at risk. Nevertheless, he and Dr
Leyden agreed on a diagnosis of nephritis, complicated by ’exhaustion
from huge and never-ending mental work’. The Tsar stuck to his autumn
routine of visiting his hunting lodge at Spala in Poland, but on 30 Septem­
ber he was forced to decamp to the Crimea, whose warm climate would, it
was hoped, help him to recover. Although in early October Alexander was
still travelling in the Crimea, by the middle of the month he was some­
times confined to bed all day and the Tsarevich had begun to read state
documents on his father’s behalf. On 20 October the Tsar’s brothers,
Serge and Paul, arrived at Alexander’s bedside from Moscow. Two days
later Alix arrived, Nicholas commenting, ‘what joy to meet her in my
own country and to have her so close - half my cares and sorrow seem to
fall from my shoulders’. The Tsarevich was to need all the support he
could get, for on 1 November Alexander III died. His appalled heir com­
mented in his diary: ‘My God, my God, what a day. The Lord has called to
himself our adored, dear, deeply loved Papa . . . This was the death of a
Saint! God help us in these sad days! Poor dear Mama. ’H
52 Nicholas I I

The weeks that followed his father’s death were a nightmare for the
young Emperor. Together with the numbing shock of the loss came aware­
ness of the new and enormous responsibilities which he was ill-equipped to
face. The day-to-day business of government, including audiences with
ministers and receptions for other officials, bore down upon him. The
endless series of religious services following the death of an Orthodox
monarch took up much of his time. Still worse were the many receptions
for Russian and foreign delegations who arrived for Alexander’s funeral
and to pay their respects to the new monarch. Frequently Nicholas had to
make speeches at these receptions, something to which he was little
accustomed and which caused him great strain. W orst of all in a way were
the innumerable members of foreign royal families who descended on
Petersburg for the funeral and who had to be met at railway stations,
accommodated in the imperial palaces and treated with due deference and
attention. On 18 December, the eve of the funeral, Nicholas received so
many delegations that ‘my head was dizzy’. Two days later, after greeting
and dining with two hundred guests, T almost howled’. On 26 November
court mourning was lifted for a day and Nicholas and Alix were married.
Two days later the Tsar was so busy that he only saw his wife for one hour.
Not surprisingly, the strain told on him. Alix (who was her husband’s
aunt by marriage) wrote in Nicholas’s diary, ‘it’s not good to grind your
teeth at night, your aunt can’t sleep’.15
The new monarch appeared rather lost in his role. O n 13 November
Lambsdorff commented that ‘the young emperor, evidently, was shy
about taking his proper place; he is lost in the mass of foreign royalties and
grand dukes who surround him’. O n 27 January 1895 Lambsdorff again
noted that ‘His Majesty still lacks the external appearance and manner of an
emperor.’ In February 1896 he described an incident at a ball where
Nicholas waited his turn to ask Princess Yusupov to dance because others
stood in the queue before him. Lambsdorff remarked that ‘His Majesty
goes too far in his modesty.’ Not all members of high society were as
kindly in their comments. Comparing the appearance of Nicholas II at his
coronation with that of his father thirteen years before, Princess Radzivill
remarked that, ‘there, where a mighty monarch had presented himself to
the cheers and acclamations of his subjects, one saw a frail, small, almost
insignificant youth, whose Imperial crown seemed to crush him to the
ground, and whose helplessness gave an appearance of unreality to the
whole scene’. The Minister of W ar, General Vannovsky, complained that
Nicholas ‘takes counsel from everyone: with grandparents, aunts,
mummy and anyone else; he is young and accedes to the view of the last
person to whom he talks’.16
Petersburg high society was constitutionally incapable of keeping its
mouth shut. The Emperor and Empress were surrounded by people only
 Tsar and Fam ily M an 53

too happy to score off a rival by repeating an incautious or critical remark.

It took no time for Petersburg’s opinion about the monarch’s lack of will
or stature to reach the ears of the imperial couple. The main problem was
that both Nicholas and Alix were themselves only too well aware of the
Tsar’s lack of experience and self-confidence. From her very first days in
Russia Alix had tried to boost her husband’s determination to assert him­
self. Together with reminders of her and God’s love came the call to
show who was in charge. As Alexander III lay dying, Alix advised her
fiancé not to be pushed aside. 'Be firm and make the doctors . . .
come alone to you and tell you how they find him, and exactly what they
wish him to do, so that you are the first always to know . . . Don’t let
others be put first and you left out. You are [your] father’s dear son and
must be told all and be asked about everything. Show your own mind and
don’t let others forget who you are. Forgive me lovey. ’17
A t the same time as she was attempting to support her husband in his
unaccustomed role as Russia’s autocrat, Alix was also having to adapt
herself to the enormous changes that had taken place in her own life. It
helped her greatly that her marriage was, and always remained, very
happy. For any young woman, however, the first months of married life
can be difficult and few would relish a wedding which occurred one week
after their father-in-law’s funeral. In Petersburg Alix knew no one. Even
her sister Elizabeth, whose husband was Governor-General of Moscow,
was seldom in the imperial capital. Nicholas himself was overwhelmed
with work and saw little of his wife in the daytime. In the family
circle Alix could speak her native English. But outside it, in Petersburg
society, Russian or French was necessary. The young Empress had only
just begun to learn the former. She was never very happy speaking the
latter, which tended to desert her in moments of stress. In the first months
of her marriage such moments were plentiful, for as Empress she was
forced to be on perpetual show.
Problems quickly arose with her mother-in-law. Because Nicholas’s
marriage had been arranged so hurriedly, no apartments were available in
the W inter Palace or at Tsarskoe Selo until well into 1895. In the interim
the young married couple had to live in four rooms in the Empress Marie’s
palace. Just like Queen Alexandra after Edward VII’s death, the Empress
Marie stressed her precedence over her son’s wife in court ceremonies and
hung on to many of the crown jewels, most of which should have gone to
her daughter-in-law. Though the two empresses always remained on rela­
tively polite terms they could scarcely have been more different. Alix was
much more serious and intelligent but she sadly lacked her mother-in-law’s
vivacity or her social skills. Living under her mother-in-law’s roof, she
quickly became aware of the many unfavourable comparisons being drawn
between her and Marie in Petersburg society.18
54 Nicholas I I

The Petersburg aristocracy never liked the young Empress and by 1914
had come to hate her with quite extraordinary venom. Neither Darmstadt
nor Queen Victoria were much of a preparation for Petersburg, whose
extravagant luxury and low morals shocked Alix. This was a world in
which the following conversation could be overheard between two ultra-
aristocratic youths: Baryatinsky said to Dolgorukov that he is the son of
Peter Shuvalov, to which Dolgorukov very calmly answered that by his
calculations he is the son of Werder [the former Prussian Minister].’ If
Alix had been exposed to the world of her uncle the Prince of Wales’s
Marlborough House set rather than that of his widowed mother, Queen
Victoria, all of this might have come as less of a shock. Not even the Prince
of Wales’s circle, however, could have prepared Alix for the torrent
of jealous, malicious gossip that was the hallmark of Petersburg high
society.19
It was difficult for an outsider to understand or come to terms with
the Russian high aristocracy. Like their peers elsewhere, many of
Petersburg’s grandees were extremely proud. At its best such pride
meant a shrinking from the servile flattery common in bureaucratic and,
above all, court circles. At its worst it entailed unlimited arrogance and
heartless self-indulgence. Some Russian aristocrats were not averse to
remembering that their own families were older than the Romanovs
and had participated in successful palace coups in the eighteenth-century
‘golden age’ of the Russian nobility. Petersburg high society was always
elegant and sophisticated. It was often sharp and witty. O f all Europe’s
nineteenth-century aristocracies, the Russians had produced by far the
most renowned literary and musical figures. Even the head of Nicholas II’s
Personal Chancellery, A.S. Taneev, was quite a well-known composer.
Many aristocrats, as we have seen, regarded the last two generations of
Romanovs as rather uncouth. Almost uniquely in Europe, Russian
aristocrats had no equivalent of a House of Lords through which they
could aspire to a political role and enjoy the entertainment, status and
glory that such a chamber provided. The aristocracy’s civil rights were
also not fully secure since the Russian state opened private correspondence
and sometimes mistreated even members of the upper classes because of
their religious views and activities. For a European aristocracy at the
turn of the twentieth century all this seemed a shameful and humiliating
relic of barbarism. In addition, by the late nineteenth century agricul­
tural depression and the growth of a powerful state bureaucracy were
beginning to push the aristocracy to the margins of Russia’s economy,
government and society. W ith rapid industrialization in the 1890s this
process speeded up. So too did aristocratic resentment and criticism. The
Bavarian diplomat, Count Moy, recalls that the term ‘bureaucrat’ was the
supreme insult in Petersburg high society in the 1890s. The ‘easily excited
 Tsar and Fam ily M an 55

ladies of Petersburg society* were made so angry by reports of police

repression that ‘a good number of them took the side of the revolutionary
elements’. The Empress Marie had lived in Petersburg high society for
decades and understood its ways. She shared its love for a constant round of
luxurious and extravagant entertainments. But Petersburg’s aristocracy
was by no means prepared to throw itself at the feet of the shy, aloof and in
some ways rather gauche newcomer whose husband inherited the throne
in 1894.20
The young Empress was ill-equipped by temperament to win this
society’s loyalty. She danced badly, was extremely shy and loathed large
gatherings of strangers, at which she became stiff, cold and silent. Prince
Serge Volkonsky, who as Director of the Imperial Theatres met Alix
frequently in the 1890s, commented that she

was not affable; sociability was not in her nature. Besides, she was painfully
shy. She could only squeeze a word out with difficulty, and her face became
suffused with red blotches. This characteristic added to her natural indisposi­
tion towards the race of man, and her wholesale mistrust of people, deprived
her of the slightest popularity. She was only a name, a walking picture. In her
intercourse with others, she seemed only to be performing official duties; she
never emitted a congenial spark.

Quite unlike her mother-in-law, who was an expert in smoothing over

awkward moments by her warmth and tact, Alix’s combination of shyness
and obstinacy made her extremely rigid. Even in trivial matters she seemed
unwilling or unable to adapt herself to Petersburg society and its ways.
Volkonsky recalled that when Nicholas II came to the theatre or ballet
alone, he would chatter away amiably. ‘But I must add, this was only
when he was alone - without the Empress. Alexandra Feodorovna evi­
dently acted as a restraining influence on her husband. She was cold and
composed. Her entrances and her exits were in pantomime. She never
made an observation or uttered an opinion, or asked a question. ’21
Alix was proud. She had a high sense of the majesty of her husband’s
position and of the need to support and maintain it. Knowing only too
well Nicholas’s natural modesty and shyness, she understood how these
were seen as weak and un-imperial qualities by much of Petersburg society.
No doubt this accentuated her determination to uphold the monarch’s
dignity. In addition, however, the Empress was simply an Englishwoman
in a very foreign land.
In character Alix was very different to her far more resilient first cousin,
Victoria Eugénie of Battenburg, who married King Alfonso XIII of
Spain. Nevertheless, as English consorts in very un-English countries, the
two women had something in common. In temperament, religion and
56 Nicholas I I

habits Victoria Eugénie was at variance with the Spanish aristo­

cracy, to whom she always remained an outsider, an Englishwoman. The
Queen trod on many Spanish toes. Very much an English princess of
the Victorian era, Victoria Eugénie enjoyed organizing charities and
involving herself in activities which in Spain had always been the preserve
of the Church. Faced with haemophiliac sons, a notoriously unfaithful
husband and the harshly critical high society of Madrid, the Queen’s very
self-discipline, most prized of Victorian royal qualities, gained her ‘a
reputation of frigidity. She was suspected of being all the things most
Spaniards least admired: cold, aloof, insensitive, Anglo-Saxon.’ The
equally Victorian Empress Alix ‘was never able to understand the intrica­
cies of the Russian character, with its suppleness, its Slavic charm, and its
languid indifference to what the morrow might bring.’ C.S. Gibbes, an
Englishman who came to know both the Empress and Russia well, con­
cluded that her unpopularity owed much to ‘her want of a “ theatrical”
sense. The theatrical instinct is so deep in Russian nature that one feels the
Russians act their lives rather than live them. This was entirely foreign to
the Empress’s thought, shaped mostly under the tutelage of her grand­
mother Queen Victoria.’22
A whole series of minor ‘scandals’ erupted between the Empress and
Petersburg society. In 1895, for instance, Alix patronized a charitable
bazaar which was allowed to take place in the Ermitage, an unprecedented
gesture of imperial goodwill. The resulting discontent was universal: other
charities were jealous; shopkeepers complained of unfair competition since
the bazaar’s goods were untaxed; the director of the Ermitage and the chief
of security for the imperial family protested bitterly; and gossips in
Petersburg society had a field day. Some of the hostility no doubt reached
Alix’s ears and the Empress behaved at the bazaar in an even more than
normally shy and stiff manner. Nor did Alix win friends by her efforts to
inject Victorian earnestness into Petersburg society by setting up sewing
circles to make clothes for the poor. The smart set scoffed, the proud kept
their distance from anything that might seem like seeking imperial favour,
and others complained that the ways of an English vicarage were inappro­
priate in Russia. Since some of the great ladies who avoided Alix’s sewing
circles were active in encouraging and marketing peasant handicrafts from
the neighbourhood of their estates their criticisms were not always merely
selfish or without point.23
It is true that in the 1890s the gulf of mutual bitterness and resentment
between the Empress and Petersburg society was not nearly as great as in
the years after 1905, when it was much increased by the collapse of Alix’s
health and the arrival on the scene of Rasputin. V.I. Mamantov, who
served cheek-by-jowl with the imperial family in Nicholas II’s personal
suite, recalled that in the 1890s
 Tsar and Fam ily M an 57

Her Majesty was different to what age, illness and difficult moral sufferings
subsequently made her . . . At that time the Empress still fully enjoyed life
. . . Extremely shy with outsiders, and at that time still hampered by imper­
fect knowledge of Russian, which she later completely mastered, the Empress
soon became accustomed to us, who were part of her everyday life, and
enchanted us by her friendliness, simplicity and attention. Being very obser­
vant and quickly noticing each of our weaknesses, the Empress never lost an
opportunity to tease us but she did this very delicately without the slightest
wish to offend.24

Alix also still had her defenders in high society. Vladimir Lambsdorff,
himself a recluse, responded to complaints that the Empress looked bored
and ill-at-ease in society by saying that she was evidently a serious woman
who had no time for nonsense. General Alexander Kireev commented in
his diary that, months before Alix even arrived in Russia, Petersburg
society was slandering her and ‘already saying that the future Tsarevna has
a difficult character’. In January 1896 he added that the young Empress
was lovely and sweet but was very easily embarrassed and terribly in need
of encouragement to talk. Despite what the idiots of the Petersburg beau
monde said, she did not possess a permanently bored expression but was
simply very shy. Even by 1900, however, Lambsdorff and Kireev were
very much in the minority. Alix always found it much easier to get on
with the very old or with children, rather than with people of her own
age. At the turn of the century Kireev remarked of Alix’s position: ‘Poor
unfortunate Tsaritsa! Naryshkin says that the young Empress commented
that she and the Tsar saw few people. [Naryshkin replied] “ Then you both
need to see a few more people.’’ Alix answered, “ Why? So as to hear still
more lies?’’ 92S
How much Alix’s estrangement from Petersburg society actually mat­
tered is debatable. Partly because of this estrangement the imperial couple
lived a very isolated life in their suburban palaces of Tsarskoe Selo and
Peterhof. Petersburg society was the source of much of the slander that so
damaged the dynasty’s prestige in the last years before the revolution and
much of this slander was rooted in hatred of the Empress. In addition, by
distancing himself from Petersburg society Nicholas reduced his circle of
acquaintances and the opportunity of drawing on men and opinions differ­
ent to those he encountered through official channels. None of this would
have mattered if the Emperor and Empress had replaced traditional links
with the Petersburg aristocracy by forging ties with newer Russian
élites. By 1900 Petersburg high society was by no means as impor­
tant as it imagined. The monarchs could justifiably have asked themselves
whether leading the capital’s social round should absorb so much of their
time and energy at a crucial moment in Russian history. The Romanovs’
58 Nicholas I I

regime was too closely associated with the landowning aristocracy for its
own good. It would have been an unequivocally positive move if Nicholas
and his wife had tried to build bridges to the new industrial and financial
élites of Petersburg and Moscow, some of whose members were not
only powerful, but also exceptionally cultured and interesting. Nor were
Russia’s entire intellectual and cultural élites so radical in sympathy
that they would have been immune to all advances from the crown.
Even Wilhelm II had some friends among his country’s industrial
tycoons. Edward VII got on famously with some of his country’s new
millionaires and played a role in the forging of the aristocracy and pluto­
cracy into a new upper class. Prince Regent Luitpold of Bavaria carefully
cultivated intellectual and artistic circles in Munich. By accident Nicholas’s
younger brother, the Grand Duke Michael, also mingled in such circles
through his marriage to the divorced daughter of a Moscow lawyer, one
of whose friends was the composer Rachmaninov. Not surprisingly,
Nicholas and his mother were appalled at the news of Michael’s marriage,
which Marie described as ‘another terrible blow . . . so appalling in every
way that it nearly kills me’. No European monarch before 1914 would
have viewed a son’s mésalliance in any other way. Nevertheless there
ought to have been less dramatic methods by which the monarch and his
family could have come into contact with the new Russia that the govern­
ment’s own policies were helping to create.26
Nicholas occasionally visited a shipyard. The imperial couple toured the
All-Russian Exposition of Trade and Industry in 1896. But old Russia, the
world of the Guards officer, the peasant and the priest, was far more
congenial to the Emperor and Empress than the milieu of industrialists,
financiers or intellectuals. Court etiquette, tradition and lack of imagina­
tion also stood in the way. It was impossible to have sensible meetings
with representatives of middle-class Russia unless the court’s rules were
relaxed and opinions could be freely exchanged. The conventions and
pecking order of Victorian royalty and the aristocracy had to be dis­
regarded. Nicholas and his wife were too conventional, too afraid to tread
on their entourage’s toes, to do this. Staying at Sandringham in 1894 the
Tsarevich Nicholas was bewildered by the guests of his uncle, the Prince of
Wales, who included the Jewish financier, Baron Hirsch. In this company
he kept as silent as possible. Conscious of the Romanovs’ need to embody
the cause of Russian nationhood, Alix tried to get the Almanach de Gotha
to drop the words Holstein-Gottorp from the imperial family’s name.
Perhaps inevitably, despite their idealization of the Russian peasantry, the
world of the Gotha remained a part of Nicholas and Alix’s way of life, as
did the archaic and intricate mies and conventions which guided the
Romanov house and the imperial court. The son of Evgeni Botkin, the
imperial family’s doctor, commented that although ‘the Sovereigns them-
 Tsar and Fam ily M an 59

selves insisted that they valued in people nothing so much as simplicity and
sincerity . . . at the same time, without being conscious of it, they actually
appraised people almost solely according to the amount of attention these
people gave to quite outward and often nonsensical etiquette’. A view of
the world partly shaped by the court’s etiquette and the pages of the Gotha
was inevitably in many respects out of touch with contemporary Russia.27
Appropriately enough Nicholas and Alix spent most of their married
life in a little town called Tsarskoe Selo, fifteen miles south of Petersburg.
The tow n’s name means ‘Tsar’s Village’ and Tsarskoe was indeed a world
apart from the rest of Russia. Tsarskoe contained two adjacent imperial
palaces. The enormous and superb Catherine Palace was used for parades
and other ceremonial occasions. In the smaller but very elegant Alexander
Palace the imperial family lived. The interior decoration of the family’s
apartments was largely English Victorian and was executed according to
the Empress’s tastes. As Nicholas’s cousin, Prince Gavriil Romanov,
remarked, ‘its style did not at all fit that of the Alexander Palace, which
was consistently constructed in style Empire’, in other words on strictly
classical lines.28
Nicholas himself, however, loved the family’s quarters. On first seeing
the newly decorated apartments in September 1895 he wrote to his
mother,

our mood . . . changed to utter delight when we settled ourselves into these
marvellous rooms: sometimes we simply sit in silence wherever we happen to
be and admire the walls, the fireplaces, the furniture . . . the mauve room is
delightful . . . the bedroom is gay and cosy; Alix’s first room, the
Chippendale drawing-room is also attractive, all in pale green . . . Twice we
went up to the future nursery: here also the rooms are remarkably airy, light
and cosy.29

The best-known room in the private apartments was Alix’s boudoir

where, particularly as she became older and filer, she spent much of her
day. The Empress’s loyal friend. Lili Dehn, wrote that the boudoir ‘was a
lovely room, in which the Empress’s partiality for all shades of mauve was
apparent. In spring-time and winter the air was fragrant with masses of
lilac and lilies of the valley, which were sent daily from the Riviera . . . the
furniture was mauve and white, Heppelwaite [sic] in style, and there were
various “ cosy comers” . O n a large table stood many family photographs,
that of Queen Victoria occupying the place of honour.’ Baroness
Buxhoeveden, no less loyal but possessed of rather better taste, commented
that Alix liked things more for their associations than for their beauty and
that the rooms were, therefore, rather cluttered: ‘her’s was a sentimental
rather than an aesthetic nature’.30
60 Nicholas I I

Nicholas lived in these apartments for most of the autumn, winter and
spring of each year. His daily routine seldom varied.

The Emperor’s day began early. Around 8 o’clock the Emperor came out of
his bedroom, which he shared with the Empress, and swam in the swimming
pool. He dressed, had breakfast and went for a walk in the garden. From 9.30
until 10.30 the Emperor received Grand Dukes and court officials who had
business with him, as well as the Marshal of the Court, the Palace Com­
mandant and the commander of the Combined Regiment. From 10.30 until
1.00 were the reports of ministers, each of whom had his appointed day and
hour. At 1.00 or 1.30 lunch was served in one or other drawing room,
according to Their Majesty’s instructions, on tables specially brought in.
Lunch lasted for 45 minutes, after which the Emperor drank coffee in the
Empress’s boudoir. After lunch and until 5 p.m. were receptions for ambassa­
dors, foreign guests and trips for various reviews. At 5 tea was served in the
intimate family circle and daily from 6 until 8 there were ministerial reports.
At 8.00 dinner began, after which the Emperor usually spent the time until
10.00 in the Empress’s boudoir in the company of his children. After 10 o’clock
the Emperor went into his study, where he worked alone, sometimes until late
at night.31

From Nicholas’s point of view one of the great advantages of living at

Tsarskoe Selo rather than Petersburg was that he could indulge his passion
for exercise and fresh air in the enormous Alexander Park. On occasion,
the Emperor also went hunting, though for this the great forests of the
game reserve around Gatchina, thirty miles to the west, offered better
sport than the immediate neighbourhood of Tsarskoe. Business also took
the Emperor away from his palace, though usually only for a few hours at a
time. The most frequent cause for such trips were military reviews, above
all the annual festivals of the Guards regiments. Since there were three
entire divisions of Guards infantry and two of Guards cavalry these festivals
were a regular occurrence. Like much of the rest of any monarch’s ceremo­
nial duties they followed an unchanging pattern. The Emperor exchanged
greetings with his troops, all according to a set formula, and there fol­
lowed inspections, a march-past, religious services, the parading of stand­
ards and a fine lunch in the presence of the monarch for present and former
officers of the regiment. The tedium of such occasions was reduced for
Nicholas by the fact that, unlike his father, he loved military display. He
enjoyed his officers’ company. The care lavished on the Guards regiments
also, however, had political causes and was to yield rich dividends in
1905-7 when the regime’s survival hung by a thread and the loyalty of the
Guards was to be a major factor in the monarchy’s survival.32
For the first nine years of his reign Nicholas followed tradition by
hosting a number of great balls at the W inter Palace during the Petersburg
 Tsar and Fam ily M an 61

season. O n 6 January the Emperor always participated in the ‘Blessing of

the W aters’ which took place on the River Neva and was a combination of
an outdoor religious ceremony and a court spectacle in the W inter Palace.
In mid-January a huge ball for 3,000 guests was given in the Nicholas Hall
of the W inter Palace, all those invited being seated for dinner. A number of
smaller balls then occurred, usually for 800 guests at a time, for which the
Nicholas Hall was turned into a cross between a fantastic winter garden
and a dining-room. The season ended with the coming of Lent. In 1903,
the last year that Nicholas and his wife gave these balls, the season was
crowned by a performance of Boris Godunov in the Ermitage, followed two
days later by a costume ball. O n both these occasions all the guests were
dressed in the uniforms of the seventeenth-century Muscovite court. Even
by the exacting standards of Petersburg, the clothes and jewellery were
superb.
First the Russo-Japanese W ar and the 1905 revolution, then the collapse
of the Empress’s health, meant that no more balls or great spectacles
occurred after 1903. This deprived Petersburg society of its fun, for the
court balls had always been the most beautiful and extravagant high-point
of the winter season and the pride of Russian high society. Equally angry
were those in the Petersburg luxury trade, who lost a good deal of business
due to the court’s disappearance from the capital. Disgruntled dowagers
linked the decline of correct behaviour in aristocratic circles to the court’s
absence, claiming that in former days the monarchs had set an example to
high society and had disciplined those who misbehaved by dropping them
from court guest lists or showing their disapproval in other ways.33
The end of the court’s domination of Petersburg high society was in fact
just one element in a far wider process, namely the increasing liberation of
all elements of Russian society from the state’s supervision and control.
There were deep-lying economic, cultural and political reasons for this
process which, even as regards the aristocracy, went far beyond the issue of
whether the monarchs should participate in the Petersburg winter season.
Nevertheless by withdrawing from the life of Petersburg high society the
Emperor and Empress did make a direct, if unwitting, contribution to the
weakening of the crown’s hold on the Uves and loyalties of the Russian
éUtes.
In summer the imperial family moved from Tsarskoe Selo to Peterhof,
eighteen miles to the west of Petersburg and situated on the shore of the
Baltic Sea. As at Tsarskoe they did not Uve in the main palace at Peterhof,
which was used only for great ceremonial occasions. Instead they inhabited
a large villa called Alexandria, tucked away in the huge and splendid park
of the palace very close to the seashore. Alexandria in fact consisted of
more than one building. It included the so-called Cottage, a rambling
villa which Nicholas I had built for his wife in 1831. Alexander III
62 Nicholas I I

loved the Cottage, which continued to belong to his wife after his death.
The building in which Nicholas II and his family actually lived was a
rather extraordinary affair. Its core was a large watch-tower built by
Nicholas I during the Crimean W ar as a vantage point from which the
movements of the Anglo-French fleet in the Baltic could be observed.
Alexander III rebuilt the original wooden tower and adjoining pavilion in
stone and Nicholas II then added a two-storey building which was linked
by a covered gallery to the tower. The Emperor’s office was on the second
floor of the tower and was surrounded by a veranda covered in glass. From
the veranda and from the study’s windows there were splendid views over
the Baltic Sea, with Kronstadt visible to the left and Petersburg in the far
distance to the right. Particularly during the magnificent northern sunsets
the office and veranda were places of enchantment. Inside ‘a small writing
desk made of walnut stood beside the window. Chairs in the English style,
comfortable and elegant, covered in dark green leather, furnished the
room. The walls were lined with walnut panelling.’ Though the whole of
the so-called New Palace was simple and comfortable, the Emperor and
Empress loved the study and veranda best of all. It was here that Nicholas
received his ministers.34
Tsarskoe Selo and Peterhof were Nicholas II’s chief residences. In them
he spent much the greater part of each year. In addition, he visited his
hunting lodges in Poland in the autumn and usually spent some time at
Livadia in the Crimea as well. As regards its natural setting, the latter was
the most spectacular and beautiful of all the imperial residences. The
Crimea was Russia’s still unspoilt Riviera, with climate and vegetation to
match. Alix loved the flowers in the Crimea and Nicholas enjoyed the
walks. The sea air, the lovely weather and the superb views contributed to
an atmosphere of blissful contentment. Livadia was a real holiday resort for
the imperial family, far away from the intrigues and bustle of Petersburg.
For that very reason the Emperor’s sometimes long stays at Livadia caused
trouble for his ministers, not to mention for foreign governments seeking
negotiations with Russia. In 1903 one of his advisers pointed out to
Nicholas ’how difficult it was for the government to be situated for so
long away from the centre of administration’, only to be interrupted by
the Emperor’s retort that ’where l a m . . . is the centre of administration’,
a sentiment praised by Kireev as showing that ’the Emperor is beginning
to become independent’! But this was an era in which Wilhelm II of
Germany threw his ministers into despair by his constant travels in pursuit
of escape and amusement, and even Britain’s constitutional monarch could
expect a busy Prime Minister to travel to the South of France for an
audience in order not to interrupt the royal holiday. Fortunately for
Russian ministers, until the completion of the new palace at Livadia in
1911, the imperial family’s residence in the Crimea was rather cramped,
 Tsar and Fam ily M an 63

which was a deterrent to very long stays. Moreover, the old palace was
dark and even lacked running water above the first floor.35
Only on the imperial yacht, the Standart, did Nicholas II escape from the
world of politics and government as successfully as in the Crimea. A
beautiful ship of 4,334 tons, the Standart was built in Denmark and was
completed in 1896. At full speed she was capable of 22 knots. Sometimes
Nicholas II made state visits to other countries on the Standart. The yacht
was, for instance, used for the visits to Britain and France in 1896. On
other occasions, such as at Bjorkoe in 1905 and Reval in 1908, Nicholas
had 'summit meetings’ with foreign monarchs who arrived to meet the
Standart in their own yachts. In general, however, he sailed in the Standart
for pleasure and relaxation, varying his cruises by making excursions on
the shores of Finland. The Emperor’s own suite of rooms included a
bedroom, study and bathroom. Those of his family were equally light and
luxurious and there was plenty of room also for his very numerous entou­
rage. The imperial dining-room could seat 80 people with ease and there
was also a large reception room. No other officers were as close to the
imperial family as those who served on the Standart. Nicholas and Alix,
'loving the ship like their child’, were on intimate terms with its officers,
none of whom were appointed or transferred without their permission.
More than in any of their palaces, Nicholas II and Alix felt entirely en
famille and out of the public eye when they were aboard.36
Day by day, week by week and year by year the Emperor’s life passed
according to a well-established routine. Nicholas would know without
much risk of error precisely where he would be, whom he would be
receiving in audience, and what he would be wearing at any moment for
years ahead. Only revolution, war or death seemed capable of changing his
immutable regime. A very few alterations did, it is true, occur of the
Emperor’s own volition. From 1900 on, for instance, the imperial family
came to spend every Easter at the Kremlin in Moscow. They did so because
Nicholas and Alix were deeply moved by their participation in religious
services in the Orthodox capital at the high point of the Christian year. In
addition, it made political sense for the monarchs to show themselves in
Russia’s second capital and to associate themselves with their country’s
spiritual heritage.
Other high points of the 1890s included state visits to foreign countries
and the welcoming of foreign sovereigns to Russia. On the whole these
visits tended to be of symbolic rather than practical significance. Court
ceremony was at its most grand, etiquette at its most precise and, after
constant repetition, tedium very quickly set in. Some state visits were,
however, memorable and important. Wilhelm II from the very inception
of Nicholas’s reign sought to use cousinly links and the Tsar’s inexperience
to push German initiatives during private meetings with the Russian
64 Nicholas I I

Emperor. For this reason foreign ministers, both Russian and other,
awaited meetings between the two monarchs with some trepidation. Nor
was the purely symbolic side of state visits necessarily devoid of signifi­
cance. W hen Nicholas II visited Paris in 1896, for instance, no new treaties
were signed and little serious discussion of foreign policy occurred. But the
huge, ecstatic, almost hysterical welcome given to the Tsar proclaimed to
the world the existence of the Franco-Russian alliance and France's relief
that it was no longer isolated in the international arena.
But for Nicholas II, by far the most important ceremony in which he
participated during the 1890s was his own coronation. This was in his eyes
far from being merely the symbolic act through which he signified to the
world his assumption of the responsibilities of government. The corona­
tion was a religious service of communion, binding together God, the Tsar
and the Orthodox people. In the words of General A.A. Mosolov, the
chief assistant to the Minister of the Court, ‘the Tsar took his role of God's
representative with the utmost seriousness’. At his coronation the
Emperor prayed to God ‘to direct, counsel and guide him in his high
service as Tsar and Judge of the Russian Empire, to keep his heart in the
will of God, to help him so to order all to the good of his people and the
glory of God, that at the day of Judgement he may answer without
shame’. Nicholas believed that through his coronation he had assumed
before God a responsibility for the fate of his empire from which no human
being could ever absolve him. He believed quite sincerely that the Tsar’s
heart was in God’s hands and that through his coronation he was a vehicle
for God’s purposes. W ithin him rational political calculation was always
to coexist with the conviction that the wisdom which sprang from the
instincts and heart of a tsar was superior to any purely secular reasoning.
Never could he compare his own God-given position and responsibility
with that of politicians or statesmen, however wise. To be a tsar was to
listen to all advisers, ignore all selfish interests or motives, but ultimately
to decide on the basis of one’s own conscience and reason. After this, the
responsibility was God’s, for He had put the Emperor in his present
position and given him whatever faults and virtues he possessed. At the
very height of the 1905 revolution, when the regime’s fate hung by a
thread, Baron R .R . Rosen found the Emperor’s calm almost uncanny.
Nicholas responded to the ambassador’s incredulity by reminding him
that, ‘if you find me so little troubled, it is because I have the firm and
absolute faith that the destiny of Russia, my own fate and that of my
family are in the hands of Almighty God, who has placed me where I am.
Whatever may happen, I shall bow to His will, conscious that I have never
had any other thought but that of serving the country He has entrusted
to m e.’37
W hen Nicholas made his ceremonial entry into Moscow on 21 May
 Tsar and Fam ily M an 65

1896 in preparation for his coronation he did so, therefore, with a very
serious, not to say solemn, sense of what the crowning and anointment of
a tsar signified. That sense could only be strengthened by the emotional
reaction to the beauty of the coronation service itself. Almost other­
worldly singing, dramatic ritual, superb vestments and uniforms, the
tremendous physical and mental strain of being the centre of a religious
pageant which lasted for three hours: all of this must have made a deep
impact on an impressionable young man who believed with all his heart in
the role which God had called upon him to play. The Emperor’s cousin.
Prince Gavriil Romanov, witnessed the coronation. He recalled that the
coronation service

proceeded with quite exceptional solemnity. Everything was so beautiful that

it cast into the shade anything that I had ever seen. The Uspensky Cathedral
was a witness to many centuries of Russian history and all tsars of the House of
Romanov had been crowned there; the clergy grouped together and in magni­
ficent vestments, with the metropolitan at their head; the lovely music - all
this gave the ceremony a deeply mystical character.

In the coronation service itself the Tsar placed the crown first on his
own head and then on that of the Empress. He read prayers and then
received the congratulations of the whole Romanov clan, who mounted
the steps of the throne one after another to kiss his hand. There followed
the liturgy, which included both the anointment and the taking of the
Eucharist which, on this day for the only time in his life, the monarch
received in the form reserved for the priesthood. Then the Emperor and
Empress led a solemn procession around the cathedrals and squares of the
Kremlin to show themselves to the people. After this came a ceremonial
banquet, illuminations and the end of an exhausting day.38
Four days later disaster occurred. As part of the coronation festivities a
great celebration was arranged for the public on the Khodynka field on the
outskirts of Moscow. At ten in the morning food and mementoes were to
be handed out. At noon the Emperor would arrive and be present for a
range of afternoon entertainments. Although the Khodynka field had
always been used for these coronation festivities, on this occasion the
booths from which the presents were to be distributed were ill-sited. The
ground near the booths was uneven, and much of it was laced with
ditches, trenches and even wells. A crowd of over half a million gathered
without sufficient police or planning to control its movements. The
growing crush of people led to panic, which was exacerbated when
mementoes began to be distributed and those at the rear of the crowd tried
to push their way towards the booths. Even the official figure for the dead
was 1,350, and in fact probably more than this died in the tragedy.
66 Nicholas II

Hundreds were trampled underfoot, fell into trenches or were simply

suffocated. That evening a particularly grand ball was given by the French
ambassador. Because of the extravagant preparations for the ball, caused in
part by French delight at the recently signed alliance with Russia, the
failure of Nicholas and Alix to attend would have been a great slight. The
Emperor’s sister wrote that

I know for a fact that neither of them wanted to go. It was done under great
pressure from his advisers. The French government had gone to immense
expense and trouble to arrange the ball. Tapestries and plate were brought over
from Versailles and Fontainebleau and 100,000 roses from the south of France.
Nicky’s ministers insisted that he must go as a gesture of friendship to France.
I know that both Nicky and Alicky spent the whole of that day in visiting one
hospital after another.39

Whatever the Emperor’s private feelings, the Khodynka catastrophe

created a number of images and impressions which were to colour all later
views of Nicholas, his government and his reign. The first such image was
of a young monarch dancing at a fabulous ball on the evening of a day
when hundreds of his subjects had lost their lives as a result of the
incompetence of his own government. The image was unfair, for even
W itte, the Tsar’s enemy, commented that Nicholas looked sick’ and was
‘obviously depressed’. Not for the last time, however, the Emperor’s
self-control exposed him in temperamental Russian eyes to accusations of
heartlessness and indifference.40
The causes of the tragedy on Khodynka field lay in part in a battle over
jurisdiction between the Ministry of the Imperial Court, headed by Count
1.1. Vorontsov-Dashkov, and the Governor-General of Moscow, the
Grand Duke Serge. Well before the coronation festivities began these
inter-departmental wrangles had been exacerbated by the tactlessness,
explosive temperaments and simple arrogance of many of the personalities
involved. Inevitably, after the catastrophe, everybody tried to blame every­
body else and partisans of Vorontsov-Dashkov and Serge fined up behind
their leaders in order to throw mud at their opponents. General Kireev,
who thoroughly disliked Vorontsov-Dashkov, claimed that on this occa­
sion the Ministry of the Court had managed arrangements for the corona­
tion far less efficiently than under Count Adlerberg’s direction in 1883. It
was in large part responsible for the disaster at Khodynka field because of
Vorontsov-Dashkov’s tactless treatment of Serge and the Ministry’s
insistence on pushing aside the Moscow administration and seeking to
monopolize control over arrangements. On the other hand, some of the
younger Romanovs, headed by Nicholas’s cousin and brother-in-law, the
Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich, argued that Serge was to blame for
 Tsar and Fam ily M an 67

the disaster and should resign. Serge's brothers leapt to his defence, and the
Dowager Empress Marie supported Vorontsov-Dashkov, an old friend
both of herself and of Alexander III. Count Constantine von der Pahlen,
the former Minister of Justice, concluded his investigation of the disaster
by remarking that "whenever a Grand Duke was given a responsible post
there was sure to be trouble’, a remark which contained a good deal of
truth. W itte commented that "Count Pahlen's report did not endear him
to the Grand Dukes’ and "from this time on Count Pahlen was never to
receive a substantial appointment’. Immediately after the disaster General
Kireev noted in his diary that one thing was certain: junior officials would
take the blame for what had happened, their masters getting off scot free,
for "in our country the principle of escaping without punishment reigns’.
And so it turned out. Colonel A.A. Vlasovsky, who was in charge of the
Moscow police, was dismissed - a fate which, admittedly, he richly
deserved. Neither Serge nor Vorontsov-Dashkov was touched. The
impression that emerged from all of this was of an administration, even a
Romanov family, at loggerheads with itself and careless of the fate of those
for whom it was responsible. Over this mess there presided a monarch
unable to control or discipline even his relatives, let alone his leading
advisers. As is always the case, first impressions, particularly when estab­
lished in a manner as dramatic as the Khodynka disaster, are never easily
dispelled. Certainly Nicholas and his government never erased the image
which Khodynka implanted in the public mind.41
 CHAPTER 4

R uling Russia,
1894-1904

In the 1880s, before he inherited the German crown, Prince Wilhelm of

Prussia liked to send photographs of himself to friends and acquaintances.
These bore the inscription, 'I bide my time*. It was during this period that
Wilhelm built up his relationships with some of the individuals who were
to play key roles in his reign. Even in 1882 Wilhelm, aged only 23, was
calling regularly on General Count Alfred von Waldersee, whom he was
to appoint Chief of the General Staff soon after his accession to the throne.
In 1883 the young Prince first met Count Philipp zu Eulenberg, then a
mere secretary in a minor diplomatic legation but later to be the Kaiser’s
closest friend and chief ally in his effort to assert his personal control over
German government. In the mid-1880s, however, the Prince’s greatest
friend was Captain Adolf von Bulow, through whom Wilhelm became
acquainted with Bulow’s brother, Bernhard, then a junior diplomat in
Petersburg but subsequently the Kaiser’s Chancellor and right-hand man
in the era when personal imperial rule came closest to realization. By the
time he ascended the throne in 1888 the young Kaiser was surrounded by a
small group of close friends and allies who had hitched their ambitions to
his determination to rule his empire in fact as well as in name. Some of
these people were obnoxious but their ability was beyond question.
Wilhelm created not just an heir’s party but also a distinct political
profile for himself. He broke entirely with his parents’ liberalism, stress­
ing instead his loyalty to Prussian conservative and militarist traditions.
This brought him into the orbit of O tto von Bismarck, his grandfather’s
Chancellor, Prussia’s Prime Minister since 1862 and the effective ruler of
Germany. W ithin two years of his accession, however, Wilhelm had
toppled Bismarck. The two men had differences over policy, both domestic
and foreign. Indeed Bismarck’s fall was soon to be followed by the lapsing
of the German-Russian security treaty, which in turn was to lead to the
signing of the Franco-Russian alliance and Europe’s division into two
blocs. But the basic reason for Wilhelm’s removal of Bismarck had more to
 R uling Russia, 1894-1904 69

do with political ambition than disagreement over policy. Bismarck was

Europe’s leading statesman, Germany’s legendary unifier and a man of
very autocratic temperament. Wilhelm was determined to assert himself
and to show that in Germany only the Kaiser ruled.1
The contrast between Wilhelm and his Russian cousin was tremend­
ous. As Tsarevich, Nicholas was far too modest, too loyal and too much
in his father’s shadow to create anything like a crown prince’s party.
W hen he ascended the throne in 1894 he had no political profile or
programme. No one knew what he really thought about political issues.
In addition, Nicholas was a man who found it very difficult to make
friends. He was always polite, often charming and talkative, but in the
end elusive. His very politeness was a barrier to intimacy. He was in
general very sensitive and careful as regards the feelings of those who
worked with him, but one felt always a reticence, an aloofness, a fear of
getting too close to anyone lest intimacy impair his dignity or threaten his
independence. These characteristics, evident throughout his reign, existed
already in 1894. W ithin days of Nicholas’s accession A.A. Polovtsov
recorded in his diary, ‘Count S.D. Sheremetev says that the present
Emperor is very much without warmth and is incapable of enthusiasm.
Count Sheremetev’s children played with the heir since childhood but
none of them can say what his views really are.’2
No leading political or military figure in Nicholas’s reign had been a
friend of his before he ascended the throne, unless of course one counts
members of the imperial family. Even among the Romanovs, however,
grand dukes who exercised political influence were almost always men of
the older generation. The only Romanov who did play a political role
and was Nicholas’s contemporary was the Grand Duke Alexander
Mikhailovich. ‘Sandro’ was the Emperor’s cousin by birth and married his
sister, Xenia. Even he, however, only exercised an intermittent influence
and politically he was distinctly less significant than many ministers. O f
the latter, none were the Emperor’s real personal friends. Admiral Fedya
Dubasov, who crushed the Moscow uprising in the winter of 1905, was
an old acquaintance of Nicholas, whom he had accompanied on his tour
round the world in 1891. But the only true personal friend worth
noting from the Emperor’s youth was General A.A. Orlov, with whom
Nicholas had served in the Guards Hussars. One of Nicholas’s aides-de-
camp described Orlov as ‘the Emperor’s single real friend, with whom
His Majesty very often spoke in private, expressing his thoughts and
ideas’. Both Nicholas and Alexandra had great faith in Orlov and were
extremely upset by his death, at a relatively youthful age, in 1908. The
Empress described Orlov as her husband’s ‘sole and single’ friend and, in
the manner common in Petersburg society, was subjected to a torrent of
malicious and envious gossip because of her habit of periodically placing
70 Nicholas I I

flowers on his grave. But Orlov, though he played an important role in

the suppression of the revolution in the Baltic provinces in 1905-6, never
rose beyond the rank of major-general or the command of a Guards cavalry
regiment.3
The Emperor’s lack of close friends or even acquaintances of his own
age or somewhat older created many problems for him during his reign.
He was never able to draw on a pool of people young enough to possess
energy and fresh ideas and with whom he had close personal links.
Instead, in the first years of his reign he was wholly dependent on
statesmen inherited from his father’s era. Although he later gained a
reputation for shedding ministers easily, this was true only in the years of
confusion and crisis towards the end of his reign. In the 1890s, on the
contrary, he was loyal to his father’s ministers, sometimes retaining them,
or even recalling them to office, when they were too old to do their jobs
properly.
The dominant figure in Russian politics during the 1890s was Serge
W itte, the Minister of Finance. Nicholas inherited him from his father
and kept him in office until 1903, despite his own increasing distaste for
W itte’s rather overbearing and abrasive personality and despite the
enormous criticism to which W itte’s policies were subjected from all
sides. The ministries of justice and communications were run by Nicholas
Muravyov and Prince Michael Khilkov respectively for the whole of the
first decade of Nicholas’s reign, and the navy was dominated by the Tsar’s
uncle, the Grand Duke Aleksei, to the extent that the latter’s sybaritic and
self-indulgent lifestyle allowed him to direct any serious business. In 1898
General P.S. Vannovsky retired as Minister of W ar at the age of 76, after
seventeen years in the post, only to be brought back three years later with
the aim of instilling order in the crisis-ridden Ministry of Education.
Only in two departments did ministers change frequently in the first
decade of Nicholas’s reign. These, however, were the crucial ministries of
internal and foreign affairs. Even here, nevertheless, the changes were very
seldom of the Emperor’s own volition. Nicholas’s first three foreign
ministers all died in office and although the first two were in their seven­
ties, the third, Michael Muravyov, collapsed suddenly at the age of 55. O f
Nicholas’s first four ministers of internal affairs, Dmitri Sipyagin and
Vyacheslav Plehve were assassinated. Ivan Duraovo was the obvious
candidate for promotion to chairmanship of the Committee of Ministers
when Nicholas Bunge died in 1895. O f all Nicholas’s leading advisers, the
only one to be dismissed for political reasons in the nineteenth century was
Ivan Goremykin, who lost his job as Minister of Internal Affairs in
October 1899 after an unsuccessful clash with Serge W itte which con­
firmed the latter’s pre-eminent position in Russian politics.4
Continuity in personnel was matched by faithfulness also to the policies
 R uling Russia, Î 894-1904 71

pursued by Alexander III. Nicholas’s first political statement of any signi­

ficance was made in a speech in January 1895, during which the Emperor
responded to very polite and timid requests by a handful of local govern­
ment (zemstvo) councils for greater public participation in government.
The young monarch, ‘very nervous before going into the Nicholas Hall*
to make his speech, responded that ‘I know that recently, in zemstvo
assemblies, there have been heard voices carried away by senseless dreams
about the participation of zemstvo representatives in governmental affairs.
Let everyone know that, devoting all my strength to the good of my
people, I will preserve the principles of autocracy as firmly and undeviat-
ingly as did my unforgettable late father.' Nicholas's commitment to
autocracy and his sense that this was threatened by the zemstvos’ ambi­
tions did not alter in the 1890s. Ivan Goremykin's dismissal in 1899 was
caused in large part by his efforts to spread elected zemstvos to Russia’s
western borderlands where local government was still in the hands of
appointed state officials. W itte, Goremykin’s enemy, pounced on this
initiative and used it to persuade Nicholas that his Minister of Internal
Affairs was expanding zemstvo power at the expense of monarchical
prerogatives. Indeed W itte wrote a small book for the occasion, in which
he argued that the principles on which autocracy and the zemstvo worked
were incompatible.5
Continuity meant not just preserving the autocratic powers which
Nicholas inherited from his father but also using them to pursue very
similar goals. In the first six years of his reign Nicholas made no basic
changes in his father’s domestic policies. In foreign affairs the alliance with
France was upheld and even the increasing emphasis on Far Eastern affairs
had been foreshadowed by Alexander Ill's decision to build the Trans-
Siberian railway, despite the huge costs involved. Nicholas himself
commented that ‘when my Father died I was simply the commander of
the Escort Squadron of the Hussars and for the first year of my reign was
just taking the measure of how the country was run’. In fact it was to be
a good deal more than a year before Nicholas put his stamp on Russian
government. Only at the turn of the century did his influence become
palpable, at least as regards domestic affairs. In part the Emperor’s
expanding role reflected his growing experience and self-confidence, in
part his increasing impatience with his official advisers and the bureau­
cratic machine they ran. Very important too was the developing sense, fed
by criticism from all sides, that Russia was in the midst of crisis, and that
continuity in policy was therefore no longer enough. Yet the Emperor’s
increasing personal intervention was to be both result and cause of this
crisis, leading not to new and coherent policies to steer the empire out
of danger but rather to the further disorganization of Nicholas’s
government.6
72 Nicholas I I

As far as the 1890s were concerned, the causes of continuity in

government policy are not hard to find. They lie in part in Nicholas’s
inexperience, in his lack of any clear political programme or of a circle of
‘Young T urk’ friends who might have sought to use him to push new
principles and promote themselves into office. Filial piety, reinforced by a
deep sense of personal loss and bewilderment, encouraged him to listen
favourably to those who told him that his father had bequeathed an empire
that was running well. Immediately after his father’s death, Nicholas told
his uncle Vladimir how difficult things were for him because he had been
kept so far from government affairs in the past. The Grand Duke replied
that

he remembered the accession to the throne of both his father and his brother.
On both of these occasions Russia was in a very difficult and troubled
situation, quite different to now when, on the contrary, she had enjoyed a
thirteen-year peace. Undoubtedly the life of the state and the people required
some changes but there was no need to hurry with the latter. One should not
give anyone grounds to think that the son condemns the order created by his
father or the choice of people whom the latter had summoned to work with
him. Initially one should suspend changes and should follow the main line of
his dead father's policy.7

A.A. Polovtsov recorded that ‘the young Emperor accepted his uncle’s
words with great sympathy’. For this there was good reason. Not only
was Vladimir’s advice comforting, but on the surface at least it appeared
to be true. Nicholas II was the fifth Romanov to ascend the throne in the
nineteenth century but the first whose accession had not occurred in the
midst of tumult and crisis. Both Alexander I and Alexander III had
succeeded fathers who had been assassinated. In the former’s case the
conspiracy which overthrew Paul I aimed to reverse the state’s foreign
policy and, in domestic politics, to return to the policies and manners of
Alexander I’s grandmother, Catherine II. In 1825, when Alexander I
died, important issues of policy were immediately thrust under the nose of
his successor, Nicholas I. He faced an attempted military coup d'état,
whose aim was the abolition of the absolute monarchy, in the very first
days of his reign. On Nicholas’s own death in 1855 his son, Alexander II,
ascended the throne peacefully but he did so in the midst of a defeat in the
Crimean W ar which undermined the legitimacy of his father’s system of
government and put urgent and fundamental reform on the political
agenda. Twenty-six years later Alexander III succeeded to the throne
during an even worse political crisis, caused in part by a terrorist campaign
which had culminated in his father’s assassination. Days before he died,
Alexander II had ratified a plan to allow representatives of the zemstvos and
 R uling Russia , 1894-1904 73

nobility to participate in discussion of legislation and government policy.

Confirmed but as yet unpublished, this plan for a first timid step towards
constitutional government lay on the new Tsar’s desk when he ascended
the throne, forcing him to make a fundamental political choice in the first
days of his reign. In comparison to this, the dilemmas facing the young
Nicholas II did not seem grave nor the desire to continue his father’s
policies unreasonable.8
O f the ministers whom Alexander III bequeathed to his son, the most
interesting and unusual was Serge W itte. W itte’s background was typical
of Russian senior bureaucrats in the last decades of the old regime. His
family, of West European origin, had become Russian in culture and
religion over the generations, had produced a number of relatively senior
civilian and military officials, and had married into the old Russian
aristocracy. W hat did set W itte apart was his education, his career and his
manner. Many Petersburg top officials had been educated at either the
Alexander Lycée or the School of Law, the empire’s two great civilian
boarding colleges which were reserved for sons of the aristocracy and
senior bureaucracy, and which were designed specifically to produce well-
educated, loyal ‘highfliers’ for the civil service. Most other senior officials
were graduates of Petersburg or Moscow university, though in the higher
ranks of the Ministry of Internal Affairs one always found quite a large
number of former army officers, most of whom had been educated in the
more aristocratic cadet corps and had served in the Guards. W ith
the exception of these soldiers, the great majority of élite officials
shared a legal education, though in pre-1914 continental Europe this
implied a broader and intellectually more demanding course of studies
than that faced by an undergraduate studying law at a contemporary
British university.
Serge W itte, on the other hand, was among the rather small minority
of top officials who had passed through the very demanding university
course in physics and mathematics. He was almost alone among his peers
in having graduated from Odessa’s ‘New Russia’ university. And he was
rare, though not unique among Ministry of Finance officials, in having
spent many years in private enterprise, in W itte’s case the railways. Serge
W itte’s manner always made him stand out a little in high official and
court circles. The average Petersburg high official who had spent his life in
the bureaucracy’s key central offices tended to be not just an efficient
administrator but also something of a wary politician, even perhaps a
smooth operator. He guarded his tongue carefully, knew how to flatter
the powerful, and kept a careful eye on which way the wind was blowing
at court and among the ministers. In general he was not only intelligent
but also often rather cynical and world-weary as a result of many years’
exposure to the Petersburg political world. Usually too, at least on the
74 Nicholas I I

surface, he was refined and polite: certainly these were characteristics that
the Alexander Lycée and the School of Law took pride in inculcating
in their students.9
When Serge W itte first appeared in the Petersburg firmament, Madame
Bogdanovich commented that ‘in appearance he is more like a merchant
than a civil servant*. W itte was a big man, full of practical energy. He could
be tactless and overbearing. He had strong opinions and lacked the civil
servant's long experience of having to defer to the wisdom of his superiors in
a hierarchical chain of command. Few honest and informed observers of
Russian government in the 1890s doubted that W itte was the Tsar’s most
impressive servant. As Minister of W ar from 1898 to 1904 General Aleksei
Kuropatkin had many ferocious battles with the Minister of Finance. Never­
theless, Kuropatkin wrote in his diary that he could not help admiring ‘this
strong and highly talented man’, despite all the trouble that W itte had
caused the army. ‘1have told him more than once that he is greater than all of
us, his colleagues, by several heads and I recognize this to be true.’ The
trouble was, Kuropatkin added, that he was fearful as to where W itte’s
policy of rapid industrialization was leading Russia. Though no military
genius, Kuropatkin himself was an intelligent man and an honourable
patriot. Both his admiration of W itte and his fear of his policies were shared
by many.10
Serge W itte’s impact on Russian government in the 1890s was not just a
product of his own personality. It also reflected the enormous power of the
ministry he headed. Alexander Polovtsov commented in 1894 that ‘without
the Ministry of Finance it was virtually impossible to decide any serious
question’. One element in the ministry’s power was the high intellectual
calibre of its élite officials. Even Vladimir Gurko, from the rival Min­
istry of Internal Affairs, admitted that W itte ‘assembled a fine group of assis­
tants and other officers in the Ministry of Finance’. Above all, however,
the Finance Ministry's power was a product of the enormous range of its
activities. As one would expect, the ministry controlled the state’s income
and expenditure, thereby exercising a powerful influence over all other
government departments. The State Bank was a mere offshoot of the minis­
try, which monopolized control over monetary and fiscal policy. In addi­
tion, until the creation of the Ministry of Trade and Industry after the 1905
revolution, all commercial and industrial policy was directed by the Ministry
of Finance, whose power was all the more formidable because, by Western
standards, the Russian government pursued an extremely interventionist
policy designed to protect, subsidize and channel the rapid development of
Russian industry. To grasp the strength of W itte’s ministry one would per­
haps need to think of Japan in the 1950s and 1960s, and even then to imagine
the situation had the Ministry of Finance and MITI been contained under
one roof.11
 R uling Russia, 1894-1904 75

Under W itte’s direction, this enormously powerful department

became something akin to a ’ministry of national development’, whose
tentacles spread into most areas of Russian life. It would be naïve to
imagine that Serge W itte came to the ministry in 1892 with a complete
plan for Russia’s development in his head. On the contrary, it is clear that
in some important areas, agriculture for instance, his ideas changed con­
siderably during his term in office. Nevertheless, from his first moment as
minister W itte did pursue the goal of Russia’s rapid industrialization,
used a whole range of policies to advance this programme, and was able to
justify his aims in terms of a wide-ranging analysis of why Russia had no
option but to become an industrial nation at all possible speed if she
wished to retain her independence and her status as a great power in the
highly competitive and ruthless world of the imperialist era. In his view,
Russia’s options were stark. Either she would become an economic colony
of the world’s leading industrial powers, contenting herself with providing
them with food and raw materials at prices they would dictate. In the
imperialist era, the final station on such a road was likely to be the empire’s
political subjection and dismemberment at the hands of these powers.
Alternatively, the Russian government could use its revenues, its tariffs,
its monetary policies and its control over the railways to protect and subsi­
dize Russian industry, and to encourage the investment in Russia of
foreign capital, entrepreneurial talent and technology. Though this path
would entail hardship for the population and unpopularity for the
government in the short term, it alone promised Russia a secure future as a
prosperous and mighty great power.12
W itte’s policies won him many enemies. In Imperial Russia anyone
who promoted capitalism and put the interests of industry above those of
agriculture was bound to be widely hated. Noble landowners, most liberal
and socialist intellectuals, and all the other departments of state could unite
in denouncing the all-powerful Ministry of Finance and its overweaning
chief. Some of their criticisms have been echoed by later historians, who
have stressed in particular the high cost in terms of monetary and credit
policy of W itte’s adoption of a gold-backed currency in 1896, a move
designed to encourage foreign investment in Russia. The Minister of
Finance’s ability to face down his critics depended on Nicholas II’s
support. Though the Emperor was capable of overruling his Finance
Minister on points of detail, in the 1890s he gave solid support to the core
of W itte’s policy. In 1896, for instance, he used his autocratic powers
to impose the gold standard over the objections of most of senior offi­
cialdom.13
Only after 1900 did the monarch’s support begin to waver. This was
partly because of W itte’s opposition to aspects of the Emperor’s Far
Eastern policy. It was also due in part to the way that the industrial
76 Nicholas I I

depression which set in after 1900 seemed to call into question many of
W itte’s achievements. The industries which he had helped to create now
had to be propped up by the state budget or allowed to form cartels and
thereby keep prices artificially high. Above all, however, the rising tide of
discontent in Russian society, part of which was easily attributable to
W itte’s policies, was too threatening to ignore and seemed to demand a
strong hand at the head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, whose respon­
sibility it was to defend domestic political stability and the regime’s exis­
tence. In the 1890s, W itte’s pre-eminence was owed in part to the fact
that neither in intelligence, energy nor political skill could the ministers of
internal affairs during this decade match him. When the kindly, brave but
not very intelligent Dmitri Sipyagin was assassinated in April 1902,
Nicholas replaced him with the much more formidable Vyacheslav Plehve
who, unlike Sipyagin, was also anything but a personal friend of W itte.
Sixteen months later W itte himself was removed from his power-base in
the Ministry of Finance through prom otion’ to the largely meaningless
chairmanship of the Committee of Ministers. In his place was appointed
Edvard Pleske, an efficient, very hard-working and rather shy civil servant
with none of W itte’s force of personality or breadth of vision. The balance
of power between the Ministry of Internal Affairs and that of Finance had
been tilted firmly in the former’s direction.14
After 1907 the Ministry of Agriculture, run by the canny Alexander
Krivoshein, emerged as a major force in Russian domestic politics. Before
then, however, the only department of state whose potential weight
equalled that of the Ministry of Finance was the Ministry of Internal
Affairs. More than any other department, the Ministry of Internal Affairs
was responsible for supervising the villages, where the overwhelming
majority of the population lived. Although the peasants elected fellow-
villagers to run local affairs, these peasant officials were themselves
watched and controlled by the police and the Land Commandants. They,
in turn, were subordinate to the provincial Governor, who was himself an
official of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. The Governor never controlled
all branches of the state bureaucracy in the provinces because other depart­
ments of state fought ferociously to avoid their subordinates falling into
the grip of the Interior Ministry. The Governor was, nevertheless, much
the most important figure at the provincial level and could make life diffi­
cult for officials of other departments who crossed him. He chaired all the
key inter-departmental committees at the provincial level and had con­
siderable power to intervene in the affairs of the elected local government
councils (zemstvos), which ran most matters concerning public health,
education and rural development. At the centre, too, the Ministry of
Internal Affairs was extremely powerful. Press censorship, the post and
telegraph services and, above all, the vitally important Police Department
 R uling Russia, 1894-1904 77

were all under the direction of the Minister of Internal Affairs. In any
matter concerning the peasantry, the landowning nobility, the zemstvos,
the press, migration to Siberia or other borderlands, or the huge field of
public order and state security, the Ministry of Internal Affairs was almost
certain to play the leading role.15
Serious conflict between the departments of finance and internal affairs
was inevitable. The Interior Ministry, like all other departments, resented
Finance’s control over its budgets and noted sourly that officials of the
Ministry of Finance were often paid much more generously than their
equivalents elsewhere in the government. The background of officials in
the two ministries was also rather different. Very few officials in the
Ministry of Finance were landowners and most came from what, in the
W est, would have been described as professional middle-class back­
grounds. By contrast, the Ministry of Internal Affairs contained many
aristocrats, a large number of whom were big landowners and, quite
often, former Guards officers. Such men did not usually have great
sympathy for industrial or financial capitalism and thought naturally in
traditional terms of order, paternalism and the need for control over, so it
was assumed, an unruly and almost childlike peasantry. Both tsarist
tradition and the instruments at its disposal inclined the Ministry of
Internal Affairs to try to run Russia through administrative and police
controls. The Finance Ministry, on the other hand, was more attuned to
the rules of the market and the use of economic levers to get its way.
Above all, however, the two departments’ main functions diverged. The
Ministry of Finance existed to balance budgets and promote economic
development. The Ministry of Internal Affairs’ duty was the preservation
of political stability.
One of the most interesting and important conflicts between the two
ministries in the 1890s concerned labour policy. Rapid industrialization
entailed the growth of a proletariat which, as is always the case at this
stage of industrial development, tended to be both exploited and militant.
The Ministry of Finance was acutely conscious of how difficult it was to
foster rapid capitalist development in Russia. In fact a sizeable body of the
Russian intelligentsia argued that it would be impossible to do so, since
Russia lacked a prosperous domestic market for industrial goods and could
not win export markets because her produce would be incapable of
competing with better quality and often cheaper Western artefacts. W itte
and his lieutenants also knew that in Russia neither property nor contracts
enjoyed the same degree of protection by law or public opinion that
existed in the West. If for these reasons their attitude to Russia’s
expanding capitalist industry tended to be nervously protective, many
senior officials of the Ministry of Finance, including W itte himself, did in
time accept that strikes, trade unions and free collective bargaining were
78 Nicholas I I

inevitable if dangerous aspects of capitalist economic development. It was

therefore safer to legalize them than to repress them by police methods.
The Ministry of Internal Affairs disagreed. The tsarist regime looked
askance at any social group organizing itself autonomously of the state.
Not only professional organizations but even the landowning nobility
were closely controlled in this respect. The government, aware that pro­
letariats bred socialism and that the revolutionary parties would pounce on
any opportunity to control trade unions, was unlikely to relax its prin­
ciples where factory workers were concerned. Nevertheless, the Ministry
of Internal Affairs was acutely conscious of the fact that bad conditions,
poor pay and unjust treatment by managers and foremen were creating
discontent among the growing masses of workmen who were congre­
gating in the empire’s major cities, which were the state’s key nerve
centres of government and communications. The most influential report
on strikes in the late nineteenth century was written in 1898 by General
A.I. Panteleev, a former colonel of the Semyonovsky Guards regiment and
a senior official of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. It concluded that ‘the
causes of the agitation and strikes, which are recurring more and more
frequently, lie chiefly in the exploitation of the workers by the manufac­
turers, when the latter, making a huge profit, pay the labour force little
and besides, with rare exceptions, do almost nothing for the improvement
of the way of life of the workers and their families’.16
The Ministry of Internal Affairs’ most interesting and radical response
to labour unrest was the attempt, under the leadership of Serge Zubatov,
to set up its own trade unions and itself lead the labour movement.
Zubatov was a fascinating and intelligent man, who was both an intel­
lectual and the head of the security police in Moscow for much of the
1890s. Zubatov saw the absolute monarchy as a force which could stand
above the various classes, control their inevitable conflicts, and guide
society with unselfish wisdom in the long-term interests of all. Though
perhaps naïve, he was certainly sincere. After his dismissal in 1903
Zubatov could easily have turned his back on the imperial regime. Other
police officers did so with less personal cause. Instead, on hearing of
Nicholas II’s abdication in 1917, Zubatov immediately retired to his study
and committed suicide in an act of loyalty that was almost unique at that
time.
Zubatov shared General Panteleev’s belief that exploitation was the key
to labour’s discontent. He was convinced that if the state could protect the
workers’ dignity and their material interests, the revolutionary parties
would have no hope of winning the proletariat’s allegiance. Correctly, he
believed that many strikes and stoppages resulted from minor infringe­
ments by management of workers’ rights and dignity which the police
only heard about after conflicts had erupted into the open. He was
 R uling Russia , 1894-1904 79

determined therefore to create an early-warning system. Unlike some high

officials of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Serge Zubatov understood that
workers were not just peasants who happened to live in cities. The factory
and the town were changing mentalities. To a considerable extent
workers had to be allowed to organize themselves, elect their own articu­
late leaders and defend their interests. To make this process safe the police
had closely to supervise these labour unions and leaders, intervene early in
disputes, force management to obey the law and, in general, act as a fair
and friendly referee. If Zubatov’s immediate goal was to hold working-
class loyalty for the regime and cut the ground from under the feet of the
revolutionary parties, he also had broader strategic objectives. A loyal
labour movement could be a major weapon in the state’s hands, a force
with which the financial and industrial élites could be balanced, and
therefore a means by which the monarchy could continue to preserve its
autonomy from all groups in society and its ability to rule in the long-term
interests of the country as a whole.
Zubatov’s unions, launched in 1900-1, had great initial success both in
Moscow and amongst the largely Jewish proletariat of Belorussia and the
Ukraine. Nevertheless, from the very start his plans aroused great fears
among many senior officials of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Plehve’s
deputy, General Victor von Wahl, for instance, believed that all trade
unions were 'extremely harmful and corrupting’, saw Zubatov as 'the
first revolutionary’ and found his schemes 'fantastic in conception and
harmful in results’. Not all Zubatov’s opponents were as unimaginative or
wholly unsympathetic to his ideas as the narrow-minded and brutal Wahl.
They did, however, fear that Zubatov would organize the workers and
excite their hopes of justice and a better life by encouraging their deeply
held dislike of capitalists and their age-old conviction that the Tsar was on
the people’s side and would intervene in an all-powerful manner to right
their wrongs. He would, in short, by inspiring aspirations that the crown
could not satisfy, play into the hands of the revolutionaries. The Odessa
general strike of 1903 and the capture of government-run unions by the
revolutionaries in Petersburg in January 1905 showed that these fears were
not altogether groundless.17
Given the doubts aroused by Zubatov’s activities in the Ministry of
Internal Affairs and the fury they caused in the Ministry of Finance it is
obvious that Zubatov had to enjoy protection at a very high level if his
schemes were not to be killed off at their inception. This protection he
received from the Grand Duke Serge, the Governor-General of Moscow.
A governor-general was the Tsar’s personal representative and viceroy,
and as such stood beyond the direct control of the Minister of Internal
Affairs. In the early nineteenth century govemors-general had often
existed in the Great Russian heartland of the empire, but by 1900 they
80 Nicholas I I

were almost always confined to the non-Russian borderlands of Finland,

Poland, the Caucasus and Central Asia. The great exception to this rule
was Serge in Moscow. A governor-general who was also the Tsar’s uncle
and brother-in-law was beyond any control save that of the monarch
himself. The Grand Duke, a reactionary paternalist of very authoritarian
disposition, sympathized with Zubatov’s efforts to hold working-class
loyalty and protected his police chief from his enemies. A.A. Polovtsov
complained that ‘in his intimate conversations with his nephew’ Serge had
succeeded in persuading Nicholas II of the correctness of Zubatov’s
approach. It would certainly not be at all surprising if the Emperor found
Zubatov’s ideas attractive, for they fitted in with many of his own con­
ceptions about the monarchy and its relationship to the masses. In
addition, however, Nicholas was close to his uncle and regarded him as a
useful and loyal family counterweight to the overweaning W itte and the
other senior officials who of necessity made up the majority of the
monarch's advisers. Giving Serge his head permitted the Emperor a certain
autonomy from bureaucratic control and a little room for manoeuvre. It
also allowed a potentially useful policy, namely Zubatov’s schemes, to be
tested in a limited area of the empire in the teeth of ministerial chagrin. No
doubt Nicholas also recognized that the price of employing strong-willed
personalities like W itte and Serge was that both men had to be permitted a
degree of freedom to pursue their schemes. If the result was a certain
blurring of overall policy goals and the existence of conflict between insti­
tutions and individuals, so be it. The Emperor’s position as the only possi­
ble mediator in such conflicts would be enhanced.18
By the end of 1903 the government’s labour policy was in a mess.
Accused of fomenting worker radicalism, Zubatov had finally been dis­
missed after the Odessa general strike and 'police socialism’ partly dis­
credited. In Petersburg, however, a watered-down version of the Zubatov
programme was to be continued under the leadership of a priest. Father
Gapon. Meanwhile the alternative policy, that of legalizing trade unions
and strikes, was also being pursued under the auspices of the Ministry of
Finance. Opposition to liberalizing labour laws from within the ministry,
from the employers and the police was, however, so strong that the June
1903 law permitting the election of workers’ representatives was so
hedged around with controls and constraints as to be largely meaningless.
As a result, instead of looking to trade union leaders inured to the give and
take of wage negotiations, sections of the working class increasingly
turned towards the revolutionary parties.
At the turn of the century, however, the government was less scared by
working-class militancy than by growing evidence of peasant discontent.
In June 1901, A.A. Polovtsov wrote: 'after the students’ disorders there
have followed strikes and factory workers’ battles with the police. Next
 R uling Russia, 1 8 9 4 -Í9 0 4 81

the peasant mass will rise up with a demand for land. Today’s militia [the
conscript army], tom away from this very land for a short period, will not
use its weapons to curb these appetites, which it itself shares. This will be
the end of the Russia which we know .’ Nine months later, when a wave
of arson and rioting swept the countryside in Poltava and Kharkov pro­
vinces, Polovtsov’s prediction seemed amply justified. In the wake of these
agrarian troubles the Secretary to the Committee of Ministers, Anatol
Kulomzin, sought to reassure his wife. There had always, he wrote, been
agrarian riots of this kind in Russia, during which peasants customarily
paid back stewards and foremen for a multitude of old scores and minor
injustices. Troops had refused to open fire on only one occasion, and even
then out of simple dislike for the officer who gave the order. Alexander
Kireev had less reason to hide his fears since his comments were confined
to his private diary. ’I think we can cope with the students and co. with­
out difficulty but millions of peasants . . . that’s a completely different
m atter.’19
During the first decade of Nicholas II’s reign three questions topped the
agenda as regards the government’s policy on agriculture and, specifically,
the peasant question. Were the peasants becoming poorer? If so, who or
what was to blame? W hat could the government do to rectify the situa­
tion? In the dock were Serge W itte and the Ministry of Finance, who
were accused, at best, of ignoring the peasant and, more frequently, of
ruining him by crushing tax demands and the high prices for industrial
goods created artificially by protective tariffs.
W itte’s response was to claim, correctly, that ’the picture of the
peasants’ miserable condition is greatly exaggerated’, particularly by
opponents of the government’s economic policy who sought to hide their
selfish interests or ideological preferences behind claims that the Ministry
of Finance was ruining the peasantry. Throughout the 1890s W itte
opposed direct subsidies or cheap credit to agriculture as a waste of scarce
resources. In his view investment in industry was more useful even for the
rural population because jobs in the cities would reduce land hunger in the
villages and, above all, provide agriculture with markets for its produce
and therefore with the incentive to modernize. W itte doubted whether
big capital investments in noble estates could ever be justified given the
low costs of production in the Americas and Australasia, whose agricul­
tural produce was now flooding the world market. Though more sym­
pathetic as regards cheap credit for peasant farms, he argued that the struc­
ture of peasant landowning made large-scale lending to the peasantry very
dangerous. By law most peasant farms belonged not to individuals or even
families but to the whole village community. Nor could this land be sold
or mortgaged. As a result there was no way to secure loans or recover
debts from the peasantry, as the latter knew only too well.20
82 Nicholas I I

By the early twentieth century, however, it was no longer possible for

W itte to shrug off attacks on his indifference to peasant needs. Political
pressure to ‘do something about agriculture’ was building up, as was fear
of peasant discontent. After a tour of the provinces at the turn of the
century even the rather dim Dmitri Sipyagin, the Minister of Internal
Affairs, commented that ‘we are standing on a volcano’. In addition, the
state’s finances were in increasing disarray, and the need to increase its
revenues pressing.21
Nicholas II was kept well informed about the problems of both the
peasantry and the treasury. In addition to receiving regular reports on
these subjects from his ministers, he also on occasion was sent special
memoranda by other high officials. In the spring of 1903, for instance, the
Emperor received an analysis of his country’s budgetary crisis from Peter
Saburov, a senior official whose career had included service both as an
ambassador and as a financial expert, a very unusual combination in
Victorian Europe. Saburov warned Nicholas that the huge and always
increasing costs of the arms race ‘together with the sad economic position
of the mass of the tax-paying population naturally arouse fears for the
stability of the state’s finances . . . To restore the state’s fiscal power is
only possible by means of raising the economic position of the peasantry
. . . But it is already becoming clear that to fulfil this necessary but com­
plicated task heavy sacrifices from the treasury will be needed.922
Both Serge W itte and Vladimir Kokovtsov, who succeeded the criti­
cally ill Edvard Pleske as Minister of Finance in 1904, shared Saburov’s
concern about the parlous state of Russia’s finances. Kokovtsov indeed
commented that ‘I look with alarm on our economic and financial posi­
tion’ and condemned what he described as the ‘fantasies’ that underlay
much government expenditure. ‘These fantasies I see all around,’ he
added: ‘in the exorbitant and unreasonable strengthening of the fleet, in
our active foreign policy waged at the expense of the peasant’s hungry
stomach . . . [in] the automatic attempt to get money for everything
instead of stopping this saturnalia of expenditure and beginning to reduce
the tax burden to a measure where it corresponds with the growth in
income’. But whereas W itte and Kokovtsov, like Saburov, believed that
excessive armaments were the key to Russia’s financial problems, neither
shared his view that international agreement on the reduction of arma­
ments was possible, or indeed his conviction that the first step in this
direction should be made through a deal between Nicholas II and the
German Kaiser. Nor could the Tsar have any illusions on this score since
the failure of his appeal for a reduction of armaments in 1898 had taught
him the impossibility of halting the arms race. But, as Serge W itte pointed
out to Nicholas in January 1902, if the escalation of defence costs could not
be halted, it was hard to see how the peasants’ tax burden could be greatly
 R uling Russia, Î8 9 4 -Î9 0 4 83

reduced or large sums provided for the modernization of village life and
peasant agriculture. The conclusion drawn by W itte was that improve­
ment of the peasants’ lot would have to come less from the largesse of the
treasury than from changes in the system of peasant landholding. The
farmer, he told Nicholas, must have individual rights and freedom,
including unrestricted property rights to his land. In other words, W itte
was calling for the abolition of the peasant commune, the cornerstone of
Russia’s rural economy and society.23
Ever since the abolition of serfdom in 1861, indeed to some extent even
before that, the commune had been the most important institution in
Russian rural life. The peasant community, which was usually but not
always made up of inhabitants of a single village, administered and judged
its own members through officials elected by itself. It also bore collective
responsibility for paying the state’s taxes. Although in principle the
administrative, judicial and fiscal institutions of the village were distinct
from the community’s collective ownership of land, in practice the power
of the commune was enormously enhanced by the fact that it controlled,
and in many cases periodically redistributed, the villagers’ basic source of
wealth.
Defenders of the commune believed it was a form of social welfare,
which would ensure that no peasant would go without the means of
survival. They felt that at least until the capitalist economy had developed
to the point where millions of secure jobs existed in the cities, the only
way to avoid pauperization was to ensure that any peasant, even if he was
temporarily resident in a town, would have a plot of land on which to fall
back. Because the masses would not be destitute and would have rights to
the use of property, it was believed they would be more immune to radical
and socialist propaganda than urban workers and landless agricultural
labourers in the West. Not even the most ardent defenders of the commune
would probably have argued that, from the narrow perspective of agricul­
tural modernization, it was the best form of landownership; they did
deny, and probably rightly, that it was as serious an obstacle to technical
improvement as its enemies suggested. The fact that the commune was
seen to be an old Russian institution which would preserve the country
from the perils that had attended modernization in the West also added to
its appeal. Anatol Kulomzin, for instance, was very much on the liberal
and Westernizing wing of the ruling élite. He wrote, however,
that even he swallowed whole the Russian nationalist view of the com­
mune, so flattering to patriotic pride, and ‘only the troubles of 1905-6
which pointed to the socialist spirit which the commune had bred in the
life of the peasantry finally sobered me’.24
For some enemies of the commune, its greatest danger had always
seemed to be the semi-socialist principles on which it was based.
84 Nicholas I I

Alexander Polovtsov, for instance, was convinced that economic progress

in the countryside depended on the firm rooting of the principle of private
property in peasant society and village mentalities. But above all he feared
the egalitarian, collectivist principles underlying the commune and the
way it potentially united the peasants against the landowning class and
private property. *W e must stop uniting this dark, credulous and unstable
mass into a single group’, he told Nicholas II in June 1901, ‘and on the
contrary we must break it up, differentiate it, pushing forward the hard­
working, thrifty and orderly, the support of progress in a direction desired
by the government, in opposition to the unreliable, riotous groups of the
population who are avid to cause agrarian chaos.’25
In the 1890s the enemies of the commune gained ground within the
government. In 1894, for instance, W itte had refused to get involved in
the debate on the commune, saying that ‘this is not his business and that if
he touched it they would begin to curse him even more than they do now
for interference in other people’s affairs’. Eight years later, however, the
Minister of Finance was arguing that ‘for the success of the market
economy it is necessary to raise the whole economic standard of living and
this is only possible if peasant life is rearranged on the basis of individual
property and communal possession is abolished’. The most powerful
opposition to abolition came from the top of the Ministry of Internal
Affairs but even in this department some key younger officials, Vladimir
Gurko for instance, had turned against the commune. To achieve the
transformation of peasant landownership, W itte appealed directly to
Nicholas II in January 1902. ‘These questions can only be properly solved
if you yourself take the lead in this matter, surrounding yourself with
people chosen for the job. If your grandfather, the Emperor Alexander II,
had not acted in this way over the emancipation of the serfs then we
would have serfdom to this very day. The bureaucracy cannot solve such
matters on its ow n.’26
W itte’s analogy was a false one. Alexander II had been fully committed
to emancipation and had possessed a clear sense of the key principles by
which he wanted the matter to be arranged. His grandson was uncertain
as to the commune’s fate and fearful of the effects of its abolition. The
Emperor’s doubts can to a great extent be understood. The merits and
disadvantages of communal tenure are still bitterly disputed by scholars
and the issue is very complicated. Eliminating the commune was a huge
and dangerous task, both technically and politically. The creation of
millions of independent farmsteads would, for example, entail a vast
amount of surveying and boundary making in a countryside where sur­
veyors were few and far between and where disputes over boundaries,
property rights and access to wood and water were already endemic and
bitter. To shift landownership from the village community to the heads of
 R uling Russia, Î8 9 4 -1 9 0 4 85

individual households would transform the basic property rights of the

overwhelming majority of the population. No government does this
lightly or expects the process to occur without turbulence or opposition.
Nicholas therefore moved in cautious but typical fashion. He appointed
W itte to head a special commission to investigate agricultural conditions
in January 1902 and allowed him leeway to develop his proposals to
transform peasant landownership. Simultaneously, however, the Ministry
of Internal Affairs was encouraged to run rival committees and in 1905
W itte’s old enemy, Ivan Goremykin, was designated to take the lead in
preparing a reform programme for the countryside. To many observers,
W itte of course among them, the Emperor’s behaviour seemed the
epitome of indecisiveness and bad faith. Playing ministers off against each
other caused them immense frustration, wasted their time and paralysed
government policy. O n the other hand it did mean that Nicholas remained
independent of any minister or group of advisers, receiving information
and advice from more than one point of view. General Kireev’s diaries are,
for instance, packed with criticisms of Nicholas’s slipperiness and indeci­
siveness, but in a way the Tsar was doing no more than following the
advice that Kireev himself gave the Grand Duke Michael, at that time still
the heir to the throne. Warning the Grand Duke that advisers and minis­
ters were not always to be trusted, he told him to make sure he always
received advice and information from more than one side on any issue. A
monarch, he explained, must learn 'to control one lot of people with
another’.27
At the same time that it was grappling with the discontent of workers
and peasants, the government was also arousing increasing opposition
among the non-Russian sections of the population. In part the causes were
one and the same. Non-Russian workers experienced the same conditions
but on the whole enjoyed even less government protection than their
Russian equivalents. Belorussian and Ukrainian peasants, like Russian
ones, believed that the land should belong to those who worked it and
regarded the big estates, particularly if run on capitalist lines, with
hostility. In addition, however, the government’s efforts to impose
administrative uniformity and even, in some regions, Russia’s language
and culture aroused opposition, particularly among the educated classes.
The government’s policy differed from one minority to another. The
Jews were worst treated; not merely were most of them confined to a
specific region, the so-called Pale of Settlement, they were also deprived of
a range of civil rights. Even in the Pale, for instance, no Jew could legally
own rural land. As regards non-Russian Christians, the government
regarded the Poles with greater suspicion and hostility than was the case
with the peoples of the Baltic and Transcaucasian provinces or the
Romanians. Where the Muslim peoples were concerned, the government
86 Nicholas I I

usually confined itself to preserving order and raising taxes. Whereas

many high officials believed they could Russify Christian, and particularly
Slav, peasants who had no historical ‘high culture’, very few thought that
attempts to convert and Russianize Muslim peoples had any chance of
success. Over and above these generalizations, however, the policy
pursued in a specific region, and still more the skill and tact with which
it was implemented, depended greatly on the personality of the area’s
governor-general.
Finland provides a graphic example of this point. Conquered in 1809,
the Grand Duchy of Finland enjoyed a high degree of autonomy through­
out the nineteenth century. In Russian terms its status was anomalous,
not only because it was uniquely free of Petersburg’s control but also
because it possessed representative institutions and a secure rule of law. In
the last two decades of the nineteenth century pressure increased from
Petersburg to bring parts of Finnish law and administration into line with
Russian norms. It stuck in Russian gullets, for instance, that Russians
resident in Finland enjoyed fewer rights than ethnic Finns, something that
was not true of Finns living in Russia. W ith Russo-German antagonism
growing and Sweden a very possible ally of Germany in any future war,
the extent to which Helsinki was almost completely free from Petersburg’s
supervision also caused worry. So long as Finland was governed by Count
N.V. Adlerberg (1866-81) and then Count F.L. Heiden (1881-98) the
very sensible rule prevailed that infringements on Finnish autonomy must
be kept to the strictly necessary minimum. W hen General N .I. Bobrikov
was appointed Governor-General in 1898, however, not only did he arrive
with sweeping plans to increase Petersburg’s control, he also implemented
this policy with a tactless, ham-fisted brutality which turned Finland into a
hotbed of opposition.
Real trouble with Finland began when Petersburg imposed its own
military conscription system on the Finns and sought to unify the Russian
and Finnish armies. Though this scheme had been in the making for a
number of years, it was pushed hard by the new Minister of W ar, Aleksei
Kuropatkin, who was appointed in 1898. The majority of Russian senior
officials opposed Kuropatkin’s conscription law in the belief that it would
needlessly antagonize the Finns and it was actually voted down in the
State Council, the body of senior statesmen who advised the Tsar on legis­
lation. As was his right, however, Nicholas overrode the council and
Kuropatkin’s conscription law went into effect. In the Emperor’s defence
it could be argued that had he failed to back up his new Minister of W ar
the latter’s authority would have been fatally damaged. Moreover the
government’s case vis-à-vis Finland was not entirely unjustified, its fears
for the security of Petersburg, very close to the Finnish border, causing it
particular alarm. In terms of political wisdom and tact, however,
 R uling Russia, 1894-1904 87

Kuropatkin’s law, not to mention Bobrikov’s antics, were a disaster. The

government, which had hoped to play off the ethnic Finnish majority
against the country’s Swedish élite, quickly united the whole coun­
try against itself. Among those who protested to Nicholas about
Bobrikov’s policy was his mother, herself a Scandinavian princess. In what
was, coming from her, an extremely angry letter, she accused her son of
going back on his promise to her that Bobrikov would be reined in and
commented that ‘all that has been and is being done in Finland is based on
lies and deceit and leads straight to revolution’. Apart from asserting that
the Finns would come round if the government showed itself resolute,
Nicholas’s reply to his mother skated around the main issue at stake. Seen
from the Russian perspective this issue was, in Kireev’s words, that
‘thanks to Bobrikov and his system we have created a new Poland at the
gates of Saint Petersburg! And it would have been so easy to avoid this.’28
In its approach to the Finnish question Petersburg made mistakes
which were typical of the Russian government of the time. Policy
towards Finland was decided on its own, not in the wider context of an
overall strategy for achieving the government’s aims and avoiding danger
across the whole range of the empire’s affairs. It made no sense to
challenge Finnish nationalism at a time when the regime already had its
hands full with a host of other domestic enemies. Nor did the government
clearly define its essential interests in Finland in the light of its overall
commitments, and then devote the necessary means to achieve these
limited goals. By the time Governor-General Bobrikov was assassinated in
June 1904 Finland was moving towards open insurrection. By then,
however, much of urban Russia was moving in the same direction, with
the threat of peasant risings lurking ominously in the background.
Opposition to the government in the cities came from both workers
and members of the middle and upper classes. Among educated Russians
the single most radical group were the students, and their riots in 1899
presented Nicholas II with his first domestic political crisis. In part student
discontent was rooted in grievances common to the bulk of educated
Russia: the lack of civil and political rights, and the country’s poverty by
European standards, for which the government was held responsible. But
the student world also had its own distinct radical culture and grievances.
Russian students in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century were
in general much poorer and of far humbler origins than the bulk of their
contemporaries in, for instance, German or English universities. In both
background and political commitment they had more in common with
Western students of the late 1960s. In addition, however, the Russian
student very often arrived at university full of resentment over his years of
education at a state gymnasium (high school), whose prying authorities
and dry classical curriculum were in general loathed by students. Once at
 Nicholas I I

university students were further antagonized by rigid controls over clubs

and welfare associations, all of which the police considered, often quite
rightly, to be embryonic revolutionary cells.29
The student riots of early 1899 presented Nicholas II with a difficult
dilemma. Some of his advisers, including his uncle Serge and his Minister
of Internal Affairs, I.L. Goremykin, argued that the riots were politically
motivated and should be met with stem repression. Others retorted that
the causes of the troubles were the students* lack of rights of association at
university, hatred of the classical curriculum in high schools, and other
purely educational and non-political grievances. The Emperor’s old tutor.
Professor N .N . Beketov, was received in audience and urged the latter
point of view on Nicholas. The Tsar had no strong personal opinions or
independent sources of information on this issue. The regime’s response
to continuing student violence was therefore mixed. Some students were
expelled from the universities and conscripted into the army, which was
after all the normal lot of non-student males of this age. O n the other
hand, a number of specific grievances were rectified.
The students were far from satisfied with these measures, however, and
the troubles resumed in the winter of 1900-1. In February 1901 the
Minister of Education was assassinated by a former student, twice expelled
from university for revolutionary activity. In his place Nicholas appointed
the veteran General P.S. Vannovsky, who had earlier headed a committee
of enquiry into student disturbances. Vannovsky’s appointment first to
the chairmanship of the committee and then as minister was a compromise
choice which reflected Nicholas’s own uncertainty and the divided counsels
by which he was surrounded. Vannovsky was an impeccably conservative
general with great respect for discipline and order, but he was also sur­
prisingly sympathetic towards many student demands and was a strong
opponent of the classical curriculum forced down pupils’ throats at high
school. His appointment further stirred up an impassioned debate about
what the gymnasium should teach and how free students should be to
organize their own affairs at university.
Nicholas did his best to influence education in the direction he desired.
According to G.E. Saenger, who served as Minister of Education from
1902 to 1904, the Emperor was no great advocate of the classics and failed
to understand the issues involved in the defence of the classical curriculum.
Certainly the Tsar put no obstacles in the way of the latter’s abolition.
Apart from a natural desire to restore peace and order in the high schools
and universities, Nicholas’s strongest personal wish was that Russian
education should cultivate a spirit of patriotism, as was done in British,
German and French schools of the time, rather than allowing a radical and
socialist sub-culture to dominate student life. The Emperor’s chances of
influencing Russian schools and universities in this direction were,
 R uling Russia, 1894-1904 89

however, slim. Nicholas knew little about the Russian educational system
and had few acquaintances or potential allies in this world. Professor
Alexander Schwartz, who served as Minister of Education from 1908 to
1910, wrote of Nicholas t h a t 4our ministry was entirely alien to him - he
was interested mostly in disorders or in individuals whom for some reason
he knew and remembered. He very rarely gave me any special commis­
sions or instructions.’ By the time Schwartz arrived as minister Nicholas
was indeed under few illusions about his chances of imposing his will
through the ministry. In 1901-2 he had drafted his father’s old crony,
Prince V.P. Meshchersky, to help him in his efforts to inculcate a better
spirit into Russia’s schools but to no avail. Even most officials of the
Ministry of Education, in the great majority of cases of middle- or
lower-middle-class origin» were liberal or even radical in sympathy, and
the same was still more true of the majority of teachers. Moreover, given
the increasingly radical, even revolutionary, mood of Russian society in
the first years of the twentieth century, this was not the most auspicious
moment to convert the students to conservative, patriotic sentiments.30
By 1902-3 rumblings of revolution, or at least of fundamental constitu­
tional change, were in the air. Not everyone heard them. Even in April
1904, three months before his assassination, the Minister of Internal
Affairs, Vyacheslav Plehve, did not believe in ‘the closeness of danger’ to
the regime. Plehve’s optimism was partly based on the belief that ‘in the
event of things going to extremes, the government will find support in
the peasantry and urban lower-middle class’. In addition he recalled
having survived earlier times of crisis and panic. ‘I have lived through
more than one moment like the one we are living through now ,’ he
commented. ‘After the First of March [1881: the day Alexander II was
assassinated] Count Loris-Melikov said to Plehve on the day after
Alexander III rejected Alexander II’s constitution that “ the Tsar would
be killed and you and I will be hanged on a gallows’’. Nothing happened
though.’31
Other senior officials were less optimistic, often understanding better
than Plehve that opposition to the government was by now much broader
and deeper than had been the case a quarter of a century before. Kireev
himself commented, as early as October 1900, that ‘I have seen a lot of
intelligent people recently and in one voice, some with joy . . . others
with horror, they all say that the present system of government has
outlived its era and we are heading towards a constitution.’ Even the very
conservative Konstantin Pobedonostsev agreed on this. A year later Kireev
stated that in upper-class and senior bureaucratic circles ‘in the eyes of the
great majority a constitutional order is the only salvation’. He himself
believed, however, that ‘it is precisely this [constitutional order] which
will in fact destroy us'. Like Alexander Polovtsov his eyes were turned
90 Nicholas I I

towards the peasant masses, with their huge numbers and their potential
for anarchy and socialism. ‘For the time being the peasants are still firm,
still untouched. They are, as before, monarchists. But anyone can throw
them into a muddle.'32
Those with the greatest interest in throwing the masses ‘into a muddle’
were of course the revolutionary socialist parties. Russian revolutionary
socialism in the early twentieth century was divided into two currents,
one Marxist, the other not. The former strand was represented by the
Social Democrats, who in 1903 split into two factions, Menshevik and
Bolshevik. The non-Marxist strand comprised the Socialist Revolutionary
Party, formally constituted only in 1901, but deriving its ideas, traditions
and older cadres from the nineteenth-century Russian socialist movement.
In terms of ideas, the greatest distinction between the two was that the
Marxists believed that the urban workers would spearhead the socialist
revolution, which could only occur after capitalism had fully developed.
The Socialist Revolutionary Party, on the other hand, claimed that a
coalition of peasants, workers and poorer members of the intelligentsia
and lower-middle class would achieve the socialist revolution, which could
come immediately if the revolutionary parties pursued the proper tactics
and exploited their opportunities.
Unlike the Social Democrats, the Socialist Revolutionaries carried out a
campaign of terror against leading officials as part of their strategy, killing
three ministers between 1901 and 1904 alone and in the process sowing a
good deal of alarm and confusion in the government. Partly for this reason
the security police tended to regard the Socialist Revolutionaries as a more
immediate and dangerous threat than the Social Democrats. The evalua­
tion was not the product of mere panic or short-sightedness. The Marxists’
dogmatism and their obsession with the working class seemed to make
them unlikely leaders of a successful revolution in a still overwhelmingly
peasant country in which capitalism was only beginning to take root.
Moreover, the fact that the majority of Social Democratic leaders were
non-Russians, and a great number were Jews, made it seem less likely than
ever that they would be able to compete with the Socialist Revolutionaries
for the support of the Russian masses. Events were in part to prove the
police right. W hen the monarchy fell in 1917 it was indeed the Socialist
Revolutionaries who enjoyed by far the most popularity among the
masses, not only in the countryside but also generally in the cities.
Russia’s socialist future should have lain in their hands. The combination
of their own ineptitude, Lenin’s intelligence and ruthlessness, and the
specific conditions of wartime Russia were to deprive the Socialist
Revolutionaries of the spoils of victory.33
In Russia socialist parties existed long before liberal ones. The Russian
intelligentsia borrowed its ideas from the more developed societies of
 R uling Russia, 1894-1904 91

Central and Western Europe and had already created revolutionary

socialist groups by the 1860s. The origins of Russia’s liberal parties on the
other hand only go back to the foundation of the so-called Liberation
Movement in 1901. From the very start this movement was divided into
two main currents, which were to split in 1905-6 into the more radical,
Constitutional Democratic, and more conservative. Octobrist, strands of
Russian liberalism. In sociological terms this split roughly coincided with
the division between members of the professional and intellectual middle
class on the one hand, and liberal landowners on the other. In terms of
ideas, the basic divide came over whether one would insist on full-scale
parliamentary government or accept some compromise combining ele­
ments of popular representation with parts of the existing regime. All
sections of the Liberation Movement were, however, united in demand­
ing civil rights and the end of the absolute monarchy. By 1904-5 the
movement proved capable of mobilizing a broad coalition of supporters
from middle- and upper-class Russia and of forging links with parts of the
workers’ movement too. Though never likely in the long run to be able to
compete with the socialists for mass support, the Liberation Movement
was nevertheless a great challenge to the regime. Its wealthy activists,
who often dominated the zemstvos, provided protection and patronage for
a wide range of people opposed to the regime, some of them very radical.
Many figures in the Liberation Movement came from the same world as
senior officialdom and were even at times close relations. Such people were
not easy to silence by mere repression and their arguments often carried
conviction with liberal members of the ruling élite, weakening the
government’s unity in the face of revolution.34
By early 1904 the government’s position was a very difficult one.
Opposition, actual or potential, existed in almost all sections of Russian
society. Liberal and socialist parties stood ready to exploit, organize and
channel this opposition. In tsarist Russia, particularly in the early twen­
tieth century, the wealth and status of many members of the Liberation
Movement and their positions in the zemstvos gave them some legal room
to operate and to mobilize support. By contrast the socialist parties were
kept underground and their cadres regularly culled by the police. But new
recruits quickly filled the gaps that opened up. If the regime weakened or
attempted to liberalize in the face of opposition, the freedom of action of
the socialist parties would inevitably grow and they would seize every
opportunity to turn inchoate resentment and revolt into organized socialist
revolution. As if all this were not bad enough, in February 1904 Russia
found itself involved in a war with Japan which not only further over­
stretched already inadequate resources but also undermined the govern­
ment’s prestige and self-confidence.
In Russia foreign and domestic affairs were very closely linked. In a
92 Nicholas I I

sense the whole of the state’s domestic policy was determined by the need
to maintain Russia’s position as a great power while surviving the strains
this would impose on imperial society. Russian foreign policy, on the
other hand, was inevitably hugely influenced by the country’s internal
situation, and in particular its finances, which inter alia had great relevance
to the empire’s ability to pursue a determined diplomatic line, with all the
risks of war that this entailed in the imperialist era. Nor was foreign policy
made with no concern for domestic public opinion. Even Alexander III,
determined to preserve his prerogatives as absolute monarch, could tell his
Foreign Minister that Russian nationalist sentiment could not be ignored,
for ‘if we lose the confidence of public opinion in our foreign policy then
all is lost’. While the Emperor was deliberately exaggerating in order to
score a point against his cautious Foreign Minister, N.K. Giers, the
comment is none the less striking.35
But although foreign and domestic affairs were intimately connected,
the actual making of foreign policy within the government occurred in a
void, with virtually no involvement by the domestic ministries and their
chiefs. Up to a point this merely followed the normal Russian rule,
whereby each ministerial empire pursued its own policy in isolation. But
the degree of isolation of foreign-policy making from the domestic minis­
tries went even further than the Russian norm. Indeed not merely were
Russian diplomats a race entirely apart from the rest of the civil service, in
the great majority of cases they spent their entire careers abroad, not even
serving in the Foreign Ministry in Petersburg. Their whole lives bound up
in the world of diplomacy and the great-power struggle, it was often diffi­
cult for them to grasp Russia’s overall interests, domestic as well as
foreign. In 1892-4, Russia entered into a political and military alliance
with France, designed to check any German attempt to dominate Europe.
This was a momentous step; any move to confront Germany had huge
implications for Russia’s finances, for the security of its western border­
lands and indeed for the survival of the regime itself. But in Russian
circumstances it was unthinkable to consult the ministers of finance and
internal affairs before signing the treaty of alliance, and considered scarcely
proper even to inform them of its terms subsequently.
The alliance with France, concluded in the last months of Alexander
Ill’s reign, was the cornerstone of Russian foreign policy for the rest of
the empire’s existence. The logic underlying the alliance was that con­
tinental Europe’s two second-ranking countries were ganging up together
to ensure that they were not bullied in peace or defeated in war by
Europe’s most powerful country, Germany. The terms of the military
convention which was the alliance’s cornerstone were that any German
mobilization would be countered immediately by the full mobilization of
both France and Russia’s forces, and that in the event of a German attack
 R uling Russia, 1894-1904 93

France and Russia would fight side by side as allies with all the troops at
their disposal.36
Although in the long run the alliance with France can be seen as a
fateful step towards Europe’s division into two armed camps, in the 1890s
it enhanced Russia’s position and even in a sense improved its relations
with Germany. Wilhelm II came to regret having abandoned Bismarck’s
treaty with Russia and thereby having thrust the latter into France’s arms.
For much of the 1890s Germany wooed Russia. So too did France, which
was oveijoyed to have escaped the international isolation which it had
suffered ever since its defeat by Prussia in the war of 1870-1. Petersburg
was able to use its desirability to good effect, in 1895 for instance per­
suading both Berlin and Paris to join Russia in forcing the Japanese to
abandon the dominant position they had attained in southern Manchuria
as a result of their defeat of China. The thinking behind the policy of
Russia’s Foreign Ministry is encapsulated in a conversation in October
1895 between Aleksei Lobanov-Rostovsky, the minister, and his chief
assistant, Vladimir Lambsdorff. In their view the alliance with France was
an essential step towards preserving the latter’s position as an independent
great power. W ith France removed from the scene Russia would be
wholly dependent on the more powerful Germany, which would be fatal
for Petersburg’s own interests, independence and prestige. But alliance
with France must go so far and no further. Russia must guarantee France’s
survival while actually restraining her anti-German ambitions and
instincts.37
The Foreign Ministry’s optimism that it could preserve this advanta­
geous equilibrium was enhanced by its success in coming to terms with
Austria on Balkan issues in 1897. Austria and Russia were traditional
rivals in this region and it was their conflict over Balkan questions which
had broken up alliances of the three great conservative monarchies
(Romanov, Habsburg and Hohenzollem) in both the 1870s and the
1880s. The agreement with Vienna in 1897 to preserve the status quo in
the Balkans was therefore not merely in itself of major advantage to
international stability but was also a great aid to better relations with
Berlin, Austria’s ally. W hen in 1903 Russia and Austria responded to
revolt in Macedonia by agreeing to act together to bring about reforms in
that province, the prospect for good relations with the so-called ‘Central
Powers’, in other words Germany and Austria, appeared better than
ever.38
Appearances could, however, deceive. Beneath the veneer of diplomatic
etiquette and polite dealing the reality of international relations was very
much Thomas Hobbes’s war of all against all. In a sense it was quite right
to insist that a country’s safety lay only in its own power and its reputa­
tion for using its strength, where necessary, with vigorous determination.
94 Nicholas I I

But one country’s power was another one's insecurity. Where Russo-
Austrian relations were concerned, suspicions were enhanced by a tradi­
tion of rivalry and the knowledge, shared by both governments, that it
was very hard to freeze the spread of revolutionary nationalism in the
Balkans or to avoid competition between Petersburg and Vienna if and
when Ottoman rule in this region collapsed, as seemed inevitable in the
near future. Nor could Russian diplomats be unaware that German power
- economic and political - was growing steadily and, as a result,
Germany's interests were expanding into areas hitherto outside its influ­
ence. In May 1906, for instance, the Russian ambassador in Berlin warned
the Foreign Ministry that German ambitions in Asia and the Muslim
world were growing quickly and that 'for the first time' this made Berlin
'a possible adversary’ of Russia in these regions. Nicholas II himself had
made this point to the German Foreign Minister, Bernhard von Bulow, in
1899. The Emperor had remarked to him that

there is no problem that finds the interests of Germany and Russia in conflict.
There is only one area in which you must recognize Russian traditions and
take care to respect them, and that is the Near East. You must not create the
impression that you intend to oust Russia politically and economically from
the East, to which we have been linked for centuries by numerous national
and religious ties. Even if I myself handle these matters with somewhat more
scepticism and indifference, I still would have to support Russia’s traditional
interests in the East. In this regard I am unable to go against the heritage and
aspirations of my people.39

Before 1904 Nicholas’s priorities in terms of foreign policy were clear.

Unlike Russians of so-called pan-Slav sympathy, he did not believe that his
country’s manifest destiny lay in the Balkans, nor did he feel that
Petersburg must necessarily support the Balkan Slavs just because they
were people of the same race and religion. The Emperor was determined
that, should the Ottoman Empire collapse, no other power must steal
Constantinople, thereby barring Russia’s route out of the Black Sea and
assuming a dominant position in Asia Minor. To avoid such a possibility
in 1896-7 he was even willing to contemplate very dangerous military
action. But, above all, Nicholas was intent on developing Russia’s
position in Siberia and the Far East. Particularly after 1900, his personal
imprint on Russia’s Far Eastern policy became very important.
Many of the Emperor’s advisers were dismayed by the diversion of
Russia’s resources and attention to the Far East. The Ministry of Finance
resented the cost of building up the Pacific fleet. The Foreign Ministry
feared that it would no longer be strong enough in Europe to balance
between France and Germany. But it was above all the Minister of W ar,
 R uling Russia, 1894-1904 95

obsessed by the dangers of a conflict with Germany and Austria on the

western front, who was most alarmed by Russia’s Far Eastern policy.
Bemoaning the money and troops being lavished on Manchuria, Kuropatkin
commented in 1900 that ‘never in the whole history of Russia has our
western frontier been in such danger in the event of a European war as is true
today’. In January 1902 Kuropatkin repeated that ‘we have to return again
to the W est from the East’ since the situation in Europe was potentially very
dangerous.
Such arguments seem to have cut little ice with the imperial couple. In
August 1903, for instance, the Empress told Kuropatkin that he was wrong
to worry so much about Europe. The ‘yellow peril’ in the East was a red
threat whereas no danger at present existed in the West. Nicholas believed
that Russia’s future lay in Siberia and Asia. In this era most intelligent Euro­
peans tended to see their country’s future greatness as dependent on the pos­
session and development of large colonies. In this competition Russia had
great advantages. Her empire, second only in size to Britain’s, was poten­
tially immensely rich. It was also a single land mass and therefore far more
defensible than a maritime empire scattered across the globe. The Russian
population, already much larger than that of any other European state, was
growing at tremendous speed. In marked contrast to the last decades of the
Soviet regime, demographic trends seemed to be in the Russians’ favour.
Certainly the Romanovs’ empire was multi-national but in Nicholas II’s
reign the Slav element was growing much more quickly than the Tsar’s
Asian and Muslim subjects. Economic development was very rapid. The
people’s initiative and creative energy had not been stifled and crippled by
the economic system, again unlike in the late Soviet era. Instead they were
beginning to blossom. It was in Nicholas II’s reign that the British geo­
grapher Halford Mackinder began to expound his theory that domination of
the Eurasian heartland was the key to future global supremacy. At the same
time the famous Russian scholars Dmitri Mendeleev and V.P. Semyonov-
Tyan-Shansky argued that Russia’s centre of gravity must and would shift
to Asia. The geographer A.I. Voeykov stressed the vital future significance
of the Pacific economy and its trade routes. Such voices were very much in a
minority within the psychologically insecure Eurocentrism that dominated
the Russian intelligentsia. It was, however, to Nicholas’s credit that he
shared this Eurasian outlook and believed that time was working in its and
Russia’s favour. It is only against the background of Nicholas II’s largely
correct perception of this geopolitical trend that one can understand his
long-term optimism about Russia’s future. Set against this majestic vision of
Russia’s unique and powerful Eurasian destiny many of the complaints of
Russian educated society and not a few of the country’s problems appeared
to be relatively small and transitory difficulties in the Emperor’s eyes.40
It would, however, be naïve to think that the main reason why Russia’s
96 Nicholas I I

attention shifted to the Far East between 1894 and 1904 was simply
Nicholas II’s views on his country’s priorities. The background to
Russia’s Far Eastern policy was the competition between the great powers
to control territories, markets and raw materials across the whole globe.
China was the biggest plum still hanging on the tree and, given the
increasing decrepitude of the Manchu government, it seemed ripe to fall.
There was therefore a strong incentive to reserve one’s place in the Far
Eastern sun by snatching valuable Chinese provinces before one’s rivals cut
one out. Securing railway concessions in desirable regions was the first
step in this process. In this competition Russia had both advantages and
difficulties. Because it bordered on China, once the Trans-Siberian railway
was completed it was better placed geopolitically than any of its European
rivals. O n the other hand, the population of Siberia was less than one-fifth
that of Japan. Russia’s Pacific fleet was weak and her only port,
Vladivostok, was ice-bound in winter and easily blockaded. Moreover,
Russia’s industrial products were seldom able to compete in an open
market with those of Europe and the USA. To comer part of the Chinese
market Russia would probably have to discriminate against foreign
competition by political means, which was bound to incur the wrath of
the other powers.41
The first step towards confrontation with Japan came in 1895. In the
peace treaty that followed its victory over the Chinese, Tokyo secured,
amongst other possessions, the naval base of Port Arthur and control over
southern Manchuria. Russia masterminded a coalition with Germany and
France to force the Japanese to give up these gains. It also helped the
Chinese to pay off their war indemnity. As a reward, in the autumn of
1896 Petersburg won from the Chinese the right to link Vladivostok to
the Trans-Siberian railway which it was building by a short cut across
northern Manchuria.
This scheme was W itte’s and it possessed clear advantages. The
Manchurian route was easier and cheaper to build than a line across
Russian territory. It also opened up the prospect of Russian domination of
Manchuria, which was potentially a very rich province. By forestalling
foreign competitors and dominating northern Chinese markets W itte
hoped to recoup many of the costs of building the Trans-Siberian rail­
way. W ith Nicholas II’s support, he imposed his policy despite the doubts
of some other Russian ministries. These doubts were well justified. It
was extremely dangerous to place hundreds of miles of Russia’s main
line of communication to the East in a foreign and turbulent province.
W itte’s hopes of wringing quick profits out of Manchuria were always
fanciful, whereas the financial and political costs of defending his rail­
way soon proved to be exorbitant. Moreover, by travelling across foreign
territory the railway partly sacrificed one of its main objectives, namely
 R uling Russia, 1894-1904 97

the encouragement of colonization in Russia’s Far Eastern provinces.

The next stage in Russia’s advance in the Far East was not initially of
Petersburg’s choosing. In November 1897 the Germans occupied the
Chinese port of Kiaochow. The Russian Foreign Minister, M.N.
Muravyov, believed that the British were likely to take Port Arthur in
response. He therefore advocated that Russia should move into Port
Arthur first. At a meeting on 26 November chaired by the Emperor, both
the Minister of Finance and the Naval Minister opposed the seizure of Port
Arthur, the latter on the grounds that a Korean port would be far more
suitable for the navy’s needs. Perhaps for this reason Nicholas concurred
with the majority view not to take Port Arthur, despite his personal view
that it was vital for Russia to have a warm-water port in the Far East.
Two weeks later, however, after private conversations with Muravyov,
Nicholas changed his mind, a pattern of behaviour which drove his
ministers to despair. In March 1898, under heavy pressure, the Chinese
agreed to lease Port Arthur and its hinterland to Russia. In compensation
for German and Russian gains the British took the port of Weihaiwei.
The Japanese therefore had the mortification of seeing Russia ensconced in
a port from which Tokyo had been evicted only three years ago amidst
pious claims that the European powers were acting to protect China’s
territorial integrity.
In 1900 a revolt against foreigners, the so-called Boxer rebellion, spread
across much of northern China, including Manchuria. Russian troops
poured in to protect W itte’s precious railway. Once in possession of
Manchuria Petersburg was disinclined to retreat, at least until absolute
security could be guaranteed to its railway and the Chinese would concede
Russia’s economic domination of the province. This Peking was unwill­
ing to do. Its stand was strongly backed by Britain, the USA and Japan, all
of which demanded free access for foreign trade to Manchuria. The sign­
ing of the Anglo-Japanese alliance, clearly directed against Russia, in
January 1902 further stiffened Chinese resolve.
The Manchurian issue was, however, complicated by the fact that a
simultaneous dispute existed between Russia and Japan as regards control
over Korea. Russia’s main interest in Korea lay in the proximity of that
country’s northern border to Vladivostok, which made domination of
the whole country by another great power worrying. In addition, the
Russian navy lusted after a Korean port and feared that if the Japanese
controlled both sides of the Straits of Tsushima they could easüy cut
communications between Vladivostok and Port Arthur. The Koreans
themselves looked to Russia for protection from Japan, which was clearly
the greatest threat to their independence, and offered Russia many induce­
ments to occupy itself in their affairs. But the greatest single complicating
factor in Russia’s relations with Korea was the large timber concession
98 Nicholas I I

which a number of aristocrats close to Nicholas had secured on the river

Yalu, with the aim of building up a Russian bridgehead in northern
Korea.
The leaders in the Yalu enterprise were A.M. Bezobrazov and V.M.
Vonlyarlyarsky. Both came from prominent families of the Russian
aristocracy and were former officers of the Chevaliers Gardes, the most
exclusive regiment in the Russian army. Bezobrazov gained access to
Nicholas II through the former Minister of the Imperial Court, Count
I.I. Vorontsov-Dashkov. Neither Bezobrazov nor Vonlyarlyarsky were
interested in the Yalu enterprise for the sake of personal gain. They saw
their company as a means by which non-official patriots could out­
manoeuvre bureaucratic caution and push forward Russia’s cause in the
East. Theirs was to be a latter-day version of Britain’s East India Company
but without its initially commercial priorities. The whole scheme bore the
stamp of aristocratic arrogance and amateurism. Its leaders were convinced
of their own innate superiority to mere bureaucrats. W ithout knowing
the East, they nevertheless urged on Nicholas the belief that Orientals
would back down in the face of a confident show of Russian power. There
was more than a touch of opera to the Bezobrazov affair. Rather typical
was the fact that at one point secret correspondence between Bezobrazov
and Nicholas II was sent through their respective batmen so that the
ministers should be kept in the dark about it. But there was nothing funny
in the effect of Bezobrazov’s influence, which was both to increase
Nicholas’s distrust of his official advisers and to encourage him to take a
tougher and more intransigent line with the Japanese and Chinese
governments. In October 1901, for instance, the Emperor told Prince
Henry of Prussia that *1 do not want to seize Korea - but under no
circumstances can I allow the Japanese to become firmly established there.
That would be a casus belli.9 Here was the voice of Bezobrazov not of
Nicholas’s ministerial advisers, whose position on Korea was much less
bellicose.42
Bezobrazov, Vonlyarlyarsky and their supporters in particular urged on
Nicholas two ideas to which he was very inclined to listen. They told h im
that Russia was a proud and mighty country which should speak in a
strong voice and take no cheek from foreigners, least of all Orientals. This
Guards officers’ patriotism was music to his ears. His aristocratic advisers,
loathing the bureaucracy and above all W itte, also told Nicholas that he
was the captive of his ministers, who colluded in keeping information
from him, imposing their own views and sabotaging his instructions
when they conflicted with their own interests. By 1900 Nicholas felt this
to be true, not merely as regards Far Eastern policy but across the whole
range of government business. Frustrated by his seeming powerlessness
and aware of mounting criticism of his rule, he turned more and more to
 R uling Russia, 1894-1904 99

unofficial advisers in an effort to secure alternative sources of information

and greater freedom from ministerial control. Among these advisers
Bezobrazov was typical in his aristocratic origins and in his appeal to
Nicholas’s patriotic and anti-bureaucratic instincts. In July 1901
Alexander Polovtsov commented that

in no field of policy is there a principled, well considered and firmly directed

course of action. Everything is done in bursts, haphazardly, under the
influence of the moment, according to the demands of this or that person and
the intercessions emerging from various comers. The young Tsar feels more
and more contempt for the organs of his own power and begins to believe in
the beneficial strength of his own autocracy, which he manifests sporadically,
without preliminary discussion and without any link to the overall course of
policy.43

As in his domestic policy Nicholas sought to balance between his

groups of advisers, drawing information from both and thereby seeking a
basis on which he could determine policy for himself. This had a disastrous
impact on Russia’s Far Eastern policy in 1902-3 and on the way it was
perceived by foreigners, above all the Japanese. It was not merely that
Bezobrazov’s advice was dangerous and mistaken. Outsiders did not
know what Petersburg’s policy was. Faced by criticism that divisions
between ministers and unofficial advisers were causing government policy
in East Asia to be incoherent and uncoordinated, in August 1903 Nicholas
appointed Admiral Alekseev Viceroy of the Far East and subordinated to
him all responsibility not only for civil and military affairs but also for
diplomatic relations with Tokyo and Peking. This was to make a bad
situation worse. Alekseev was a sailor, not a diplomat or a statesman. By
definition neither he nor other officials in the East could have a balanced
overall grasp of the Empire’s many interests for they were committed to
pursuing a forward policy in their own bailiwick.
The Japanese now had to deal with Alekseev in Port Arthur but they
knew, of course, that the Viceroy’s decisions would have to be ratified by
the Tsar, and therefore by those high officials to whom he chose to listen,
in Petersburg. Confusion was compounded by the fact that during the
critical period between August and November 1903 Nicholas II was
seldom in his capital, spending most of his time on official and private
visits to Western Europe. Though Japanese counsels were themselves
divided, had Russia consistently stood out for a free hand for herself in
Manchuria in return for Japanese control over Korea, Tokyo would
almost certainly have agreed in the end. The demilitarization of northern
Korea could have been obtained through such a deal had Petersburg
offered some concessions in southern Manchuria. But the Russians
100 Nicholas I I

overestimated the strength of their position, and the incoherence and delay
in their responses to Tokyo convinced the Japanese that Petersburg was
simply prevaricating. Nicholas’s own statements betrayed his uncertainty
and miscalculations. In October 1903 he telegraphed to Alekseev: ‘I do
not want war between Russia and Japan and will not permit this war.
Take all measures so that there is no w ar.’ In late December, however, he
commented that the situation reminded him of the 1895 crisis when Japan
backed down under firm Russian pressure and surrendered Port Arthur.
Referring to Japan, Nicholas remarked: ‘all the same it is a barbarian
country. Which is better: to risk a war or to continue with concessions?’
In' February 1904 the Japanese permitted Russia no more wavering and
attacked Port Arthur.44
The disastrous and unnecessary war with Japan was more Nicholas’s
fault than anybody else’s. First and foremost he underestimated Japan’s
resolution, its willingness to take great risks in challenging the seemingly
much mightier Russia, and the skill with which it would wage war. For
this he cannot be entirely blamed. In 1903-5 Japan surprised the whole
world. Perhaps more culpable was Nicholas’s faith in Russian might, his
inability to distinguish between parade-ground glitter and military effec­
tiveness. The Emperor was also to blame for failing to measure his Far
Eastern policy against Russia’s overall interests, problems and resources.
His vision of Russia’s future in Asia and the East was a grandiose one.
Like everything he did it was fired by great patriotism and an uplifted
sense of his country’s destiny. Nor was the Emperor wrong to see Siberia
and the Pacific as more suitable fields for his country’s energies and
ambitions than the Near East and the Balkans. But the enormous diver­
sion of resources to the Far East even before the war began was excessive
given Russia’s domestic needs. And Russia possessed interests in Europe
which she could not abandon and to which her Far Eastern policies did
great harm. In 1902-3 a wise policy could have retained many of the
advantages secured in earlier years in the Far East without the risk of war.
A more balanced and realistic policy would have weighed the risks, bene­
fits and costs of intransigence in the Far East rather differently.
O f course Nicholas was by no means solely responsible for having led
Russia to disaster in the Far East. Many of his advisers must also share the
blame. Even Serge W itte, for instance, though he took a relatively pacific
line after 1900, was largely responsible for having lumbered Russia with
the problem of defending its key strategic artery to the East across
hundreds of miles of hostile foreign territory. But W itte was only able to
build his railway across Manchuria because the departmental perspective of
the Ministry of Finance was allowed to triumph over a more balanced
assessment of not merely the financial but also the strategic, diplomatic
and economic implications of this decision. In the Russian system of
 R uling Russia, Î8 9 4 -Î9 0 4 101

government, however, only the monarch or a lieutenant to whom he

delegated full authority could hope to impose a balanced, co-ordinated
view of the country’s interests on the various departments which made
government policy. This Nicholas proved unable to do, even to the extent
that it was possible. And he was much too jealous of his autocratic powers
and too distrustful of his advisers to let anyone else do the job for him.
 CHAPTER 5

Autocratic Government

By the first years of the twentieth century the Russian government was
clearly in a mess. Problems were accumulating at great speed with solu­
tions nowhere in sight. A growing sense of crisis pervaded senior offi­
cialdom. So too did the sense that the government was confused, divided
and without firm policies. Ministers blamed each other for this state of
affairs. They also, with increasing unanimity, blamed the Tsar. His
handling even of domestic issues aroused their impatience and anger.
When the blunders that led to war with Japan also came to be recognized
indignation mounted. By 1905 very many top officials believed that unless
fundamental changes occurred in the way in which government policy
was formulated and co-ordinated the regime was doomed.
The same criticisms of Nicholas were made by one minister after
another. He was said to be very impressionable and therefore much
inclined to alter his opinions to accord with the views of the last person to
whom he spoke. As Vladimir Lambsdorff commented in the winter of
1896, ‘our young monarch changes his mind with terrifying speed’. One
result of this was that ministers were nervous about leaving Nicholas alone
with their rivals for any length of time, sometimes dogging his footsteps
while he was on holiday at Livadia like a posse of bloodhounds. Ministers
knew that even when they had secured the Emperor’s approval to a policy
they could not take his continued support for granted, especially if that
policy came under severe criticism. Alexander Schwartz recalled a conver­
sation with S.N. Rukhlov, the Minister of Communications, "who in a
moment of sincerity said to me: God preserve you from relying on the
Emperor even for a second on any matter; he is incapable of supporting
anyone over anything’.1
Given the enormous pressures and criticism to which all ministers were
subjected in the last decades of the old regime, the sense that one could not
rely on the monarch’s support could be a heavy cross to bear. Though no
minister could ever be described as the monarch’s personal friend,
 Autocratic Government 103

Nicholas clearly liked some more than others. Not surprisingly, given his
background and personality, he tended to prefer people of aristocratic
origin with roots in the countryside to the more normal product of
Petersburg high officialdom. The latter, part veteran politician and part
bureaucrat, seldom inspired him with much enthusiasm.
Among his favourites in the first decade of his reign was Prince Aleksei
Lobanov-Rostovsky, an amateur historian and an amusing story-teller
whose life in the diplomatic service had taken him through most of the
major courts of Europe. O f equally elevated origins but even more colour­
ful was the Minister of Communications, Prince Michael Khilkov, who as
a young man had abandoned service in the Guards to go off and work for a
number of years as an engine-driver in South America and a shipwright in
Liverpool. Aleksei Ermolov, also from an old landed family, got on well
with Nicholas and was generally regarded as a considerable scholar in his
specialist field, agriculture. W hat these three shared, apart from their
aristocratic backgrounds, were abnormal careers and charming, pleasant
personalities. There was a touch of amateurism about all three men, a lack
of the obsessive political ambition and the craving for status that long
immersion in the Petersburg official world could encourage among the
capital’s veteran officials. None of these three men could remotely be
described as bureaucrats: though Lobanov-Rostovsky was a highly intelli­
gent man and proved to be Nicholas’s best Foreign Minister, his relaxed
style of work horrified more professional administrators; both Ermolov
and Khilkov were famous for combining great technical knowledge with
an inability to manage their ministries effectively.
More typical ministers had less satisfactory relations with the Emperor.
The latter gave most of his attention to defence, foreign policy and the
Ministry of Internal Affairs. Intervention in other departments tended to
be spasmodic. Most ministers felt that Nicholas was not greatly interested
either in themselves or in the affairs of their department. Alexander
Schwartz, for instance, recalled that Nicholas was always friendly, polite
and welcoming but that a minister did not take long to realize that the
warmth was only skin-deep. Politeness and the desire not to hurt the
feelings of those with whom he worked could not disguise the fact that at
heart Nicholas did not greatly like most of his senior counsellors and was
largely indifferent to their fate. In addition, in Schwartz’s words, the
Emperor ‘was sincere with scarcely anyone’. The Tsar seldom disagreed
with ministers directly but his seeming consent to their views did not stop
him from taking alternative counsel or secretly harbouring many doubts
about a minister and his policies.2
At times experiencing this hidden distrust, ministers were bitter. They
felt themselves to be by right the monarch’s chief advisers in the specific
sphere of policy covered by their ministry. In practice they sought to
104 Nicholas I I

monopolize the flow of information and counsel to the Emperor in their

field. Often they felt that unless they could do so the difficulties involved
in running their ministries would become insuperable. Russian ministers
faced many frustrations in trying to impose their will on a far-flung
administration whose low-level officials were often of poor calibre. In
rural Russia, right down to 1917, government officials were not held in
check by public opinion, since most of the population was barely literate
and the local press very weak. Officials were also to some extent beyond
the control of the law, especially when provinces were placed under a state
of emergency. Even in normal circumstances prosecution required the
consent of an official’s administrative superiors. Nor was the bureaucracy
responsible to an elected legislature, though after 1906 deputies in the new
parliament, the Duma, could shame wrongdoers by asking embarrassing
questions in public of ministers. In these circumstances ministers found it
very difficult to control their provincial officials. Faced with very similar
problems in the 1920s and 1930s the Soviet regime, having destroyed all
elements of legality and free public opinion that had existed in Imperial
Russia, resorted to increasingly large-scale and bloody purges to ensure
local officialdom’s obedience to orders from the centre. Such methods
were unthinkable in the Russia of Nicholas II. But ministers were very
concerned by problems of discipline and control in their department and,
partly for this reason, greatly resented any imperial interference which
would weaken their prestige and authority.
In the upper levels of the bureaucracy personnel were in general edu­
cated and efficient but here the problems of control could be equally great.
Senior Russian officials were not always noted for strict obedience to their
superiors’ commands. No line divided politics and administration in
Russia. Ministers were in most cases merely very senior civil servants.
Political battles in the government or at court sent ripples down the
bureaucratic hierarchy. Senior officials often tended to be politicians, keep­
ing a wary eye on currents at court and in ministerial circles. To some
extent they had to be if they were to protect their jobs and promote their
careers. In this very political upper bureaucracy promotions and appoint­
ments often depended on patronage. Particularly in some ministries the
securing of patrons could be as important as administrative skill for an
ambitious man. Little groups of patrons and their clients formed, some­
times taking on a political colouring. Given these realities a minister who
lacked the unequivocal support of the monarch might find it very difficult
to impose his will on some of his subordinates. This was particularly true
if the latter had powerful patrons elsewhere in the government or, worst
of all, were directly in contact with the monarch. The ultimate nightmare
was to have grand dukes in one’s department since they by definition had
easy access to Nicholas and were therefore impossible to control. In
 Autocratic Government 105

addition, a minister whose support from the Emperor was weak would
seldom prevail in the conflicts with other departments which are the
everyday reality of any government.
By 1903 General Aleksei Kuropatkin, the Minister of W ar, felt that his
prestige was being severely undermined by Nicholas’s relations with
unofficial advisers such as A.M. Bezobrazov. Still worse were the
Emperor’s direct links with some of Kuropatkin’s own subordinates. The
final straw was Nicholas’s decision to create a viceroyalty in the Far East,
hiving off some of Kuropatkin’s responsibilities in the process, without
even asking the Minister of W ar’s advice in advance. Kuropatkin wrote in
his diary:

I said to the Emperor that none of his subjects had the right even to think
about penetrating the Emperor’s designs in respect of any of his acts. Only
before God and history are sovereigns responsible for the paths they choose to
take for the well-being of the people. Therefore, although I am opposed to
subordinating the Amur [i.e. Far Eastern] region to Alekseev, I have abso­
lutely no pretensions about supposing that my opinion is necessarily correct. I
would therefore bow before each of the Sovereign's decisions and would apply
all my strength to their fulfilment in the best possible way. But, being placed
by the Sovereign at the head of an important ministry, by law I bear the
responsibility for the correct execution of business in this department. With
the Sovereign's trust I can cope with the heavy burdens that lie on me but if
that trust is lost and if it becomes evident to all that the trust no longer exists
then the Sovereign’s relatives, the commanders of troops and other ministers
will begin to slight me and go around me and my successful fulfilment of my
duties as a minister will become impossible.3

As Minister of W ar Kuropatkin was more exposed to Nicholas’s inter­

ventions than was the case with most heads of department. In addition,
the army was almost the only permitted career for a grand duke and its
upper reaches were therefore always inhabited by many of the Tsar’s
relatives. But few ministers entirely escaped the frustrations which
Kuropatkin expressed so vividly in this conversation with Nicholas.
Moreover all of them experienced the lack of co-ordination between
ministries and the absence, therefore, of coherent balanced policies taking
in all aspects of the state’s interests. This was the greatest single failing of
Russian government before 1905, and since co-ordination was the Tsar’s
responsibility he inevitably was widely blamed for its absence.
Konstantin Pobedonostsev, the chief civil administrator of the Ortho­
dox Church, had much to say on this score in the years before 1905. Since
he was an intelligent man and had known Nicholas for longer than any of
the other ministers his comments are of particular interest. Pobedonostsev
106 Nicholas I I

was furious that Nicholas was consulting outside advisers» who in his
view were rogues and charlatans, and was allowing them to influence the
government’s policy. He noted that the Emperor was inclined to agree
with one adviser’s ideas and then change his mind when he spoke to
someone else. Collegiate institutions which were designed to co-ordinate
government policy were not being properly used. Taxed with his failure
to unite his government Nicholas did for a time preside over weekly
meetings of his ministers in 1901 but the experiment was not successful.
Pobedonostsev described the meetings in the following terms: 'The dis­
cussions begin. Some people, Ermolov for instance, chatter away without
ceasing. The Emperor begins to get bored. The time approaches for lunch.
He begins to look at his watch and after about ten or fifteen minutes
announces that the question under discussion will be on the agenda again
the following Friday. The ministers bow and disperse. He lacks strength,
energy and passion. ’4
Pobedonostsev believed that it was because the Tsar failed to use colle­
giate institutions such as the Committee of Ministers properly that power
was exercised individually by ministers. Policy was decided in face-to-face
audiences between the monarch and individual ministers, which made
co-ordinated and balanced decisions impossible. 'Since the representative
of authority [i.e. the Tsar] had in fact resigned the use of his power, it had
been picked up by the ministers, and there was therefore no unity and no
directing thought.’ In Pobedonostsev’s view, however, the Emperor’s
failure to unify government policy was rooted not only in his inability to
direct collegiate and co-ordinating institutions but also in Nicholas’s per­
sonality and education.

He has a naturally good brain, analytical skills and he grasps what he is told.
But he only grasps the significance of a fact in isolation without its relation­
ship to other facts, events, currents and phenomena. On this isolated trifling
fact or view he stops . . . Wide general ideas worked out by an exchange of
views, argument or discussions are lacking. This is shown by the fact that not
long ago he said to one of his entourage: *Why are you always quarrelling? I
always agree with everyone about everything and then do things my own
way.’5

It would, however, be a mistake to take ministers’ criticism of Nicholas

at face value and to imagine that theirs is the last and only word on the
matter. If senior officials blamed the Emperor for the government’s fail­
ings, he reciprocated in good measure. Indeed by 1900 his suspicion and
contempt for the bureaucracy was widely noted. The imperial family’s
dislike of the ministers was expressed most succinctly by the Empress
Marie, who in February 1904 commented that ‘it’s they who get in
 Autocratic Government 107

the way of everything*. Nicholas’s sense of frustration, isolation and

bewilderment is evident from a letter written by his wife to her sister in
February 1905.

My poor Nicky’s cross is a heavy one to bear, all the more so as he has nobody
on whom he can thoroughly rely and who can be a real help to him. He tries
so hard, works with such perseverance, but the lack of what I call ‘real* men is
great. Of course they must exist somewhere, but it is difficult to get at them
. . . We shall try to see more people but it is difficult. . . Poor Nicky, he has
a bitter hard life to lead. Had his father seen more people, drawn them around
him, we should have had lots to fill the necessary posts; now only old men or
quite young ones, nobody to turn to. The uncles no good, Misha [Nicholas’s
brother] a darling child still. . .6

In part Nicholas’s isolation, frustration and inability effectively to run

his government were rooted in his personality. Loneliness is the inevitable
lot of any monarch, especially if he ascends the throne at an early age.
Nicholas’s reticence and self-control, the fact that he opened his heart to
almost no one, contributed, however, to his isolation. Probably the
majority of mankind, if dropped by fate into the world of Russian high
politics, would have thoroughly disliked most of the men and the morals
they encountered. In Nicholas's case, the innocence and high ideals of his
upbringing must have made exposure to this world all the more shocking.
The Tsar’s ethics were those of the honourable if naive Guards officer. His
conception of patriotism and duty was a high one. The intrigue, ambi­
tion, jealousy and frequent pettiness of the political world revolted him.
Years of exposure to this world hardened him and made him indifferent
and cool to its inhabitants. In Peter Bark’s view this ’stopped him, despite
his very great personal charm, from creating around himself a group of
devoted friends, loyal and faithful’. Fully trusting almost nobody outside
his own family, in the first decade of his reign Nicholas often turned to
his relatives for advice on people and even policies. Many of the other
Romanovs, however, not only drew their friends and acquaintances from
a narrow circle but also lived superficial and self-indulgent lives which
made them easy targets for all sorts of flatterers and fools. Very few of his
relatives’ protégés did Nicholas much service, the prize for awfiulness going
to the acquaintances of the Tsar’s brother-in-law, the Grand Duke Alex­
ander. Nor did the Emperor’s own innocent and closeted upbringing
prepare him well to judge people.7
Nicholas II’s nature was delicate and sensitive. He disliked coarseness,
bullying and personal confrontations. Alexander III had loved to play
cards with members of his suite, who in the excitement of winning and
losing, ’uninhibited by the Sovereign’s presence, allowed themselves
108 Nicholas I I

impermissible pranks and expressions. This left an indelible impression on

the Emperor for his whole life and robbed him of any desire to become
acquainted with card games.’ In December 1896 Madame Bogdanovich
recorded that during an argument between two ministers, ‘W itte flared
up with such anger against Khilkov that the Tsar went out of the room,
leaving the two together and didn’t return to them . . . It’s evident that
the ministers don’t pay attention to the Tsar and that he can’t cope with
them.’ Nicholas’s method of dealing with ministers was not to confront
them but rather to evade arguments, seek alternative advice and go his
own way. This won him a reputation for cowardice and shiftiness.
Once he had gained some experience in government, the Tsar’s shy­
ness and dislike of argument did not mean that he was easily swayed by
ministers. Michael Akimov, the President of the State Council from 1907
to 1914, knew Nicholas well. He commented that ‘for all his seeming
pliability and gentleness. His Majesty at times revealed an unexpected
independence, in some circumstances producing an impression of stub­
bornness’. Gentle and rarely angry, indulgent towards mistakes,
impressionable but sometimes stubborn, always suspicious and elusive -
Nicholas’s personality meant that he failed to impose his will and strength
of purpose on his ministers in a consistent manner. As was the case in a
number of ways, the Emperor’s virtues sometimes told against him.
Nicholas never allowed himself to indulge in the explosive Russian out­
bursts of temperament that soothed the nerves and satisfied the egos of so
many figures in Russian political life at the time, though at the cost of
endless unnecessary and debilitating personal battles that did nothing to
enhance the effectiveness of the political system. But his calm, moderation
and self-control - very un-Russian virtues - were often interpreted as
indifference and weakness. His wife complained with some justice that ‘it
cost the Emperor a tremendous effort to subdue the attacks of rage to
which the Romanoffs are subject. He has learnt the hard lesson of self-
control, only to be called weak; people forget that the greatest conqueror
is he who conquers himself.’ Terror has always been one method by
which dictators have held their subordinates in awe. In Victorian and
Edwardian Russia it was unthinkable that the Emperor should in the literal
sense of the word terrorize his lieutenants like a medieval despot or Josef
Stalin. It did not help his cause, however, that he was incapable even of
scaring his ministers.8
Though Nicholas’s personality was of course an important factor in his
dealings with his government, it would be a mistake to imagine that it
was the only one. During the reign of the last Russian Emperor, some
ministers were inclined to look back on Alexander Ill’s reign as a golden
age. Despite Alexander’s powerful and imposing personality, however,
many of the difficulties faced by his son as regards the direction and
 Autocratic Government 109

co-ordination of the machinery of government were already fully in

evidence in the 1880s.
A.A. Polovtsov commented in 1889 that Alexander III was ‘full of
contempt for the entire higher bureaucracy’ and that, together with the
Grand Duke Vladimir, the Tsar bewailed his isolation and the lack of
good candidates for jobs. Polovtsov responded to Vladimir’s complaint by
arguing that ‘both the Emperor and you live in conditions which make it
very difficult if not impossible to know people . . . You live your lives
under lock and key, see people at official receptions and speak to two or
three whom fate or intrigue have brought close to you and who find in
you a means to the attainment of their goals.’ Though himself a senior
official, Polovtsov, like most Russians, despised the bureaucracy. His
comments to Alexander III on its evils no doubt fed imperial prejudices on
this score.

Formerly the throne was surrounded by a hereditary aristocracy, which could

tell the truth to the monarch, if not in the course of official service, then in
everyday social intercourse and during entertainments. Now the aristocracy
has been destroyed and high society itself scarcely exists any more. The
Emperor is only accessible to servile bureaucrats who see in him a means to the
achievement of their own egotistical goals.9

As revealing are the diaries of Alexander Kireev from the 1880s. Kireev
complained that nobody and nothing co-ordinated the activities of the
various departments, which simply pursued independent policies. ‘In our
country each ministry is a separate state which has nothing to do with any
other one.’ Alexander III, rather than preside over the State Council or
Committee of Ministers, ran Russia through private audiences with indi­
vidual ministers. As a result he got a one-sided view of problems. The Tsar
was isolated and saw far fewer people than his father, Alexander II. W ith
the press censored and the aristocracy in decline, the Tsar knew Russia
through what his officials chose to tell him. In Kireev’s view the Tsar was
completely in the bureaucracy’s hands, knew and resented this fact but
could do nothing about it. ‘The Emperor said to Zhukovsky that he
despises the administration and had drunk a toast to its obliteration.’
Kireev’s conclusion was that ‘the poor Emperor lives in a vicious circle
from which there is no exit. He puts his trust in the ministers, strictly
watches that each of them keeps only to his own business and doesn’t
allow intervention in their neighbours’ affairs. This makes each minister
completely outside monarchical control.’10
In August 1903 Aleksei Kuropatkin complained bitterly to Vyacheslav
Plehve, the Minister of Internal Affairs, about the Emperor’s suspicion
and lack of confidence in his official advisers. Plehve responded:
110 Nicholas I I

streaks of distrust for ministers and the publishing of important acts without
their involvement were common to all sovereigns beginning with Alexander I.
This trait is connected with the basic principle of autocracy. Autocrats
appear to listen to their ministers and on the surface agree with them but
almost always people from the side find easy access to their hearts or instill in
the monarchs distrust for their ministers who are represented as encroaching
on the rights of the autocrat. Hence the bifurcation of the state's actions. Even
such a strong personality as Alexander III was not averse to this sort of
activity.11

Plehve was right to stress that conflict and suspicion between the auto­
crat and his ministers were built into the Russian system of government
and had existed throughout the nineteenth century. Nevertheless, rela­
tions between the monarch and senior officialdom had changed funda­
mentally during this period. The most obvious reason for this was simply
the vast growth of the bureaucracy. Even if one excludes the horde of
clerks, secretaries, janitors and messengers who served in the bureaucracy’s
lowest ranks, the number of civil servants in Petersburg alone grew from
23,000 in 1880 to 52,000 in 1914. Moreover, the administration grew not
just in size but also in the range and complexity of the tasks it was seeking
to fulfil. Alongside defence, diplomacy and law and order, the traditional
spheres of government activity, there emerged new fields in which the
Russian government often played a much greater role than was the case
elsewhere in Europe. At one extreme lay the increasingly large-scale
operations of the security police, as always particularly difficult to super­
vise or control because of the secrecy with which they acted. At the other
stood the wide-ranging activity of the ministries of finance and, particu­
larly in the twentieth century, agriculture. A vast range of questions,
many of them very technical, were decided in the upper reaches of the
government. One result of this was that in many areas it was difficult for
an amateur without specialist skills to understand the issues or to make
intelligent decisions.
The civil service was changing not merely in its size and functions but
also in its mentality. In the 1890s there were many ministers who saw
themselves primarily as the Tsar’s servitors and assistants. In their view
their duty lay in executing the monarch’s decisions, whatever they might
be. By 1905 such views seemed increasingly anachronistic. The focus of
most civil servants’ loyalties had shifted from the dynasty to the state and
nation. Senior officialdom, by now almost always possessing a higher
education and a considerable esprit Je corps, felt that its expertise gave it a
right to considerable autonomy vis-à-vis the Tsar. This shift occurred
even in the Foreign Ministry, the department over which traditionally the
monarch exercised the closest supervision. W hen he succeeded Count
 Autocratic Government 111

Lambsdorff as Foreign Minister in 1906, A.P. Izvolsky made it clear that a

fundamental shift in mentality had occurred. He would not follow in the
footsteps of his predecessor, who ‘advanced the stupefying theory that
in Russia the Minister of Foreign Affairs could not quit his post until
dismissed by his sovereign, and that his sole function was to study the
questions pertaining to the Empire’s foreign relations and present his
conclusions to the Emperor, who, in his quality of autocrat, would decide
for or against, and his decision would thereupon be obligatory for the
Minister.’12
By the early twentieth century, a monarch who intended to dominate
the machinery of government and direct its policies along his own lines
faced far more formidable obstacles than those that had confronted his
ancestors in 1800 or 1850. One quite interesting way to illustrate this fact
is to look at the travails of a number of great aristocrats who occupied top
positions in government under Nicholas II. These landowning magnates
from the old aristocracy were quite a small minority among Nicholas’s
ministers, most of whom were professional civil servants. Like the Tsar
himself, they were amateurs in government, without years of experience
of managing large administrative organizations. Their mentality, values
and lifestyle, like those of the monarch, marked them out as members not
merely of a leisured class, but also of a class bred to the conviction that it
was its right to govern, and its duty to do so in a paternalist manner.
Unlike the Emperor, however, aristocratic ministers were responsible
only for the affairs of one department and were not chained to their office
for life.
Two senior aristocratic officials in Nicholas II’s government were
the brothers-in-law Prince Alexander Obolensky and Count Aleksei
Bobrinsky. Both men were not only great landowners but also great
industrialists. They were very wealthy. Obolensky served first as a Senator
and then as a member of the State Council, in other words in the empire’s
highest judicial and legislative bodies. Bobrinsky, also a member of the
State Council, subsequently held ministerial office. Both men discovered
on first entering senior executive positions in the bureaucracy that little in
their backgrounds had prepared them for the daily grind and long hours
entailed by their jobs. Alexander Obolensky wrote to his wife that ‘I am
simply not accustomed to doing my work sloppily and I just won’t do
this. But there’s not the time to do it as it ought to be done.’ Soon after
Bobrinsky became a minister he wrote to his daughter that ‘my role is
exhaustingly hard labour. I work from morning until night . . . I had
imagined this post differently. There is the appearance of power but in fact
thousands of plots, conferences and discussions.’13
Bobrinsky at least was more politically ambitious than most aristocratic
magnates and quite enjoyed the world of Petersburg high society and its
salons. By contrast Alexander Obolensky was much more like Nicholas II
in his detestation of Petersburg and its political intrigues, and in his prefer­
ence for the life of a country gentleman. In the autumn of 1904, for
instance, as Russia lurched towards revolution, Obolensky wrote of
Petersburg that ‘here there is futility, sadness, gossip and cold - to sum
things up, it is foul’. By contrast, his estate was a haven of serenity where
people got on with their daily Uves and concentrated on practical tasks. In
his part of the countryside "everyone has got a lot of bread and so they are
all satisfied. When one is here and is plunged into the local atmosphere
and interests you forget quite a bit about questions concerning the war and
domestic politics’. He added that "Petersburg, with all the tragic, busy
and disturbed times it is going through, seems something far away. One
thinks about what is going on there but doesn’t really feel it.’ The
Emperor would have given almost anything to flee with Obolensky to the
backwoods serenity of his estate in Penza province. In comparison, his
almost suburban palaces at Tsarskoe Selo and Peterhof, though at least an
escape from Petersburg, were a poor substitute.14
Prince Boris Vasil’chikov was, like Alexander Obolensky, a great
aristocratic landowner who far preferred rural life to Petersburg poUtics
and accepted the job of Minister of Agriculture in 1906 with great reluc­
tance. Managing a large estate, deaUng with the local peasantry and work­
ing as a provincial Governor on a person-to-person basis with local notables
were jobs that Vasil’chikov enjoyed and felt that he did well. By contrast,
he himself wrote that he was "no good as a minister’. He commented that
to succeed at the top level in Petersburg you had to love power and be very
ambitious. Since politics at this level was a constant battle you had both to
enjoy the fight and to take pleasure in mastering and imposing your views
on other people and departments. In addition, wrote Vasil’chikov, he had
no training in the task of managing a large organization like a ministry
and very little experience of the Petersburg bureaucracy and its ways. Pro­
fessional Petersburg bureaucrats shared Vasil’chikov’s view that he was
unsuited for his job as minister. Serge W itte described him as "not a busi­
nesslike man’. Vladimir Gurko called him "a typical Russian gentleman’
and commented that he was "an honorable and intelligent man, but
neither a good worker nor a statesman. He represented a type of minister
of the period of Nicholas I [1825-55]; he was upright, honest and could
speak openly and frankly even to the Monarch, yet he had no knowledge
of any problem; he relied simply upon his own common sense but was
utterly incapable of handling skilfully any complicated m atter.’ Gurko’s
comments reflected the widespread and growing belief of Petersburg offi­
cialdom that government and politics were full-time occupations best left
to professionals. Impatience with, and disdain for, the efforts of aristo­
cratic amateurs to participate in this world are frequently encountered in
 Autocratic Government 113

officials9 memoirs and correspondence. Such views were bound in time to

colour senior officialdom’s attitude to Nicholas II, who was by far the
most important aristocrat involved in the politics and government of his
country.15
Peter Bark commented that Nicholas had 'old-fashioned ideas’ about
his country and the officials through whom it was governed. 'H e con­
sidered himself to be the chief of his people or a landowner on a grand
scale, though no sacrifice seemed to him too great if it was for the good of
his subjects. The huge Russian Empire was to him a sort of ancestral
family estate, private property. Ministers acted in his name as servants
attached to his person and obligated to carry out his will might have
acted.’16
It is clear from many of the Emperor’s statements that he did not make
a clear distinction in his own mind between public and private, the realm
of the state and that of the imperial household. His defence of his
autocratic powers was in part linked to the idea that these were a family
heirloom of which he was the guardian rather than the outright owner.
His attitude towards government was coloured by similar conceptions.
He saw himself as his people’s protector, father and friend rather than
simply as the head of an impersonal institution called the state. He looked
back nostalgically to the days before Peter the Great created Russia’s
modern bureaucratic apparatus, fondly believing that in these faraway
times simple patriarchal and almost family ties linked the Tsar and his
people. Far from fully trusting his bureaucracy and its plethora of rules
and regulations, Nicholas felt that his duty lay in part in protecting his
subjects from his own officials. To find a modem version of the Tsar’s
vision of personal, fatherly and accessible authority one would have to
look to the Arab monarchies of the Middle East. But Nicholas II was not
the tribal sheikh of a tiny kingdom, he was the ruler of an empire of 150
million people.
Great efforts were made to preserve the personal, patriarchal, unbureau-
cratic aspect of the monarchy. Personal requests and pleas poured into
the Emperor’s Petitions Chancellery on a vast range of subjects. The
Emperor’s position as patriarch of the Russian tribe, for instance, meant
that until 1913, when family and matrimonial disputes were handed over
to the courts, the personal sanction of the monarch was required before a
wife could live apart from her husband. Unbelievably, right down to
1917, no Russian subject could change his name without the Emperor’s
consent, which meant that the Chancellery was flooded with petitions
from newly respectable and educated peasants whose families had a genera­
tion or so before been blessed by fellow villagers with mde nicknames. By
Nicholas II’s day well over a hundred administrative officials worked in
the Chancellery, handling not only such trivial petitions but also serious
appeals for clemency or requests for subsidies, pensions or other forms of
protection. According to V.I. Mamantov, the last head of the Petitions
Chancellery, service in this organization was more like work in a private
household than a government department. Its officials took their jobs very
seriously and regarded it as their duty to do their utmost to listen to peti­
tioners in a kindly and personal way and to redress the wrongs of the
‘injured and insulted’ wherever possible. Once a week the head of the
Chancellery would report personally to Nicholas on the most difficult and
serious cases for up to ninety minutes and the Emperor, blessed with an
excellent memory and a quick grasp of complicated issues, would issue
instructions to ministers where petitions were to be granted or complaints
further investigated.17
In a sense the Petitions Chancellery was a cross between, on the one
hand, the most ancient conception of monarchy in which the king sat
under a tree and dispensed justice personally to his subjects and, on the
other, a modem ombudsman, deputed to handle citizens’ complaints
against the bureaucracy. Despite the efforts of the Chancellery’s offi­
cials to be as unbureaucratic as possible, to many Russians - above all
peasants - Mamantov and his subordinates were just another species of
civil servant. Only a petition pressed personally into the hands of the
monarch, thereby avoiding any possibility of bureaucratic interference,
was deemed by such people to have any hope of success. Peasants in
particular attempted to waylay the Tsar on his travels or came to his palace
to present their petitions to him in person. ‘Every day the aide-de-camp on
duty was obliged to receive and listen to each petitioner and then, return­
ing to the duty office, had to draw up a short summary of each petition on
a special form, attach and number all the petitions, place them in an
envelope and at eight p.m. hand them over to the Emperor’s valet, who
would place this packet on the Emperor’s writing table.’18
Like it or not, however, Nicholas II was not only father of the Russian
tribe but also chief executive officer of the imperial government. In this
context, one extraordinary fact is of great importance. During the nine­
teenth century the machinery of government in Russia had evolved enor­
mously. Ministries became large and formidable institutions with a will of
their own. The imperial administration was capable not merely of pre­
serving order and raising taxes across a sixth of the world’s land surface
but also of implementing a policy of rapid industrial development and
beginning the transformation of Russian peasant society as well. But
while the machinery of government was developing in spectacular fashion,
the institutions which surrounded the man who was supposed to be
Russia’s chief executive officer changed not at all. A twentieth-century
governmental machine was presided over by a man whose throne was
serviced by the offices of an eighteenth-century royal household.
 Autocratic Government 115

In fact not only did no imperial secretariat develop to match the growth
of government institutions but the offices which had earlier aided the
monarch had a tendency to atrophy or even disappear, their functions
being taken over by the ministries. Under Nicholas I, for instance, the
Emperor’s Personal Chancellery had been a formidable institution. Its
Third Section, for example, had run the Gendarmerie, which Nicholas I
conceived of not merely as security police but also as the monarch’s eyes
and ears, an élite super-bureaucracy through which he could super­
vise all other government institutions. By the 1860s and 1870s the Third
Section had ceased to fulfil this role and was becoming a mere department
of state security. Even so the Third Section’s abolition in 1880 and the
transfer of its functions to the Police Department of the Ministry of
Internal Affairs was a key landmark in the shift from autocratic to bureau­
cratic rule.19
By the 1880s the monarch’s Personal Chancellery was a shadow of its
former self. All that remained was the old First Section. Under Nicholas I
this section’s most significant function was to act as the civil service
inspectorate, checking promotions and appointments in the civil bureau­
cracy on the monarch’s behalf. In 1858, however, the inspectorate was
abolished and ministries became in practice almost autonomous managers
of their own personnel. In an attempt to reimpose a greater degree of
monarchical supervision over the bureaucracy Alexander III re-established
the inspectorate in his Personal Chancellery in 1894 but this move proved
ineffective. This was partly because the reform was not properly thought
through, and partly because the Emperor died shortly after it was imple­
mented. The result, however, was that the Russian monarch in practice
had less control over civil service appointments and promotions than his
Prussian cousin, who for this purpose worked through an effective per­
sonnel office called the Civil Cabinet which was part of the monarch’s
private secretariat.20
In contemporary Western governments chief executive officers come in
two forms, one prime ministerial, the other presidential. Prime ministers
tend themselves to chair regular sessions of their cabinet of ministers, seek­
ing thereby to enhance co-ordination of policy between departments. At
the turn of the century many of Nicholas’s advisers believed that he should
play a similar role. In their view the existing system whereby most busi­
ness between the monarch and his ministers was conducted in private one-
to-one audiences was a recipe for confusion. The monarch’s authority
allowed individual ministers sometimes to force through policies of which
their colleagues could be unaware. As a result, one department’s interests
or perspectives swept aside those of other ministries. Nor were any records
kept of these audiences. Confusion, disunity and, even worse, inter­
departmental conflict were the result. Nicholas appears to have listened to
116 Nicholas I I

these complaints. As we have seen, in 1901 he did for a time regularly

chair meetings of the Committee of Ministers. On rare occasions, particu­
larly over questions of foreign policy, he chaired smaller ad hoc ministerial
sub-committees. And in 1905-6 he presided effectively over a number of
crucial meetings of ministers and other senior officials designed to create
a new constitution and to define how the new legislative and executive
institutions established in 1905 should function. Nevertheless Nicholas
soon tired of chairing the Committee of Ministers in 1901 and never truly
functioned for long as his own prime minister.
Russian precedents were against the monarch acting in this way. No
nineteenth-century tsar had chaired ministerial meetings save on very rare
occasions. Nor did the Austrian emperors or the kings of Prussia do so. In
addition, much of the business of the Committee of Ministers was very
technical and detailed. Nicholas read the minutes of both the Committee
and the supreme legislative body, the State Council, with great conscien­
tiousness. No doubt he felt that this was preferable to wasting his time
presiding over the often very boring and lengthy sessions of these bodies.
The Tsar was after all an exceptionally hard-working member of a leisured
class, not a professional administrator. He was sometimes away from
Petersburg and its suburbs for long periods. Political considerations also
counted, however. If the monarch presided over collegiate bodies he
might well find himself dominated by them and bound by the decisions
they took. Nicholas was impressionable. He also could not be as well
informed as his ministers on most of the issues under discussion. Indi­
viduals or groups of ministers might overawe him by their arguments,
committing him in semi-public to decisions he would later regret. The
monarch’s dignity and autonomy might well be better served by mulling
over the minutes of these meetings on his own, subsequently consulting
with ministers on an individual basis.
In comparison to the best-known of contemporary presidential
systems, namely that of the United States, the most obvious weakness of a
Russian tsar was his lack of an effective private secretariat. No American
president would be able to control or co-ordinate the executive branch of
government without the W hite House staff and its chief, the National
Security Council and other such bodies. A chief executive officer who is
simultaneously head of state carries an appalling range of obligations in the
modem world. His time has to be controlled and rationed carefully.
Trivia must be kept off his desk. On the other hand his staff must ensure
that he alone makes the truly vital decisions and that he receives informa­
tion sufficient in quantity and form to make this possible. This means the
presentation of short, effective briefing papers setting out policy options.
It means exposing the chief executive officer to different perspectives and
opinions so that he does not simply become the captive of ministers and
 Autocratic Government 117

their expert bureaucratic advisers. It also entails following up the leader’s

directives to ensure that they are actually implemented rather than simply
lost or distorted by the bureaucratic machine. A chief executive who
wishes to control his government must surround himself with energetic
and able advisers whose personal loyalty to him is linked both to shared
beliefs and to their awareness that his power serves their ambitions and
career prospects. In the 1920s and 1930s Josef Stalin faced the task of
controlling the vast Russian government machine and imposing his will
on the same country that Nicholas II had struggled to rule a few years
before. One key to his ’success’ was the formation of an immensely
powerful personal secretariat packed by ambitious, able and ruthless
clients through whom he imposed his decisions on the machinery of
government.21
Nicholas II had no personal secretariat. Indeed, amazingly, he did not
even have a private secretary. The Tsar was very tidy and meticulous. He
prided himself on his ability to find any document in his files even in the
dark. He hated anyone else to touch his papers. Nevertheless, the fact that
the autocrat supposedly responsible for the fate of 150 million people
actually stamped his own envelopes and wrote little notes asking for
carriages to be made ready for him is almost bizarre. Trivia poured on to
the monarch’s desk. If on the one hand the Petitions Chancellery was
inundated by the personal supplications of his subjects, ministers on the
other hand were obliged to refer absurdly unimportant questions, for
instance about personnel matters, to the monarch in person. In theory this
was all in the cause of the Emperor’s control over his administration. The
reality was that, engulfed in trivia, Nicholas’s actual ability to determine
government policy was reduced. In the summer of 1912 Baron Roman
Rosen, a former ambassador and present member of the State Council,
devoted many weeks to writing a memorandum for Nicholas II on
Russia’s geopolitical position, her options as regards foreign policy, and
the growing danger of war with Germany. Nicholas, however, was ’too
busy’ to read the lengthy memorandum. No doubt this was partly an
excuse: the Emperor disliked ’outsiders’ pushing their noses into the
making of foreign policy, which he considered his personal prerogative.
Even so the incident is instructive. Firstly, while too busy to read a
politically important memorandum the monarch was devoting many
hours a week to trivia. Secondly, if the Emperor was genuinely to be a
chief executive officer he needed to listen to the opinions of people like
Rosen, well-informed outsiders with different strategies to those of his
official advisers. Thirdly, an effective personal secretariat with a trusted
chief would not only have encouraged the monarch to read such memo­
randa but would also have ensured that they were presented in a digestible
form rather than, as in Rosen’s case, virtually at book-length.
118 Nicholas I I

An effective personal secretariat might well have reduced the frustra­

tion felt by both the monarch and his ministers. Nicholas read reams of
documents with great care and attention. He often annotated them
copiously and intelligently, passing on advice and instructions to his
subordinates by this means. More often than not the documents then dis­
appeared into a bureaucratic void and had no effect on either the formula­
tion or execution of policy. The Tsar felt cheated and chafed at ministerial
sabotage of his wishes. Had he possessed energetic and politically mature
officials in his Personal Chancellery whose job it was to pursue these
documents and try to ensure that they were implemented some of the
Tsar’s frustration could have been reduced. In fact not only did he have no
real private office but he never even discussed politics with his entourage,
most of whom were honourable but politically illiterate officers drawn
from the Horse Guards regiment.
The absence of a private office was also sorely missed when ministers
came for their weekly private audiences with the monarch. No documents
were submitted in advance and no independent source existed to brief the
Emperor on the topics a minister would be raising. Since most of these
topics were narrow and specialized, Nicholas would generally have been
hard pressed to dispute or debate them with his minister. Subsequently,
however, he might well discuss the issues in question with someone else
he met, in the process changing his mind on the subject. A more
systematic approach to business, backed by an effective secretariat, could
have avoided this danger in part, thereby reducing the Tsar’s reputation
for slipperiness and changeability.
In the autumn of 1898, speaking to V.I. Mamantov, Nicholas
'expressed his regret that when he was at Petersburg and Tsarskoe reports
began from early in the morning. He therefore did not always succeed in
familiarizing himself with the contents of the two newspapers which he
had for a long time been accustomed to read every morning.’ In response,
Mamantov, then an official in the Emperor’s tiny so-called Campaign
Chancellery, began to organize a press-cuttings service so that the Tsar
could read a digest of the press before 9 a.m. every morning. After initial
enthusiasm, however, Nicholas allowed the scheme to lapse, supposedly
because he did not wish to ask the Ministry of Finance for the very small
extra sum required for its success. In Mamantov’s view the real reason for
the Emperor’s retreat on this issue lay in malicious gossip at court, many
of whose members envied anyone who appeared to be closer than them­
selves to the monarch and were fully capable of playing on Nicholas’s
suspicion that Mamantov’s selections from the press might be slanted to
support causes to which he personally was committed. If so this is one
example of features often noted in Nicholas, namely his fear of falling into
the hands of any adviser, his suspiciousness, his lack of personal friends,
 Autocratic Government 119

and his susceptibility to malicious gossip. The chief executive officer of a

government needs to know what the press is saying. He gains thereby
both a certain sense of public opinion and insights into ideas and informa­
tion different from those that his official advisers provide. In abandoning
the service Mamantov offered, Nicholas was turning his back on what
could have proved a very useful aid to someone who aspired to the role of
genuine head of government.22
For only one brief period in his reign did Nicholas have even the
rudiments of a genuine Personal Secretariat. In October 1905, after his
resignation as Governor-General of Petersburg, General Dimitri Trepov
was appointed Commandant of the Imperial Palaces, a position he held
until his death one year later. Normally this job, though it brought one
into close contact with the Emperor, was limited to watching over the
monarch’s physical security. In Trepov’s case it was always much more
than this. In February 1906 Nicholas reported to his mother that ‘Trepoff
is absolutely indispensable to me: he is acting in a kind of secretarial
capacity. He is experienced and clever and cautious in his advice. I give
him W itte’s bulky memoranda to read, then he reports on them quickly
and concisely. This is of course a secret to everybody but ourselves.’23
Trepov had all the qualifications for the job. Most crucial of all, he
enjoyed Nicholas’s confidence to an almost unique extent. In October
1905 the Emperor had written to Trepov that ‘you are the only one of my
servants on whom I can rely completely. I thank you with all my heart for
your devotion to me, for zealous service to the Motherland, and for rare
honesty and straightforwardness.’ Trepov was an ex-officer of the Horse
Guards, whose former colonel, Vladimir Frederycksz, was the Minister of
the Imperial Court. He was also the brother-in-law of Frederycksz’s
deputy, General A.A. Mosolov, another officer of the same regiment.
Trepov was honourable, upright, straightforward and totally devoted to
Nicholas and his dynasty. Such qualities were not uncommon among offi­
cers of the Imperial Guard. Much rarer in this milieu was Trepov’s political
experience and relative sophistication. As Governor of Moscow, Trepov
had been the immediate boss of Serge Zubatov, both men being clients of
the Grand Duke Serge.24
Dimitri Trepov’s unique position in Nicholas’s household was not,
however, merely the result of his personal qualities or the trust which the
Emperor felt for him. W ith revolution threatening the dynasty’s survival
by October 1905 Nicholas had been forced to create a new Council of
Ministers, whose chairman was supposed to play the directing and
co-ordinating role of a prime minister. This new institutional structure
threatened to deprive the monarch of much of his power. Moreover
Nicholas had been forced to appoint as chairman Serge W itte, for whom
by now he had developed deep dislike and mistrust, since no other
120 Nicholas I I

candidate seemed to have the necessary stature required by the critical

times. W ith W itte now installed as Prime Minister the Emperor had
better reason than ever to try to strengthen his personal position and his
ability to keep an effective watch over his government.
Trepov functioned precisely as the head of the monarch’s Personal
Chancellery ought to have done. According to Andrew Vemer, who has
studied Nicholas II’s response to the 1905 revolution with great care,

instead of promoting his own views, the new court commandant sought to
present for the tsar's consideration the recommendations of others whom he
regarded as more knowledgeable and experienced than himself, be they
bureaucratic traditionalists or members of the Kadet party. As a result, both
Trepov’s advisors and his advice appear to have changed repeatedly. The only
constants were his untiring loyalty to the emperor, his eagerness both to
expose Nicholas to different opinions in good autocratic fashion and to protect
the autocrat from being dominated by any one person or group . . . Nicholas
probably trusted and confided in Trepov precisely because he was neither a
member of the hated bureaucracy nor an exponent of a particular viewpoint.25

Serge W itte’s comments on Trepov’s role are interesting and impor­

tant. Soon after Trepov’s resignation as Governor-General of Petersburg,
wrote W itte,

it was quickly evident that, far from having lost power by giving up all his
previous posts for the comparatively lowly one of palace commandant, he had
become even more powerful, answerable to no one, an Asiatic eunuch in a
European court. His power was enhanced chiefly because this decisive and
imposing man was now in a position to exercise great influence on the weak-
willed Emperor, whom he was seeing every day . . . Note, moreover, that he
was privy to all the counsel that reached the Emperor. And it should be
remembered that all confidential material intended for the Emperor went
through his hands, a fact of particular importance given the Emperor's passion
for secret documents and meetings. It was Trepov who now decided what
was worthy of the Emperor's attention and what was not. After all, didn't
His Majesty have more than enough to read? And if one of the documents that
passed through Trepov's hands provided material for getting rid of an undesir­
able minister, it could be touched up in a beautiful and humble style to make
the point very evident. In addition, Trepov was now able to influence the
Emperor's political views.

Dimitri Trepov brought in assistants to aid him.

It was not long before Garin, the director of the Department of Police, gave
up his post and joined Trepov. The Emperor informed Manukhin, the
 Autocratic Government 121

minister of justice, that he was appointing Garin to the Senate . . . Once

Trepov and Garin were ensconced at Peterhof, I noted that the Emperor’s
comments on documents returned to me were being written in a long-winded
chancery style, e.g. ‘This opinion does not agree with the cassational decisions
of the Senate of such and such a date concerning such and such case, which
explained the true sense of article such and such, volume so and so . . The
handwriting was the Emperor's but the words and style were not his . . .
Knowing the Emperor's ignorance of legal niceties I was puzzled by the new
style until I learned that virtually all reports from ministers and the like,
except those dealing with foreign affairs or defence, went to General Trepov,
who, with the aid of Senator Garin, drafted the Emperor's comments and
notations . . . As things turned out, Trepov had more influence over the
Emperor than I did and was virtually the head of the government for which I
bore responsibility.26

For the first time in his reign Nicholas II had acquired the beginnings of
a Personal Secretariat which greatly increased his ability to act effectively
as head of government. W itte’s angry reaction to this development illus­
trates most ministers’ belief that they should monopolize the flow of
counsel and information to the monarch. Since W itte had become Prime
Minister he believed that his sphere was now universal and was clearly
intent on depriving the Tsar of most of his real power. Because neither
W itte nor most other senior officials were prepared to concede the
principle of popular sovereignty or make the government responsible to an
elected legislature they had no alternative but to accept the concept of
monarchical sovereignty as the source of ministerial legitimacy. This
meant that the Emperor must have the right to appoint and dismiss his
ministers. But once these ministers were in place, so W itte believed, the
monarch must put his full trust in them and abstain from intervention. It
is not difficult to see why Nicholas revolted against being turned by this
means into a mere cipher. It is also easy to understand why W itte and
other ministers wished him to become one.
As sovereign and sole source of political legitimacy Nicholas possessed
enormous potential power. Unless that power was placed squarely behind
ministers their task even in normal circumstances was very difficult. For a
chairman of the Council of Ministers in the crisis-ridden last decade of the
old regime it was impossible. The merest hint that the monarch
disapproved of his policies, anticipated his fall or was adopting an
independent stance would make it impossible for the premier to impose
his will on the legislature, his bureaucratic subordinates and, above all, his
ministerial colleagues. There was simply no room in the Russian system
of government for two simultaneous chief executive officers, an emperor
and a premier. Perhaps one could imagine circumstances in which the
122 Nicholas I I

personalities involved would have made possible a trusting and stable

partnership between the two office-holders. Conceivably the Gaullist con­
stitution, with its powerful president and premier, offers a model for this.
If so this model never became a reality in Nicholas IPs Russia. And to do
the Emperor justice, it was also never realized in Imperial Germany,
Imperial Japan or the Iran of the Pahiavis, all of which had political
systems rather akin to that which existed in late Imperial Russia.
To gain a sense of the dilemmas faced by Nicholas and the constraints
under which he acted it is useful to stand back a little from the political
battles of his day and to look at his regime from a comparative perspec­
tive. Traditionally a European monarch had been expected to lead his
armies into battle and to conduct foreign policy but his role in domestic
affairs was a limited one. Society was seen in basically static terms, its
order reflecting divine and natural law. The ruler might have to raise
taxes to support his armies but apart from this his duty was to arbitrate
between conflicting groups and individuals on the basis of divine law, not
to pursue an interventionist policy designed to transform his realm. The
historian of the Roman imperial monarchy comments that ‘it is the essen­
tial passivity of the role expected of the emperor both by himself and by
others which explains the very limited and simple “ governmental”
apparatus which he needed.’ Even in the heyday of the Spanish imperial
monarchy the king was still seen ‘as a judicial arbitrator between society’s
interest groups, rather than as an active intervenor’. It was the seven­
teenth and, above all, the eighteenth century which were responsible for
introducing the idea that the state’s role was to improve society by
mobilizing its human and material resources. W ith the growth of cities,
industry and education in the nineteenth century this duty entailed the
creation of a large and complicated administrative machine. In Russia, as
in some other relatively backward countries, this state bureaucracy was
even larger and more formidable than elsewhere because it combined
many of the police institutions of the old absolute monarchy with new
ministries designed to encourage economic development in a society where
government had to give private enterprise a considerable shove if capitalism
was truly to take off. Unless he was on campaign a Roman emperor could
easily combine his domestic governmental duties with the leisurely life­
style enjoyed by Italy’s upper class. By the twentieth century the demands
on a sovereign who wished to control his government’s affairs were far
greater.27
Among the European powers Hohenzollem Prussia had traditionally
been closest to Russia both in sympathy and in its system of government.
It is true that after the 1848 revolution Prussia acquired a constitution, a
parliament and a prime minister, which Russia was only to do after its
own revolution of 1905. Because the Prussian king needed ministers who
 Autocratic Government 123

could steer legislation and budgets through parliament these ministers

were on occasion able to play off crown and legislature, thereby at times
achieving a degree of autonomy. In 1871 the picture was further confused
when Prussia became the core of the new Gemían Empire, a state which
possessed both its own parliament, the Reichstag, and a number of other
federal institutions which placed some constraints on the power of the
German Emperor, King of Prussia. Most important, by 1900 Germany
was a much more modem society than Russia with a well-developed
public opinion and a free press which could thoroughly embarrass a
monarch who indulged too blatantly in autocratic policies and gestures.
Nevertheless the basic fact of Prussian and German politics was that minis­
ters were responsible solely to the monarch, whose array of powers was
awesome.
Between 1862 and 1890 the real ruler of this state was O tto von
Bismarck, Prussia’s Prime Minister and, from 1871, Chancellor of the
new German Reich. Bismarck had partly won the trust of his master,
Wilhelm I, by deft handling of the legislature. Far more important, how­
ever, was the fact that within four years of taking power Bismarck had
defeated the liberal opposition, ended the seemingly insoluble constitu­
tional crisis on the crown’s terms, and secured Prussian domination of
Central Europe. Had any Russian statesman won victories on this spec­
tacular scale at such speed then it is more than possible that Nicholas II
would have kept him in office for a very long time. But none did and in
Russian circumstances it was barely conceivable that anyone could. In
addition, however, Russian tradition did not smile on tsars who devolved
their autocratic powers to others. The head of the House of Romanov was
the heir of Peter the Great, Catherine II and Nicholas I. The monarchy’s
most devoted adherents usually called upon him to rule as well as reign.
During the First W orld W ar the Empress Alexandra could urge her
husband to ‘be Peter the Great, John the Terrible, Emperor Paul - crush
them all under you*. The less excitable General Kireev, in late 1904
mulling over plans to create a prime minister, could comment that the idea
was both good and bad: good because it might increase inter-ministerial
co-ordination, bad because a prime minister would ‘completely hide’ the
Tsar, whereas the answer to Russia’s problems was to make the monarch
the real and effective head of government. The comment is particularly
striking because it came from a man who knew Nicholas II quite well and
had few illusions about his personality.28
In 1888 there ascended the Prussian throne a young monarch who was
determined to rule as well as reign. Quite soon a number of key senior
officials came to the conclusion that unless Wilhelm II was brought under
ministerial control and deprived of real power Germany was headed for
disaster. A key figure in this group was Friedrich von Holstein, who
124 Nicholas I I

wrote in 1895 that ‘the Kaiser as his own imperial chancellor would be
questionable in any circumstances but especially now under this impulsive
and unfortunately very superficial ruler \ During the 1890s a running
battle occurred between Wilhelm and many of his more intelligent
ministers. A particular target of the latter’s wrath were the chiefs of the
Emperor’s civil and military cabinets, whom they often saw as shadow
ministers who used their access to the monarch to sabotage the policies of
the official government. The only way in which ministers could hope to
control the Emperor was, however, for them all to threaten simultaneous
resignation. Traditional conceptions of loyalty to the crown, together
with individual ambition and the fact that ministers were not united by
party ties or common political opinions, made this kind of concerted
action impossible to sustain. The mere hint of ministerial ‘strikes’
infuriated Wilhelm II. Even if temporarily successful they aroused in him
a determination in time to remove ‘faithless servants’ and strike-leaders. In
the Kaiser’s own words, ‘I have the right and the duty . . . to be the
leader of my people. I will also continue not to be deterred from following
my conviction and practising the rights bestowed on me by God by the
eternal fault-findings and intrigues I encounter.’ One lesson of Germany
in the 1890s which was relevant to Russia was that ministers who denied
the principles of popular sovereignty and parliamentary government were
in the long run incapable of controlling their acknowledged sovereign
lord, the Emperor. But although Wilhelm II could undermine the
authority of his Chancellor by personal intervention in politics and
administration he was quite incapable himself of truly directing and
co-ordinating government policy. As in Russia, the result was great
confusion.29
In 1900 Bernhard von Bulow’s appointment as Chancellor seemed to
promise an improvement in this respect. Bulow was an old personal friend
of Wilhelm, whose unlimited personal trust he retained for a number of
years. As a result, Wilhelm’s intervention in politics decreased tempo­
rarily. Armed with imperial support Bulow could impose unity on the
Prussian ministers and found it easier to cajole the monarch into making
occasional tactical concessions to the legislature. Both Bulow and Ger­
many, however, paid a price for the Chancellor’s absolute dependence on
his personal relationship with the monarch. Constitutional reform or a
curbing of naval armaments were ruled out, for instance, by Wilhelm’s
views. Correctly, given his reliance on Wilhelm, Bulow was obsessively
concerned lest any other person gain the Emperor’s ear or come between
the Kaiser and his Chancellor. In an effort to drive the Kaiser out of
politics Maximilian Harden, one of Germany’s leading newspaper editors,
destroyed Wilhelm’s closest friend, Prince Philipp zu Eulenberg, by
successfully pinning on him accusations of homosexuality. Though Bulow
 Autocratic Government 125

and Eulenberg were old friends, /and old allies in the cause of Wilhelm's
personal rule, the Chancellor appears to have connived at Harden’s
campaign in order to remove a dangerous rival. In the end, however,
Bulow lost the Emperor’s confidence. The complete failure of Bulow’s
foreign policy in 1905-6 undermined Wilhelm’s previously limitless faith
in his Chancellor. Meanwhile Bulow himself tired of the task of managing
the Emperor’s impossible personality and covering up for his irresponsible
outbursts. W hen an incautious imperial interview in the Daily Telegraph
united a wide cross-section of German parliamentary and press opinion in
an effort to humiliate Wilhelm and force him to act with discretion,
Bulow put up a feeble defence of his master in the Reichstag, thereby
forfeiting Wilhelm’s confidence and dooming his chances of remaining as
Chancellor.
Nicholas II’s Russia had no precise equivalent to Bernhard von Bulow.
Not even Peter Stolypin, the premier from 1906 to 1911, stood as close to
the Tsar as Bulow did to Wilhelm. Simultaneously attempting to manage
both the monarch and the legislature was an exhausting experience shared
by Russian and German statesmen after 1906, however. So too were inces­
sant worries about the public display of full imperial support for a minister
and concern about who might secretly be whispering in the monarch’s
ear. Moreover the publicizing by press and parliament of personal and
sexual scandals in the monarch’s entourage occurred in both Russia (after
1905) and Germany, and in both cases it was linked in part to efforts to
undermine the monarch and push him out of politics. The way in which
the Rasputin affair was used in Russia had a strong whiff about it of
Harden’s campaign against Eulenberg. Certainly both scandals represented
the unhappy exposure of royal courts to the glare of the modem press and
the questions of parliamentary deputies.
In 1889 the Japanese modelled their constitution on that of Prussia. A
parliament was created and a prime minister also existed to co-ordinate
government policies. As in Prussia the armed forces were kept entirely
separate from both the legislature and the civil government, being sub­
ordinated in theory directly and exclusively to the monarch. Civilian
ministers were also responsible not to parliament but to the Emperor.
Sovereignty resided in the crown, from which all office-holders and indeed
the entire political system drew their legitimacy.
In some respects similarities between the Japanese and German political
systems existed not only on paper but also in practice. The armed forces in
both countries were in practice controlled by no one and were a law unto
themselves. Integrated military, diplomatic and political policy was
impossible both in Berlin and Tokyo, a fact which led directly to militarily
rational but politically insane decisions such as attacking France through
Belgium in 1914 and launching the assault on Pearl Harbor in 1941. In
126 Nicholas I I

Russia before 1905 control over the armed forces was less of a problem,
though colonial generals were inclined to thumb their noses at orders from
Petersburg. Until the creation of a parliament and the Council of Minis­
ters in 1905 Russian generals were far less worried than the Prussians and
Japanese about stressing the armed forces* total divorce from the civilian
ministries. After 1905, however, control over the armed forces did
become a major political issue and in 1914-17 the gap between the civilian
and military authorities was to yawn as wide as in First W orld W ar
Germany or Second W orld W ar Japan. It was partly in order to bridge
this gap that Nicholas II assumed personal command of the armed forces
in 1915.
The most basic difference between Japan, on the one hand, and
Germany and Russia, on the other, was, however, that in the former the
monarch reigned but never attempted personally to rule. Japanese tradi­
tion was totally opposed to the Emperor actually attempting to act as the
chief executive officer of his government. For centuries the Emperor's role
had been purely ceremonial and priestly, actual power being exercised by
the Shogun. In the last decades of the Tokugawa era even the Shogun did
not rule personally, his powers being used by subordinates in his name.
Although in theory the Meiji restoration returned power to the mon­
archy’s hands, it was never the intention of the restoration’s key statesmen
that the monarch should literally run his own government like a Russian
or German emperor. O n the contrary, the monarchy’s role was to provide
legitimacy for the Meiji era’s reformist oligarchy and to act as a symbol
around which the Japanese nation could rally. As in Europe, however,
one key reason for the oligarchy’s determination to locate sovereignty in
the Emperor was their opposition to accepting the only alternative prin­
ciple, namely the sovereignty of the people exercised through elected
institutions.
In a way that was not true even in Prussia, let alone Russia, court and
government were always sharply separated in Meiji Japan. The court was
the world of priestly rites and Confucian moral virtues, never of actual
political rule. Though in theory the Emperor chose prime ministers, in
fact they were selected by the genro, in other words the tiny group of elder
statesmen who constituted a sort of supreme privy council and presented
the monarch with a candidate whom he never rejected. Recommendations
on policy were submitted to the crown in the unanimous name of the
government. The Emperor was never asked to adjudicate personally
between conflicting choices or groups, still less to devise his own policies
and find ministers to support them. The traditions of the imperial house
meant that the monarchs did not revolt against this passive role. The
Emperor Meiji, for instance, is said to have rebuffed efforts to draw him
more directly into government by commenting that ‘when one views
 Autocratic Government 127

[our] long history one sees that it is a mistake for those next to the throne
to conduct politics*. In any case since no modern Japanese emperor, Meiji
included, had ever possessed real political power there was never any ques­
tion of the need to surrender it into the oligarchy’s hands. When the
Emperor Hirohito contemplated intervening personally to tilt the balance
against military extremists in 1937 he was warned by the sole remaining
genro, Prince Saionji, that the monarchy must not endanger itself by active
political engagement. Only in the apocalyptic circumstances of 1945 did
the monarch decisively enter the political arena and even then this
happened because the government was split down the middle on the issue
of peace or war and requested his intervention.30
Most Russian and Prussian senior officials by the twentieth century
would have given almost anything for a system like the Japanese one,
which preserved the legitimacy provided to oligarchical rule by the mon­
archy while ensuring that the monarch himself was silent and politically
inactive. By 1912 the veteran president of the State Council, Michael
Akimov, would certainly have been defined as an elder statesman, or
genro, in Japan. In that year Akimov commented that ‘our sovereign
is the personification of the most complete uncertainty. You cannot
hope to know and can’t even guess what he will be up to tomorrow.’
A.N. Naumov, a member of the State Council, recalled that ‘Akimov
looked on the personality of the monarch and his immediate entourage
very pessimistically . . . According to him, among Petersburg statesmen
there had more than once arisen the question of how to protect the throne
from chance backstairs influences, and to form around it a special Supreme
Council (on the Japanese model).’31
Unlike the Emperor Meiji, however, Nicholas II exercised real power,
believed it was his duty to continue to do so, and would not be removed
from the political arena without a struggle. Least of all would the
Emperor willingly surrender power to an oligarchy of senior bureaucrats
such as the Japanese genro. One has to remember that in Russia state offi­
cialdom enjoyed far less prestige than in Japan or Germany. Indeed the one
point on which most articulate Russians tended to agree was their loath­
ing for the bureaucracy, which was blamed for most of the country’s ills.
This was particularly true in the aristocratic and conservative nationalist
circles which enjoyed the easiest access to Nicholas and with which he
often sympathized. Thus in December 1904, for instance. General Kireev,
who was both an aristocrat and a nationalist, wrote to the Tsar that
‘everyone knows. Your Majesty, that you don’t nourish any great trust in
the bureaucracy and everyone rejoiced and rejoices in this . . . Society sees
in the bureaucracy the cause of all our evils and discord.’ Faced with such
attacks on the bureaucracy and constantly confronted with appeals to
protect individuals from the injustice or inaction of his officials, it was
128 Nicholas I I

hard to expect the Emperor to abdicate his powers in favour of official­

dom’s senior representatives.32
Nicholas’s ideal of Russian monarchy made him very disinclined to
accept the role of a mere symbol and source of legitimacy for the rule of
some coalition of élites. He believed very strongly in the union of
Tsar and people. In Peter Bark’s words, ‘in his opinion the peasant ques­
tion was the main one’. Nicholas always felt uplifted at moments of com­
munion with his people; at Easter services in Moscow; at the celebrations
of the anniversaries of the battles of Poltava and Borodino; during his
journey through the Russian provinces to celebrate the dynasty’s tercen­
tenary. Though no doubt his self-portrayal as the peasants’ Tsar was good
propaganda, since peasants after all made up the overwhelming majority
of his subjects, it also came from the heart. Nicholas would certainly have
agreed with his sister Olga’s opinion that the Russian peasant was in
general both more honest and more Christian than members of the upper
classes, let alone the intelligentsia. Like her, he believed that the ‘truly
dedicated affection’ of peasant Russia for the Tsar ‘embraced their feelings
for God and their country’ and ‘was the main support of the Romanov
sovereigns in their unrewarding task of wielding absolute power’. If the
peasants sometimes opposed his government’s policies and had to be
treated with a firm hand, this was because they were immature and easily
misled by outside agitators as to their own interests. Alternatively, they
were being mistreated by capitalists, bureaucrats or Jews. No doubt such
rationalizations appear self-serving and naive to most modern scholars
and perhaps they were so, but no one can doubt Nicholas’s sincerity in
this matter. He saw himself as his people’s father, and a parent does not
abdicate responsibility for his or her children’s welfare however ungrateful
the child or unrewarding the task.33
Autocrats seldom renounce their power willingly to become mere
symbols of sovereignty and legitimacy. Nor is it always a pleasant or safe
existence to be the powerless totem pole of this or that oligarchy acting in
one’s name. In the 1930s the Emperor Hirohito suffered the frustration of
seeing expansionist military policies of which he disapproved pursued in
his name. It made matters worse that it was those who proclaimed their
devotion to him most fervently who were most inclined to ignore his
wishes. In 1936 he faced the ultimate humiliation of a revolt by officers of
the imperial guard who murdered or attempted to murder many of his
leading servants in the name of devotion to the imperial house. One could
no doubt argue that Hirohito’s ultimate fate, dong with that of the
Japanese monarchy, was nevertheless preferable to that of the Romanovs,
Hohenzollems and Pahlavis. To say this is, however, to read history
backwards. In the modem era Emperor Hirohito is the exception to the
rule that dynasties and their heads seldom survive lost wars. In Allied
 Autocratic Government 129

circles the wartime debate over, the fate of both the Emperor and the
monarchy was fierce and its outcome far from certain. Having surrendered
its fate into the hands of fascism the House of Savoy was ultimately pulled
down by Mussolini’s lost war and the same could easily have happened in
Japan.34
The last Shah of Iran certainly came to understand in the first period of
his reign just how precarious and humiliating could be the life of a
monarch who exercised no real power. This experience is one explanation
for Mohammed Reza’s later insistence on an extreme and grandiose auto­
cratic regime. In Iran the world witnessed, almost certainly for the last
time, an attempt at enlightened royal despotism, though admittedly by
the monarch of a very new dynasty. The problems encountered by the
Shah are a warning to those who believe that, had the Romanovs pro­
duced a would-be Peter the Great in 1894, the dynasty’s future would
have been secure. As we have seen, there are some rather surprising
similarities between the personalities of Mohammed Reza and Nicholas II.
The former was, however, not merely superficially more imposing but
also loved politics and power in a way that Nicholas did not. In addition
the Shah’s childhood, Iran’s constant humiliations at the hands of the
great powers, and the Pahlavis’ own position as parvenus created a
monarch driven by insecurities and resentments in a way that was cer­
tainly not true of Nicholas II.
There are, however, interesting parallels between autocratic govern­
ment and the problems it encountered in Russia and Iran. One banal but
important point is that a man who inherits a throne when still young is
expected to bear the burdens of political leadership throughout his life.
Given the pressures on even a half-conscientious political leader in the
modem world, this is more than the human frame can bear. After all, it is
a very rare politician indeed in a contemporary Western democracy who
holds the top executive office for over ten years in a row. Moreover,
politicians choose their career and prove they possess the temperament to
go with the job. This is not true of monarchs. Nicholas II had an almost
obsessive need for fresh air and physical exercise. Mohammed Reza was
equally obsessed by young women and aeroplanes. None of this was an
adequate antidote to a lifetime’s work as both chief executive and head of
state. Not surprisingly, by the last years of their reigns both Mohammed
Reza and Nicholas II were showing signs of physical and mental exhaus­
tion. Nor, after a lifetime of isolation behind a fog of courtiers’ flattery,
was either monarch proof against many illusions about his regime’s
stability and popularity.
As autocrats both Nicholas II and Mohammed Reza were overburdened
by trivia but often regarded subordinates’ attempts to reduce this work­
load as subtle efforts to encroach on imperial power. In 1971 the Shah’s
130 Nicholas I I

Minister of the Imperial Court, Asadollah Alam, pointed out to his over­
stretched master that ‘by no means all of this work is essential. “ The
burden could easily be reduced” , I said, “ but whenever I make any
suggestion you merely accuse me of empire-building. W hat can I do if you
won’t trust me?” ’
Like Nicholas II, though to a somewhat lesser extent, Mohammed
Reza’s autocratic tendencies undermined his prime ministers’ authority
and made it impossible for them to control, balance and co-ordinate
government policy. Yet the monarch himself proved incapable of impos­
ing this unity by his own efforts, despite the fact that he had a pro­
gramme, a quite impressive personality and worked hard. In Alam’s view
part of the reason for this lay in the weakness of the Shah’s personal secre­
tariat. In January 1971 Alam told the Shah that ‘the modem world
demands deep thought and penetrating analysis; every problem requires
examination by first-rate experts before its submission to you’. Admitting
that the head of the personal secretariat was ‘honest and loyal’, Alam
nevertheless added that ‘he has next to no academic qualifications. He
never attended university, speaks no language other than Persian and has
no grasp of the problems of the modem world’. Alam confided to his
diary that evening:

More and more I get the impression that national affairs are uncoordinated
with no firm hand on the tiller, all because the captain himself is overworked.
Every minister and high official receives a separate set of instructions direct
from H.I.M. and the result is that individual details often fail to mesh with
any overall framework. Thank God, the Shah is a strong man, but he’s no
computer; he cannot be expected to remember every one of the thousands of
instructions he issues each week. Occasionally one set of instructions contra­
dicts another.35

A year later Alam returned to the same subject in conversation with the
Shah. T reminded him’, wrote Alam in his diary,

that at present each minister receives his orders direct from H.I.M. Once such
orders have been issued the minister in question quite naturally tends to ignore
the wider aspects of government policy. On occasion this has led to something
little short of chaos and has severely disrupted the co-ordination of any overall
policy. There is a pressing need for a regulatory authority, which would best
be located in H.I.M.’s personal secretariat. But H.I.M. would have none of
this and asked straight out, ‘Did anyone ever “ advise" me to achieve the
many great things I have done for this country?’ ‘Of course not, Your
Majesty,’ I told him, ‘but the issues which face you today are of much greater
technical complexity. No one could cope with all of them single-handed* . . .
He made no reply.36
 Autocratic Government 131

More than sixty years after the fall of the Romanovs the government of
the Pahlavis collapsed in the face of revolution on the streets of the capital.
The imperial regimes of Russia and Iran differed in many ways, as did the
causes of their collapse, the people whom they governed, and the eras in
which they existed. But when one reads the diary of the Shah’s Minister of
the Imperial Court the echoes from the Russia of Nicholas II are often
very strong.
 CHAPTER 6

The Years o f Revolution,

1904-1907

On 28 July 1904 Vyacheslav Plehve, the Minister of Internal Affairs, was

travelling through Petersburg en route to an audience with the Tsar. Not
far from the Warsaw railway station a young Socialist Revolutionary,
Yegor Sazonov, hurled a bomb which shattered Plehve*s carriage and
killed the minister. That evening Nicholas wrote in his diary, ‘in the
person of the good Plehve I have lost a friend and an irreplaceable Minister
of Internal Affairs’. Such a statement in the Emperor’s laconic daily record
was the equivalent of pages of tearful comment in another man’s diary.
Nicholas had known Plehve since before his accession to the throne. Still
worse, the Minister of Internal Affairs had been the linchpin of the
Emperor’s domestic policy.1
Few of Plehve’s contemporaries even among senior officials shared
Nicholas’s sorrow at the minister’s death. At best their reaction was
similar to that of Prince Alexander Obolensky. ‘Not many people would
probably feel any sincere sorrow for him but the event itself, especially
since it comes shortly after the killing of Bobrikov, has an oppressive effect
and inspires no very confident thoughts.’ Two years earlier senior official­
dom had greeted Plehve’s appointment as Minister of Internal Affairs very
differently. Even the relatively liberal Anatol Kulomzin had written to his
wife,
I finally calmed down today when I read about V. K. Plehve’s appointment as
Minister of Internal Affairs . . . This was the only sensible appointment but
rumours were going around about Bobrikov. Plehve knows the Governors,
knows police business and will put everything in order. This is the general
calming feeling which has seized everything and everyone . . . What is needed
is a clever man who won’t hound the zemstvos and won’t agree with Witte
about everything.2
During Plehve’s two years in office much had happened to cause the
collapse in sympathy for the minister. For the general public, especially
 T he Years o f Revolution, Î9 0 4 -Î9 0 7 133

outside Russia, the most shocking event had been the pogrom which
struck the Jewish community of Kishinev in April 1903, killing forty-
seven people. This was the first major outbreak of anti-Semitic violence
since the 1880s and it had occurred partly because of the inaction, and in
some cases even connivance, of many local officials. Plehve’s anti-Semitism
was notorious and rumour quickly blamed the minister for inciting the
pogrom to distract attention from Russia’s domestic problems. A skilfully
forged letter to this effect from Plehve to von Raaben, the Governor of
Bessarabia, was widely circulated and believed. In fact Plehve was innocent
of this charge, above all because, like all other top officials, he was far too
terrified of anarchy to take the risk of inciting mob violence. But the
pogrom badly damaged the government’s prestige and even those who
realized that Plehve bore no direct responsibility for events in Kishinev
argued, with reason, that the minister’s open dislike of the Jews encour­
aged some of his subordinates to feel that they faced little risk in turning a
blind eye to anti-Semitic violence.3
In conservative and high official circles, however, the pogrom at
Kishinev was not the main cause of complaint against Plehve. While many
senior officials deplored the savagery and loss of life, more regretted the
pogrom’s impact on Russian prestige in Europe. But in these circles the
Jews had few friends. Plehve was above all blamed for following a purely
repressive domestic policy, in the process alienating from the regime loyal
members of the educated classes. A. A. Kireev greatly admired Plehve. By
the summer of 1903, however, even he was becoming exasperated by what
he saw as the minister’s exclusively bureaucratic approach to solving
Russia’s problems. In August 1903 Kireev commented that Plehve was to
blame for the fact that his position was weakening. It was simply not pos­
sible to govern a modern country by police methods and without the
support of any substantial element of educated society. Few provincial
nobilities in Russia were less liberal than that of Kursk. The Marshal of the
nobility of Belgorod district, Kursk province, was the extremely conserva­
tive Count V.F. Dorrer. Even he was driven to protest when Plehve
sought to force a fellow Marshal to retire for political reasons, in the pro­
cess infringing the autonomy which Catherine II had granted to the pro­
vincial noble corporations in 1785.4
Plehve’s strategy was rooted in his belief that the masses were more
loyal to the regime than the élites. Above all, in his view, the
peasantry and the army were still reliable. Intelligent, purposeful reforms
had to come from above, in other words from the government. Conces­
sions to liberal members of the upper and middle classes were both useless
and dangerous because these groups were weak and deferred to the radical
left. To use Plehve’s own metaphor, Russian society was a raging torrent
which only a powerful and self-confident government could dam and
134 Nicholas I I

channel. Liberals would open up so many holes in the dam and allow the
revolutionaries such freedom and encouragement that the whole structure
would be swept away. The machinery of government required a radical
overhaul, one element of which needed to be decentralization and a more
co-ordinated and efficient relationship between the bureaucracy and the
zemstvos. But Plehve was adamant in trying to minimize the opportunities
for educated Russians and the organizations they created to secure greater
autonomy from the regime. In his view, to give potential opposition
leaders more freedom and room for manoeuvre would be suicidal, since
they would use this freedom to destroy the authoritarian regime on which
Russian political stability rested.5
Plehve*s sudden death faced Nicholas with the choice of a new Minister
of Internal Affairs. Three candidates for the job were widely canvassed.
One was Plehve*s assistant minister. General Victor von Wahl. Wahl was
an unimaginative, rather brutal but quite efficient policeman who could be
trusted to carry out an unwavering policy of repression if ordered to do so.
Another alternative was Boris Sturmer, who had won a good reputation as
a provincial governor and was currently the head of one of the key depart­
ments of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Stunner’s political views did not
differ greatly from those of Wahl and Plehve but he was known for his
ability to smooth over conflicts and achieve a modus vivendi with liberally
inclined provincial noblemen. The third candidate was Prince Peter
Svyatopolk-Mirsky, the Governor-General of Lithuania and part of
Belorussia. Unlike Wahl, Plehve and Sturmer, Svyatopolk-Mirsky was a
great landowning aristocrat and a member of Petersburg high society. In
common with many of his peers, Svyatopolk-Mirsky inclined to rather
Whiggish anti-bureaucratic opinions and enjoyed the sympathy of the
Dowager Empress Marie. Before Plehve’s death Nicholas had shown no
sign of dissatisfaction with his minister’s policy. It therefore seemed logical
to expect that Plehve would be succeeded by Wahl or Sturmer, since they
came closest to sharing their dead chiefs policy and opinions.
W hat happened is explained - probably accurately - in a letter from
the Grand Marshal of the Court (Oberhofmarshat) Count Paul
Benckendorff to his brother, the Russian ambassador in London. ‘Wahl
was going to be appointed Minister of Internal Affairs. A scène de famille,
during which one [the Empress Marie] almost threw oneself at his
[Nicholas II's] knees, stopped this nomination.’ Instead Svyatopolk-
Mirsky was appointed, little attention being paid to the great differences
between his and his predecessor’s political views. Benckendorff com­
mented that ‘one cannot absolutely change one’s political colour just to
give one’s mother pleasure*. In the Grand Marshal’s opinion, the appoint­
ment was of a piece with other decisions made by the Tsar at this time.
‘Everything was understood in the wrong way and one only paid attention
 T he Years o f Revolution, 1904-1907 135

to trivia.’ Matters were not thought through properly. Svyatopolk-

Mirsky’s appointment would only have made sense if a fundamental deci­
sion had been made to re-orient the state’s whole domestic policy. Even if
this had been the case, Svyatopolk-Mirsky was the wrong man for the job.
‘The poor boy has neither the health nor the personality for this position.’
In fact, though the new minister had no doubt made his ‘profession of
faith’ to Nicholas, the latter was not committed to a consistent policy of
liberalization. Once Svyatopolk-Mirsky began to embark on such a policy
he would run into ‘passionate opposition’ from conservative officials who,
up to the moment of Plehve’s death, had been following a strategy of
repression with the Emperor’s publicly expressed support. The inevitable
result would be confusion.6
Svyatopolk-Mirsky’s appointment was a classic example of the
Romanov ‘family firm’ in operation. No doubt the Empress Marie was
spurred into action more by political than personal motives. Very much au
fait with the opinions of Petersburg high society, she shared its resentment
at Plehve’s methods and its conviction that his policy could only lead to
revolution. Undoubtedly, her pleas partly convinced Nicholas that some
concessions to society were needed. Nevertheless this was scarcely a very
sensible way to make a key appointment at a crucial moment for the future
of both the imperial regime and Russia.
Svyatopolk-Mirsky himself tried to dissuade Nicholas from the nomi­
nation. He told the Emperor on 7 September, ‘you barely know me and
perhaps think that I share the views of the two previous ministers; on the
contrary I have precisely the opposite view s. . . The state of affairs is such
that one can consider the government in hostilities with Russia; reconcilia­
tion is necessary, otherwise we will soon reach the situation in which
Russia is divided into those who are under police surveillance and those
who are carrying it out. And what then?’ The new minister then set out
his ‘programme’ to the Tsar, which included religious toleration, auton­
omy and expansion for the zemstvos, civil rights, and the need to consult
elected representatives of local society on central government policy and
legislation. To all of this Nicholas seemingly agreed, delighted as always to
find a top official who shrank from ministerial office rather than grabbing
it with ambitious and power-hungry hands.7
Disillusionment soon set in on both sides. Svyatopolk-Mirsky spoke in
eloquent but rather nebulous terms to the press about a new era of trust
and reconciliation between government and society, in the process
unleashing a torrent of hopes about fundamental political change. In early
October the Grand Duke Constantine, an intelligent and decent cousin of
the Emperor, wrote in his diary that the new minister had come to dinner.
‘He makes a good impression by his broad views. It frightens me that
everyone - society and the press - are very carried away by him. How can
136 Nicholas I I

disenchantment not follow, since in the nature of things it will be impos­

sible for him to put into effect much of what he would like to do?’ Very
soon Svyatopolk-Mirsky found himself under increasing pressure from a
growing liberal movement which wanted to go much further than the
minister desired or the Tsar would allow. Paul Benckendorff commented
that Svyatopolk-Mirsky ‘is very astonished by what is going on' and was
bewildered by the forces he had unleashed. Public opinion was getting
more and more excited but the minister, bereft of firm ideas, had no hope
of steering it. Conservatives, led by the Grand Duke Serge, sought to
persuade Nicholas II to stop Svyatopolk-Mirsky’s reforms, warning him
that otherwise the regime was doomed. The Minister of Internal Affairs,
on the contrary, told the Tsar that ‘if you don’t carry out liberal reforms
and don’t satisfy the completely natural wishes of everyone then change
will come but in the form of revolution’.8
The denouement came in December 1904 when the Emperor presided
over a conference of ministers, grand dukes and other top officials to
discuss Svyatopolk-Mirsky’s ten-point programme of reforms. The latter
included not only promises of civil rights but also a proposal that elected
representatives of society participate in discussing legislation and central
government policy. Under strong pressure from the Grand Duke Serge
and warned by W itte that Svyatopolk-Mirsky’s proposal was a long step
towards a constitution, Nicholas rejected the key point of his minister’s
proposal. The Emperor commented that ‘I will never agree to a representa­
tive form of government because I consider it harmful to the people whom
God has entrusted to me.’ W hat remained of Svyatopolk-Mirsky’s pro­
gramme after the conference, namely some rather vague promises of civil
rights, would not satisfy society. Reading the decree which followed the
conference, the very loyal and conservative Prince Alexander Obolensky
wrote to his wife, T will admit to you that it made a sad impression on me.
All this smacks of insincerity, of an act which was forced on them by the
need to promise something in whose saving grace they don’t really
believe.’9
The deep suspicion that reigned between Nicholas and Svyatopolk-
Mirsky by December 1904 is well illustrated in the words of the two men’s
wives. For Princess Svyatopolk-Mirsky the Tsar was ‘the most false man in
the world’, who said one thing to a minister’s face and another behind his
back. He was ‘indifferent and blind’ to what was happening in Russia,
incapable of understanding that the existing system of ‘arbitrariness and
bureaucratic wrongdoing’ was turning even naturally conservative owners
of property into enemies of the government. For Nicholas autocracy was,
in her view, a sort of absurd ‘fetishism’. The Emperor was the perfect
‘embodiment of infirm degeneracy, into whose head they have beaten the
idea that he must be strong. And there’s nothing worse than a weak man
 The Years o f Revolution , 1904-1907 137

who wants to be firm.* Unde* cover of the Tsar bureaucracy ruled

supreme. Her husband had failed in his efforts to bring European standards
to Russia because 'in his character and ideas he was opposed to all the
traditions of bureaucratism and wanted to give goys access to the Holy of
Holies’, in other words to allow representatives of society some say in
political affairs. The bureaucrats were too powerful, however, to allow
such a reform to go through. Princess Svyatopolk-Mirsky’s diary is an
accurate reflection of the values and opinions of Petersburg aristocratic
liberalism. In early September 1904, for instance, she quoted with seeming
approval her husband’s comment to Nicholas II that there was no cause to
repress gatherings of workers for 'in England no constraints whatever are
placed on the social movement but the rights of property are incomparably
better protected than in our country’. Subsequently, in January 1905,
when a huge crowd of workers attempting to present a petition to
Nicholas II was fired upon by the Petersburg garrison, the Princess
changed her mind. ‘It is sufficient to start any sort of robbery or assault and
then in a crowd of 150,000 it is hard to say what would have happened. . .
it was impossible to allow a huge crowd to gather on Palace Square.M0
Not surprisingly, the Empress Alexandra’s interpretation of political
developments was very different to that of Princess Svyatopolk-Mirsky. At
the beginning of 1905 she wrote to her eldest sister. Princess Louis of
Battenberg, that

the Minister of Internal Affairs is doing the greatest harm. He proclaims grand
things without having prepared them. It's like a horse that has been held very
tight in hand, and then suddenly one lets the reins go. It bolts, falls and it is
more than difficult to pull it up again before it has dragged others with it into
the ditch. Reforms can only be made gently with the greatest care and fore­
thought. Now we have precipitately been launched forth and cannot retrace
our steps.

In the same letter the Empress expressed a view which was as central to
her political instincts as hatred of bureaucracy was to Petersburg aristo­
cratic society: ‘Petersburg is a rotten town, not an atom Russian. The
Russian people are deeply and truly devoted to their Sovereign. ’u
Underlying the mutual recriminations between Nicholas II and
Svyatopoik-Mirsky there was a deeper problem. In his classic study of the
origins of the French Revolution Alexis de Tocqueville commented that
the most dangerous moment for a repressive regime was when it began to
reform itself. Under a resolute and united authoritarian government,
opposition was deterred by the knowledge that it would be repressed
without hesitation or mercy. Once the government began to allow greater
leeway to society, however, difficulties mounted. Brave spirits were
138 Nicholas I I

tempted to see how far freedom could be pushed. For the government,
finding the right mix of repression and concession required much more
skill and judgement than simply sticking to an unwavering policy of
coercion. As reforms were introduced and society began to emancipate
itself from the regime’s control, splits almost inevitably occurred within
the government between those who argued that change was coming too
rapidly and others who claimed it was not coming fast enough. Both sides
tended to believe that their opponents’ line threatened political stability
and the regime’s survival. Divisions within the government led to
uncoordinated and tentative actions which themselves encouraged the re­
gime’s opponents. Prince V.P. Meshchersky, the very conservative
editor of Grazhdanin, made most of these points in an editorial which
appeared shortly after Svyatopolk-Mirsky announced the onset of an era of
trust between government and society. Meshchersky added that in Russia
at present ordered reform would be particularly difficult since the govern­
ment’s prestige was low, many of its enemies were irreconcilable, and
reforms could easily be interpreted as concessions bora of fear and weak­
ness. Meshchersky was a reactionary, a homosexual, a past-master at
Petersburg intrigue and a well-known unofficial adviser to both Alexander
III and Nicholas II. For all these reasons he was widely hated by his
contemporaries and has enjoyed a very bad press with historians. But the
Prince was not stupid and on this occasion, as on many others, his political
analysis was quite shrewd.12
By December 1904 it was clear that Svyatopolk-Mirsky had lost
Nicholas II’s confidence and could not survive in office much longer.
Svyatopolk-Mirsky himself was convinced that he was not suited for the
job. Even in October he had told the Emperor, ‘no - I am not a minister’.
Six weeks later he commented that ‘it is not in his [that is, Svyatopolk-
Mirsky’s] character to battle constantly’. His wife added that her husband
was a far less effective and ruthless political operator than those against
whom he had to struggle in the Petersburg political jungle. Both Count
Paul Benckendorff and Vladimir Gurko, a senior official in the Ministry of
Internal Affairs, agreed that Svyatopolk-Mirsky lacked energy, drive or
force. For Gurko, Svyatopolk-Mirsky was another example of an aristo­
cratic amateur attempting to do a job best left to tough and experienced

His outstanding trait was a desire to remain at peace with everyone and live in
an atmosphere of friendship. It was not that he sought popularity but simply
that by his very nature he could not irritate anyone . . . His marriage with
Countess Bobrinsky had brought him great riches and opened the road to
preferment. . . By the time the Prince was appointed Minister of the Interior
he had undoubtedly acquired some political opinions, but they were those of
 The Years o f Revolution, 1 9 0 4 -Î9 0 7 139

the man in the street. He never did ¿realise the responsibility for the peace of the
state which his new position placed upon him . . . He had entered the office of
Minister of the Interior with a light heart. He left it in the same way to make
the centre of his existence the fashionable Yacht Club.13

One result of Svyatopolk-Mirsky’s period in office was that the Minis­

try of Internal Affairs completely lost control over the workers’ movement
in Petersburg. Though Plehve had been wary of Zubatov, he had allowed a
watered-down version of Zubatov’s unions to exist in Petersburg under a
priest, Gapon. Supposedly, these unions were simply to provide workers
with concerts, excursions and other harmless forms of relaxation.
Zubatov, an intelligent and professional police chief, had understood that
police trade unions had to be closely and carefully supervised otherwise
they could result in a labour movement organized by the government
being captured by its opponents and escaping from the regime’s control.
By 1904 the Petersburg police leadership was much less careful and profes­
sional than Zubatov had been. Even while Plehve was still alive, Gapon
was being converted to socialism by the lieutenants whom he was sup­
posedly using on the government’s behalf to create a loyal workers’ move­
ment. ‘By March 1904 he conspiratorially revealed a “ plan” to his group,
a radical plan aiming at civil liberties, a responsible ministry, the eight-
hour day, unions, universal education, and sweeping land reform, a plan
they [his supposed lieutenants] had put in his mind in the first place.’
Throughout 1904 the police regarded Gapon as loyal and left him unsuper­
vised, though by the autumn the threat represented by his movement
should have been clear. Suddenly, in January 1905, the government was
faced with Gapon’s plan to lead a huge demonstration to the W inter Palace
to demand a string of very radical political and economic reforms, including
the convocation of a constituent assembly.14
It was inconceivable that Nicholas II would personally accept such
demands, presented by a huge demonstration in terms little short of an
ultimatum. The question was, what to do about the demonstration. Like
Communist regimes in the late 1980s, the tsarist government, having
always banned demonstrations, had no experience of dealing with them
and no policemen trained to handle them. In any event the Russian
government was much too poor to employ the number of policemen
required to cope with a crowd of this size. The only option therefore
was to call in the army. Bringing in the troops was, however, very
dangerous. Soldiers had neither the training nor the equipment to control
large crowds or act as riot police. Even given its narrow range of options,
however, the government’s response to Gapon’s demonstration was
clumsy and cruel. Cavalry and cossacks were brutal and terrifying when
used to disperse crowds but at least their whips and the flat sides of their
140 Nicholas I I

sabres seldom killed anyone. In contrast, infantry turned out against

crowds were in general either ineffective or lethal. Always outnumbered
and armed with nothing but their rifles, their only way to stop or disperse
crowds was by using their firearms. This is what happened on Bloody
Sunday, 22 January 1905, when Gapon’s demonstration tried to push
its way through to the W inter Palace at the heart of official Petersburg.
Over a hundred demonstrators were killed and many more were wounded.
It is difficult to dispute the subsequent judgement of Peter Dumovo, the
very intelligent former head of the Police Department, that ‘it is in many
circumstances possible to avoid battles with the troops . . . The mistake
had been to summon infantry units whereas it would have been more
appropriate to limit oneself to cossacks and cavalry, who could disperse
the crowd with whips, especially since the demonstrators were not
armed.’15
The massacre of unarmed workers in the centre of the empire’s capital
was a disastrous blow to the regime’s prestige both at home and abroad.
Nicholas commented in his diary that evening: ‘a sad day. In Petersburg
serious disorders occurred as a consequence of the workers’ wish to reach
the W inter Palace. The troops had to open fire in various parts of the town
and there were many killed and wounded. Lord, how painful and sad.’
The fact that most demonstrators were quite sincere in their hope that the
monarch would respond to their petition and some even carried his portrait
made matters worse. At a time when new ideas were spreading among an
increasingly literate peasantry an event such as Bloody Sunday was an
exceptionally dangerous affront to the people’s traditional faith in their
ruler’s benevolence.16
Nevertheless it would be naive to follow Lenin in asserting that Bloody
Sunday spelled the end of the people’s faith in the Tsar. Loyalties as deeply
rooted as Russian peasant monarchism do not disappear overnight, espe­
cially when a very large number of those who hold these beliefs are illiterate
villagers living in the back of beyond. Plentiful evidence exists that much
peasant faith in the Tsar survived not only Bloody Sunday but also the
many other shocks this traditional set of beliefs received between 1905 and
1907. The Soviet historian A. Avrekh commented that even ‘the Trudoviki
- who were the conscious expression of the interests and dreams of the
revolutionary [section of the] peasantry, and who put forward in their
programme a wide range of democratic freedoms and reforms, up to and
including the convocation of a constituent assembly and the confiscation of
all landowners’ estates, never advanced the slogan of a republic’. Nor were
these Russian radicals unique either in refraining from a direct attack on the
monarchy or in understanding that the Russian peasant made a distinction
between the Emperor on the one hand and oppressive élites and
political institutions on the other. During the Second W orld W ar the
 The Years o f Revolution, 1904-1907 141

Japanese Communist Nosaka Sanzq told a Chinese Communist party con­

ference that

the Japanese people may hold the Emperor . . . in religious awe, but they do
not worship the system of despotic rule. We must abolish the Emperor system
immediately and establish a democratic system . . . However, we must be very
careful in defining our attitude to . . . his [the Emperor’s] semi-religious
influence . . . Many soldiers captured by the [Communist] Eighth Route
Army said they could agree with the [Communist] ideology, but if they
sought to destroy the emperor, they would be opposed. This can be seen as a
general pattern of thought held by the majority of the Japanese people.17

Although Bloody Sunday raised the political temperature, it did not

change the basic course of government policy. As before, the regime
sought to restore stability through a combination of concessions and
repression. As tends to happen under such circumstances, the concessions
were insufficient to pacify opposition but did persuade the regime’s
enemies that tsarism was on the run. Meanwhile the degree of repression
sufficed to anger but not to subdue the population. Some ministers, with
A.S. Ermolov in the lead, urged Nicholas to convoke an assembly drawn
from all classes of the population and to listen to its advice 'before it is too
late’. And indeed, in early March, a manifesto announced that a con­
sultative elected assembly would be convoked. On the other hand, to take
but one example, General D.F. Trepov, the newly appointed Governor-
General of Petersburg, warned that further concessions 'will completely
shatter power and satisfy nobody’. The old complaint about government
disunity was heard more and more loudly, and pressure mounted on
Nicholas to agree to the creation of a prime minister who could co-ordinate
policy. At the same time, however. Serge W itte’s ambition to force his
way back to office in the guise of tsarism’s saviour caused fear and alarm
not only to Nicholas but also to many other members of the political
élite.18
As always the Emperor remained deeply unwilling to surrender his
autocratic power. He told Svyatopolk-Mirsky in October 1904: ‘You
know, I don’t hold to autocracy for my own pleasure. I act in this sense
only because I am convinced that it is necessary for Russia. If it was simply
a question of myself I would happily get rid of all this. ’ Some of the factors
behind Nicholas’s stubborn defence of autocracy are well-known and have
already been discussed. They include his conviction that supreme power
was an obligation he had received from God at his coronation and was
therefore a responsibility he had no right to thrust on to the shoulders of
others. Also important was his sense of his family’s hereditary privilege
and duty to exercise power over their Russian land. In 1905 these religious
142 Nicholas I I

and dynastic instincts were strongly upheld by the Empress Alexandra,

who began to play a, albeit still minor, role in Russian domestic politics for
the first time and whose opposition to any retreat from autocracy was
described by Paul Benckendoiff in June 1905 as ‘ferocious’.19
It would, however, be wrong simply to ascribe Nicholas’s defence of
autocracy to wifely pressure or the Tsar’s religious or dynastic instincts.
More down-to-earth and rational calculations also played their part. Ever
since Alexander II had initiated his policy of ‘modernization from above’
in the late 1850s, the crown had periodically come under pressure to
concede part of its power to a representative assembly. Alexander’s
response to this pressure when it first occurred in 1861 was expressed in
terms with which both his son and his grandson would certainly have
concurred.
Alexander II explained to O tto von Bismarck, who was then the
Prussian minister in Petersburg, that

the idea of taking counsel of subjects other than officials was not in itself
objectionable and that greater participation by respectable notables in official
business could only be advantageous. The difficulty, if not impossibility, of
putting this principle into effect by only in the experience of history that it had
never been possible to stop a country's liberal development at the point beyond
which it should not go. This would be particularly difficult in Russia, where
the necessary political culture, thoughtfulness and circumspection were only to
be found in relatively small circles. Russia must not be judged by Petersburg,
of all the empire’s towns the least Russian one . . . The revolutionary party
would not find it easy to corrupt the people's convictions and make the masses
conceive their interests to be divorced from those of the dynasty. The Emperor
continued that 4throughout the interior of the empire the people still see the
monarch as the paternal and absolute Lord set by God over the land; this belief,
which has almost the force of a religious sentiment, is completely independent
of any personal loyalty of which I could be the object. I like to think that it will
not be bcking too in the future. To abdicate the absolute power with which
my crown is invested would be to undermine the aura of that authority which
has dominion over the nation. The deep respect, based on an innate sentiment,
with which right up to now the Russian people surrounds the throne of its
Emperor cannot be parcelled out. I would diminish without any compensation
the authority of the government if I wanted to allow representatives of the
nobility or the nation to participate in it. Above all, God knows what would
become of relations between the peasants and the lords if the authority of
the Emperor was not still sufficiently intact to exercise the dominating
influence.’20

Nicholas II’s own ideas were very close to those of his grandfather.
Once, during the First W orld W ar, he spoke to his neighbour at dinner, a
 T he Years o f Revolution, 1904-1907 143

senior British general, ‘about empires and republics’. The Emperor com­
mented that

his own ideas as a young man were that he had, of course, a great respon­
sibility, and felt that the people over whom he ruled were so numerous and so
varying in blood and temperament, different altogether from our Western
Europeans, that an Emperor was a vital necessity to them. His first visit to the
Caucasus had made a great impression on him and confirmed him in his views.
The United States of America, he said, was an entirely different matter and the
two cases could not be compared. In this country, many as were the problems
and the difficulties, their sense of imagination, their intense religious feeling
and their habits and customs generally made a crown necessary, and he believed
this must be so for a very long time, that a certain amount of decentralisation of
authority was of course necessary, but that the great and decisive power must
rest with the Crown.

To some extent the Emperor’s view of his people was an old-fashioned

one. Literacy and the disciplines of a capitalist economy were changing
Russian habits and mentalities. Such changes do not, however, occur over­
night nor indeed could even capitalism turn Russians into Anglo-Saxons.
Moreover, change was anything but painless and it exacerbated the class
conflict to which Alexander II had referred a half-century before. After
listening to Alexander’s words Bismarck commented that if the masses lost
faith in the crown’s absolute power the risk of a murderous peasant war
would become very great. He concluded that ‘His Majesty can still rely on
the common man both in the army and among the civilian masses but the
“ educated classes’’, with the exception of the older generation, are
stoking the fires of a revolution which, if it comes to power, would imme­
diately turn against themselves.’ Events were to show that this prophecy
was as relevant in Nicholas II’s era as it had been during the reign of his
grandfather.21
To understand the Tsar’s dilemma it is worth recalling the immediate
origins of the French revolution. Certainly, the fate of Louis XVI weighed
very heavily on the minds of nineteenth-century old regime monarchs. In
the mid-1780s the French absolute monarchy had come under great pres­
sure from the country’s ¿lite to concede some form of constitutional
government. Bowing to this pressure, the King summoned the Estates
General, a long defunct body drawn from the various estates of the realm
whose power was in theory purely advisory. Very similar were the calls by
which Nicholas was surrounded in 1905 to summon some sort of consulta­
tive assembly drawn from ‘all estates of the Russian land’. Convoking the
Estates General aroused great expectations among the previously rather
inert French masses. Very soon the assembly began to assert its claims to
144 Nicholas I I

much more than purely consultative power. Still worse, opening up politi­
cal debate created conditions in which latent tensions between classes
exploded. The army, officered by nobles and manned by members of the
lower classes, began to disintegrate under the influence of these tensions,
especially after being employed for two or three years in a domestic police
and peace-keeping role. The result was full-scale revolution, the fall of the
monarchy and civil war. There were quite enough similarities between
France in 1789 and Russia in 1905 to give pause for thought. Not for
nothing did senior officials shudder when they saw the portrait of Marie
Antoinette, a rather tactless gift from the French government, hanging in
the apartments of the Empress Alexandra. Nor was Paul Benckendorff
unique in believing, in June 1905, that any Russian parliament would
quickly devise its own electoral law and turn into a constituent assembly.22
The war with Japan greatly worsened the domestic political crisis.
W riting to his brother, the ambassador in London, in the winter of
1903-4 about this ‘absurd but likely war’. Count Benckendorff com­
mented that no one in Russia wanted war with Japan, understood why it
should be fought or took any real interest in the issues at stake. He added
that, if the war lasted for long, its effect on Russia would be terrible. But
he acknowledged that unless the Russian navy won quick victories over
the Japanese fleet the conflict was bound to be lengthy since it would take
many months to build up Russia's land forces in the Far East. Not even
Benckendorff, however, foresaw the continual blows to Russian pride and
prestige that the conflict with Japan would bring. The humiliation of
defeat by the Japanese, combined with awareness that the war had been
unnecessary, embittered the Grand Marshal of the Court. In May 1905 he
wrote, ‘we have become at best a second-rank power for two generations’
and Russia might even be destroyed altogether by the conflict. Anger
against the incompetent and irresponsible conduct of public affairs boiled
over in sharp criticism of the Tsar. In March 1905 Benckendorff wrote that
Nicholas II was ‘ridiculous’, that he ‘was beginning to annoy everyone’
and that ‘there is something absurd in any and every monarchy’. Such
comments, coming as they did from a senior military courtier of impecca­
bly loyal and aristocratic origins show just how far the monarch’s prestige
had fallen even in conservative and patriotic circles as a result of humilia­
tion in the Far East.23
Russia’s defeat by Japan was in part the product of geography. W hen
the war began, only two of Russia’s twenty-nine army corps were in the
Far East and it took months of effort to transfer sufficient troops to the
theatre of operations. Supplying the field army along the single-track
Trans-Siberian railway was a difficult task. The Russian navy could not
bring its full strength to bear since the Black Sea squadron, one-third of the
fleet, was not allowed by international treaty to pass the Bosporus. The
 The Years o f Revolution, 1904-1907 145

Baltic fleet needed to steam round the world before it could enter the fray; by
the time it arrived off the coast of Japan, Russia’s Far Eastern squadron had
already been destroyed. Although on paper the latter had been a match for the
Japanese fleet, its lack of bases and repair facilities was a major disadvantage.
Nor did Russia’s Far Eastern fleet enjoy much luck. In the surprise torpedo
attack by which the Japanese began the war only two Russian ships were hit
but they happened to be the squadron’s most modem battleships. When
Russian naval morale in the Far East was restored by the arrival of Makarov,
the country’s best admiral, cruel luck again intervened. O f all the ships in the
Russian squadron, it had to be his flagship alone which struck a mine at the
crucial moment in the war between the two countries ’ Pacific fleets.24
Above all, however, Russia lost the war because of the failings of its senior
commanders, military and naval. Russia’s generals and admirals on the whole
turned out to be administrators, veterans of internal security operations or
military intellectuals rather than fighting commanders. To some extent this
tends to be the fate of any armed forces after a long period of peace. In the
Russian case, however, the poverty-stricken peacetime armed forces spent so
much of their time and energy on administration, supply and paying their
own way that military bureaucrats were bound to come to the fore. Russian
generals and admirals also displayed a quite extraordinary talent for fighting
among themselves. The Russian general who told a visiting British officer
in 1912 that ’there will never be unselfish cooperation amongst the higher
leaders as in the German army’ was speaking from bitter wartime experience.
In the first phase of the war the commander of the land forces, General
Kuropatkin, was at loggerheads with the Viceroy, Admiral Alekseev. After
Alekseev’s removal, battle raged between generals Kuropatkin and Grip­
penberg. To some extent this endless feuding stemmed from the bitterness of
defeat. It had, however, already commenced before the war had even really
begun. In February 1904 Kuropatkin recorded a conversation with Admiral
Avelan, the Naval Minister, who

expressed doubt about the ability of Admiral Stark to carry out such a great naval
operation independently. He said that Stark is painstaking and knows hisjob but
lacks initiative . . . To my question why - having such admirals as Skrydlov,
Birilev, Rozhdestvensky, Makarov and Dubasov - almost our entire fleet is
entrusted to the incompetent Stark, Avelan said that the fleet’s personnel had
been decided by Alekseev himself. He had asked for Birilev but Birilev had refused
on the grounds of Alekseev’s character: ‘on my oath,' he had said, *1assure you
that after two months I would be forced to leave’. For the same reasons,
Rozhdestvensky and Dubasov can’t go.25

Peace came rather unexpectedly in September 1905 after the Russian army
had been defeated in the spring at Mukden and the Baltic squadron annihilated
146 Nicholas I I

at Tsushima. Nicholas stood out for a hard line, initially refusing either to
pay a war indemnity or to cede any part of Sakhalin Island. In his heart
the Emperor would have been happy to have broken off negotiations,
postponing peace until the Russian army had won some victories. Only
very reluctantly and under great pressure did he finally agree to cede
southern Sakhalin. Actually, on this occasion Nicholas proved wiser than
his advisers. The Japanese government, overstretched both financially and
militarily, was desperate for peace and would have been prepared to accept
it even without southern Sakhalin. Both the Japanese and the Russian mili­
tary commanders believed that the tide was about to turn in the land war.
Whereas Japanese manpower was almost exhausted, Russian reinforce­
ments, including two of the army’s best corps, were pouring into the
theatre of operations. Nor was it the case, as was subsequently often
argued, that the Far Eastern army was needed to crush revolution at home
and was widely used for this purpose in the winter of 1905-6. The sudden
peace at a time when morale was improving and the prospect of victory
was in the air caused great disillusionment in the Far Eastern army. The
manner in which demobilization occurred resulted in further discontent.
Rather than contributing to the suppression of revolution in European
Russia, much of the Far Eastern army remained cut off in the theatre of
operations, while disgruntled demobilized reservists straggling back to
Russia added to the chaos that prevailed along the Trans-Siberian
railway.26
W ithin two months of the war’s end Russia had been promised a con­
stitution. O n 30 October Nicholas II issued a manifesto offering ‘unshake-
able foundations of civil liberty on the principles of true inviolability of
person, freedom of conscience, speech, assembly and association’. The
elected assembly already promised earlier in the year was now to be ‘guar­
anteed the opportunity of real participation in control over the legality of
actions of the authorities appointed by us’. In addition, without the con­
sent of this assembly, to be called the State Duma, ‘no law can be put into
effect’. Finally, the manifesto stated that the list of voters established
earlier in the year for elections to the consultative assembly was now to be
expanded to include ‘those classes of the population that at present are
altogether deprived of the franchise’,27
Nicholas’s surrender of his autocratic powers was owed in large part to
a renewed wave of strikes, demonstrations and violence which swept
across Russia in the autumn of 1905, ultimately encompassing most
sections of the urban population. This occurred to a considerable extent
because of the government’s own faulty tactics. In the summer of 1905
the promise of a consultative assembly and the prospect of peace with Japan
caused divisions within the opposition and seemed to offer hope of a
breathing space during which the government could regain its compo-
 The Years o f Revolution, 1904-1907 147

sure. By reopening the universities in early September, however, and

allowing them wide-ranging autonomy the government opened the flood­
gates to revolution. University buildings, now beyond the control of
the police, became centres of revolutionary organization and propaganda.
Workers poured on to the campuses, the revolutionary parties had free
rein for their activities, and all disgruntled elements of urban society
could share their grievances and co-ordinate their protests in perfect
security. By early October General D.F. Trepov was warning Nicholas
that ‘the moment is not far off when under the pressure of the revolution­
aries who now control the universities, the disorders there will spill into
the street’.28
W ithin days Trepov’s prediction came true. From 2 October strikes
began to spread from sector to sector of Moscow’s economy. Sympathy
strikes began in Petersburg. The crucial moment came, however, when
the railwaymen walked out, since their action paralysed both the govern­
ment and the economy and, in addition, sparked off something close to a
general strike in urban Russia. ‘The government was immobilized. Offi­
cials could not even travel between St Petersburg and Moscow. An October
12 conference of ministers called by the tsar to restore railroad operations
all but threw up its hands in despair.929
Nicholas described the situation to his mother in the following
terms.

All sorts of conferences took place in Moscow, which Durnovo [P.P. Durnovo,
the Governor] permitted. I do not know why. Everything was being prepared
for the railway strike. The first one began in and around Moscow, and then
spread all over Russia practically at once. Petersburg and Moscow were
entirely cut off from the interior. For exactly a week today the Baltic railway
has not been functioning. The only way to get to town is by sea. How con­
venient at this time of year! From the railways the strike spread to the factories
and workshops, and then even to the municipal organisations and services, and
lastly to the Railway Department of the Ministry of Ways and Communica­
tions. What a shame, just think of it . . . God knows what happened in the
universities. Every kind of riff-raff walked in from the streets, riot was loudly
proclaimed - nobody seemed to mind. The governing bodies of the universi­
ties and engineering schools were granted autonomy but they do not know
how to use it. They couldn’t even lock the doors in time to keep out the
impudent crowd, and then of course complained they could not get any help
from the police - but do you remember what they used to say in years gone
by? It makes me sick to read the news! Nothing but new strikes in schools
and factories, murdered policemen, cossacks and soldiers, riots, disorders,
mutinies. But the ministers, instead of acting with quick decision, only assem­
ble in council like a lot of frightened hens and cackle about providing united
ministerial action.30
148 Nicholas I I

Despite the Emperor’s sarcasm, pressure from within senior officialdom

for the co-ordination of ministerial policy was the other key element
behind the granting of the October manifesto. The confusion in both
domestic and foreign policy-making before the outbreak of the Russo-
Japanese W ar had persuaded most senior officials that radical changes were
required as regards the co-ordination of ministerial activity. Once it
became clear in the spring of 1905 that an elected assembly was to be
created, the need for government to present a united front to the world
appeared clearer than ever. From early September 1905 a special conference
under the chairmanship of the empire’s most distinguished elder states­
man, D.M . Solsky, had been considering this issue. If the post of premier
was to be created. Serge W itte was the obvious man to fill it. W itte
himself craved the job. His reputation had soared as a result of his success­
ful leadership of Russia’s delegation to the peace conference that followed
the war with Japan. Paul Benckendorff wrote in early October, ’my last
hope is W itte, as it has always been’. The Empress Marie advised her son
that ’1 am sure that the only man who can help you now and be useful is
W itte . . . he certainly is a man of genius, energetic and clear-sighted.’
W itte’s terms were, however, very steep. He had become convinced that
only by granting a constitution and full civil rights could society be paci­
fied and the government’s authority be restored. In addition, if he was to
head the government, W itte insisted on his right to choose all the other
ministers and to determine and co-ordinate the policies pursued by the
various departments. Not surprisingly, Nicholas wavered for a few days
before accepting such conditions, in the meantime pondering the option of
military repression. But on 30 October the Emperor gave in and Russia
acquired simultaneously its first constitution and its first prime minister.31
Two days later Nicholas explained his decision in a letter to his mother:
One had the same feeling as before a thunderstorm in summer! Everybody was
on edge and extremely nervous, and, of course, that sort of strain could not go
on for long. Through all these horrible days, I constantly met Witte. We very
often met in the early morning to part only in the evening, when night fell.
There were only two ways open: to find an energetic soldier and crush the
rebellion by sheer force. There would be time to breathe then but, as likely as
not, one would have to use force again in a few months; and that would mean
rivers of blood, and in the end we should be where we had started. I mean to
say, government authority would be vindicated, but there would be no posi­
tive result and no possibility of progress achieved. The other way out would be
to give to the people their civil rights, freedom of speech and press, also to have
all laws confirmed by a State Duma - that, of course, would be a constitution.
Witte defends this very energetically. He says that, while it is not without
risk, it’s the only way out at the present moment. Almost everybody I had an
opportunity of consulting is of the same opinion. Witte put it quite clearly to
1. The Emperor Alexander III (1845-94) 2. The Empress Marie (1847-1928) and
her sister, Queen Alexandra of England

3. The Anichkov Palace in Petersburg where Nicholas spent much of his youth
4. Nicholas and Alexandra
in 1894

5. The Empress Alexandra

shortly after her marriage in
1894
6. The Winter Palace in Petersburg, scene of great ceremonial occasions. Nicholas and
Alexandra seldom stayed here

7. The young Emperor relaxing at a country retreat shortly after ascending the throne
8. Nicholas’s study in his small ‘palace’ at Peterhof where he spent the summer months
10. The imperial yacht, the Standart

11. The new palace at Livadia, completed in 1911

12. Serge Witte (1849-1915): Minister of Finance, 1893-1903, Chairman of the
Committee of Ministers, 1903-5, and Prime Minister, 1905-6
13. Nicholas leaves the Russian Orthodox Church in Paris during his state visit
France in 1896
14. Pilgrims and police await the Tsar’s arrival at Sarov for the ceremonies surrounding
the canonization of St Seraphim
15. General Aleksei Kuropatkin (1848-1925): Minister of War, 1898-1904, and GOC
Far Eastern Army, 1904-5

16. The Tauride Palace, home of the Duma

17. Peter Stolypin (1862-1911) with his family. Stolypin was Minister of Internal
Affairs, 1906-11, and Prime Minister from 1907 to 1911 when he was assassinated. Two
of his children were seriously injured in an earlier assassination attempt in 1906
18. Nicholas with George V of England, c. 1909
 19. Vladimir Kokovstov
(1853-1943): Minister of
Finance, 1904-5 and 1906-
14, and Prime Minister,
1911-14

20. Peter Durnovo (1844-

1915): Minister of Internal
Affairs, 1905-6, and leader
of the conservative group in
the State Council, 190¿-15
21. Michael Akimov (1847-
1914): Minister of Justice,
1905-6, and President of the
State Council, 1907-14

22. Ivan Goremykin (1839-

1917): Minister of Internal
Affairs, 1895-9, and Prime
Minister, 1906 and 1914-16
[ ____ : * v
23. Nicholas visits his cousin, the Grand 24. Nicholas and the Tsarevich Aleksei in
Duke Nicholas (Nikolasha) at Headquarters the uniform of the Cossack escort shortly
during the early months of the First World before the First World War
War. At this time the Grand Duke was
commander-in-chief of the front-line army

25. Nicholas and his children with officers of the Cossack escort during the First World
War: (left to right) Anastasia, Olga, Nicholas, Aleksei, Tatiana and Marie
26. Nicholas and Aleksei visit the armies of General Brusilov, c. 1916

27. The imperial family shortly before the revolution: {left to right) Tatiana, Anastasia,
Marie, Olga, Nicholas, Alexandra and Aleksei
28. The imperial family in captivity at Tobolsk: (left to right) Olga, Anastasia,
Nicholas, Aleksei, Tatiana and Marie
 The Years o f Revolution, 1904-1907 149

me that he would accept the Presidency of the Council of Ministers only on the
condition that his programme was agreed to, and his actions not interfered
with. He and Alexei Obolensky drew up the manifesto. We discussed it for
two days, and in the end, invoking God’s help, I signed. My dear Mama, you
can’t imagine what I went through before that moment; in my telegram I
could not explain all the circumstances which brought me to this terrible deci­
sion, which nevertheless I took quite consciously. From all over Russia they
cried for it, they begged for it, and around me many - very many - held the
same views. I had no one to rely on except honest Trepov. There was no other
way out than to cross oneself and give what everyone was asking for. My only
consolation is that such is the will of God, and this grave decision will lead my
dear Russia out of the intolerable chaos she has been in for nearly a year.32

This last sentence provides a key to Nicholas’s subsequent attitude to

both W itte and the new constitution. His concession had been designed to
secure peace and to win back the support of the liberal movement. At least
in the short run neither of these goals was achieved. In the winter of
1905-6 the regime came closer to collapse than at any other time. Great
bloodshed was required after all for the government’s preservation. The
Tsar felt cheated. No doubt W itte’s expectation of easy pacification had
always been naïve. As Paul Benckendorff wrote to his brother, ‘the
constitution has been dragged from the government by disturbances. That
is a bad position. The capitulation is complete. How will one be able to
restore to this government a semblance of respect after the war and now
this event?’ O f course the revolutionary parties saw the October manifesto
as a sign of weakness and redoubled their efforts to hasten tsarism to its
grave. For six weeks ‘dual power’ existed in Petersburg: a Soviet of
W orkers’ Deputies, whose outstanding personality was Leon Trotsky,
existed alongside the imperial government and attempted to lead and
co-ordinate the revolutionary movement. The Bolsheviks organized an
armed uprising of Moscow workers in December. The main strand in the
liberal opposition proclaimed that revolution must continue until parlia­
mentary government and universal suffrage were achieved. Poland, the
Caucasus and the Baltic provinces witnessed massive violence. Worse still,
the Russian and Ukrainian peasantry, sensing the collapse of authority,
poured on to the estates of landowners, burning manor houses and
destroying crops and animals. The army, deployed in increasingly dis­
persed units to preserve order across the length and breadth of the empire,
began to show serious signs of disintegration. In 1906 even the élite
First Battalion of the Preobrazhensky Guards, the senior regiment of the
Russian army, was to mutiny, prompting a horrified Kireev to write in his
diary, ‘This is it.’ In the winter of 1905-6 the regime’s life hung by a
thread.33
150 Nicholas I I

If the government survived this was partly because, in the face of

renewed strikes, assassinations and riots, it lost its self-doubt or equivo­
cation. Previously repression and concessions had been combined, often in
an unskilful and self-defeating manner. Now authority was to be restored
at any price. The new Minister of Internal Affairs, Peter Dumovo, was the
man of the hour. Resolute, self-confident and very intelligent, Dumovo
was one of the most impressive statesmen to serve the old regime in the last
half-century of its existence. W hen Dumovo arrived to take up his posi­
tion in the ministry chaos reigned. The post and telegraph strike had cut
off links to the provinces. The officials of the vital Police Department were
locked in internecine conflict. Police informers were beginning to slip
away, convinced that the regime was doomed. In the ministry’s Petersburg
offices officials wandered about, unsure what to do and repeating rumours.
Still more bewildered were the provincial governors, unprepared for the
October manifesto and deprived of firm guidance from the capital. Dmitri
Lyubimov recalled that ‘in a word one felt complete collapse in the minis­
try. In addition to this, the mood among the officials was extremely
nervous.’ In a revolutionary crisis, as on a battlefield, the leader requires
calmness under pressure, unflinching resolution, and an acute sense of
tactics and timing. These Dumovo displayed.
Vladimir Gurko, himself a senior official in the Ministry of Internal
Affairs, recollected that ‘Dumovo had a way of impressing on people his
own firmness and the inflexibility of his own decisions . . . he and he alone
. . . really understood the situation and systematically, even ruthlessly,
had taken steps to prevent the break-up of the state apparatus.’ From
provincial governor down to private soldier, no individual in the apparatus
of repression could have had any doubt that the government had the will to
survive and would punish without mercy anyone who wavered in the
suppression of disorder. The revolution was first smashed in the key
centres of administration and communications. The Soviet was arrested,
and the lack of resistance encouraged Dumovo to press on with his
counter-offensive. The Moscow rising was suppressed and control
reasserted over the railways and telegraph. Subsequently, punitive expedi­
tions fanned out across the empire. The revolutionary parties found it
impossible to co-ordinate the protests of workers, peasants and mutinous
members of the armed forces in the face of concerted and resolute repres­
sion. Nor, unlike before October 1905, did strikes and demonstrations
enjoy the support of much of the propertied classes, or even, after a time,
the unequivocal sympathy of the professional and cultural intelligentsia.34
This was, in part, because the concession of a constitution had won
support for the government among moderate elements of the upper and
middle classes. Whereas the bulk of the liberal movement formed itself
into the Constitutional Democratic (Kadet) party, the conservative minor-
 The Years o f Revolution, 1904-1907 151

ity split off, most of them endingup in the Octobrist party. As the latter’s
name suggests, its basic platform was support for the promises made in the
October manifesto and a belief that these had removed any justification for
further opposition, especially of a violent nature. More important than
these political manoeuverings, however, were the increasing horror and
resentment of the social élites as the revolution of the masses grew
more radical and violent, turning its attention to the property of upper- and
middle-class Russia. As workers demanded higher pay, shorter hours and
better treatment, industrialists responded with lockouts and sackings. As
manor houses went up in flames, the landowning classes swung far to the
right, taking the zemstvos with them. Radical civil servants working for
the zemstvos were sacked, and cossacks and other guards were hired to
protect estates from destruction. An important sign of the shifting mood
of upper- and middle-class Russia were the unpaid volunteers who offered
their services to break the post and telegraph strike.
Reflecting the new mood, Paul Benckendorff wrote to his brother at
the end of 1905 that people who had previously howled with indignation
at the mistreatment of a single student were now screaming that no
prisoners must be taken and all radicals must be shot. On 1 December
Nicholas was able to write to his mother that ‘more and more voices are
heard protesting that the time has come for the Government to take
matters firmly in hand - which is a very good sign indeed’. A week later
he added that

God is my strength and gives me peace of mind, and that is the most important
thing. So many Russians nowadays have lost that spirit. That is why they are
so often unable to resist the threats and intimidations of the anarchists. Civic
courage, as you know, is at the best of times noticeable here only among the
few. Now it hardly seems to exist at all. But, as I wrote to you last time, the
state of mind of the people has lately changed altogether. The old headless
Liberals, always so critical of firm measures on the part of the authorities, are
now clamouring loudly for decisive action.35

While revolution waxed and waned in the winter of 1905-6 Nicholas

and his government were hard at work drafting Russia’s new constitution
and electoral law. The constitution, as published finally in April 1906, did
not contradict the promises made in the October manifesto. It spelt out a
wide range of civil rights guaranteed to Russian subjects. It gave the Duma
a veto over all legislation and considerable control over the budget. Inevit­
ably, however, the regime was not prepared to accept anything approach­
ing full democracy. Sovereignty was explicitly stated to remain with the
Emperor, whose rights derived from God and history. As in every major
European country at that time, an undemocratic upper house, in the form
152 Nicholas I I

of the reformed State Council, was created to act as a check on the elected
Duma. Half the members of the State Council were to be senior officials
nominated by the crown, the other half being chosen by the key conserva­
tive institutions and interests, which meant above all the landowning
nobility. Fearful of continuing instability and revolution, the government
insisted in Article 15 that the Emperor retained the unrestricted right to
declare provinces to be under a state of emergency, thereby allowing itself
the means to set aside the civil rights it had just promised the population.
Ominously for the new constitutional order, Nicholas made clear his con­
viction that in the last resort he should continue to bear unlimited respon­
sibility for Russia’s destiny. On 22 April he told a conference of ministers
and top officials, ‘all this time I have been tormented by the worry as to
whether I have the right before my ancestors to change the limits of that
power which I received from them . . . I say to you sincerely that if I was
convinced that Russia wished me to renounce my autocratic rights then
I would do this with joy for its good.’ No doubt, if he hung on to his title
of unlimited autocrat he would face many reproaches about going back on
tiie promises made in the October manifesto. ‘But one must recognize
whence these reproaches will come. They will come of course from the
side of the whole so-called educated element, from the workers and the
Third Estate. But I am convinced that 80 per cent of the Russian people
will be with me. ’ Only with great difficulty could his advisers persuade the
Tsar that the opinions of educated Russia had to be reckoned with and that
flagrant undermining of the promises contained in the October manifesto
was not permissible.36
The Emperor’s conviction that 80 per cent of the population was on his
side reflected his faith that Russian peasants were monarchists at heart and
were uninterested in political democracy or constitutions. The question of
the peasants’ political reliability and monarchist sympathies was indeed the
cause of angry disagreements within the ruling élite when the ques­
tion of the suffrage for elections to the Duma came on to the agenda. In the
end the rural masses were given predominant weight by the new electoral
law, the government hoping that the peasants’ traditional monarchist,
religious and agrarian outlook would lead them to oppose the blandish­
ments of middle-class liberal and radical politicians, as had happened earlier
in much of Central and Western Europe.
In the circumstances of 1905-6, however, when most peasants were
obsessed by the opportunity to seize the big estates, a political strategy
aimed at winning the loyalty of the rural masses could only succeed if it
was accompanied by the promise of land reforms. Not all members of
senior officialdom or even of the landowning nobility were set against
making such promises. Amidst the panic caused by peasant arson and riot­
ing in the winter of 1905 Dmitri Trepov told W itte that ‘he would be
 The Years o f Revolution, 1904-1907 153

ready to give up half his land i f h e could keep the rest*. Citing similar
support for partial expropriation from Admiral Dubasov, who had com­
manded the detachment which had ‘pacified’ Chernigov and Kursk pro­
vinces, W itte claimed that in November and December 1905 ‘what he
said was typical of the mood then prevalent in conservative circles’. On
23 January 1906 W itte reported to Nicholas II that although the urban
revolution could now be considered defeated, the peasant rebellion was still
in full swing. He informed the Emperor that a draft law for partial
expropriation of private land presented to the Council of Ministers by
N .N . Kutler, the Minister of Agriculture, had ‘aroused in the preliminary
general exchange of opinions complete and fundamental disagreement
within the Council’. For a monarch committed to the view that the
crown’s most loyal ally was the peasantry here perhaps was the moment to
make a dramatic gesture to bring Tsar and peasant together at the expense
of a sometimes disloyal section of the educated class. Instead Nicholas II
killed Kutler’s project and all further discussion of the expropriation of
noble land. In the margin of W itte’s report, opposite Kutler’s proposal,
the Emperor wrote, ‘I do not approve.’ Further on in the report, he made
another marginal comment: ‘Private property must remain inviolable. ’37
To understand the Emperor’s position it is important to note that
opposition to expropriation within the landowning class was already
beginning to harden by January 1906. Arbitrary confiscation of a huge
amount of private property was an enormously radical policy for any
European government to contemplate before 1914, particularly if the land
in question belonged to the country’s traditional ruling class. Acting in
this way, Nicholas would have faced the outrage of families who were his
dynasty’s oldest supporters, and whose members had been his closest
companions since his youth both in his father’s household and during his
service in the Guards. Since expropriation without compensation was
absolutely inconceivable in Edwardian Europe, the already almost bank­
rupt treasury faced huge potential problems in managing the transfer of
property. Nor would the transfer of land from noble to peasant bring any
economic advantages, if anything quite the opposite. Although in theory it
might have made sense to leave to the nobles land directly farmed by them
and merely expropriate fields already leased to peasants, such a policy
would certainly not have satisfied the peasantry. For the latter it was
precisely the big estates which were farmed directly by their owners in an
efficient, modem and capitalist fashion which were the most objectionable.
The fundamental argument against expropriation was indeed that unless it
was total the process was likely to whet appetites and to inflame rather
than assuage peasant anger. The first congress of the United Nobility
stated that ‘compulsory expropriation of private lands will not calm the
population but will only ignite passions’. It is clear from his marginal
154 Nicholas I I

comments on this and similar memoranda that Nicholas shared this view
and saw partial expropriation as counter-productive. It was, however, not
difficult to prophesy that without some such measure the government’s
chances of agreement with a Duma elected largely by peasants were not
likely to be very high.38
One casualty of the cruel and strife-ridden winter of 1905-6 was the
Emperor’s relationship with his Prime Minister. Nicholas had never
greatly trusted W itte, in part because he had somehow got it into his head
that the latter was a freemason. Disappointment that the October mani­
festo had nót brought peace and order soon surfaced. ‘It is strange that
such a clever man should be wrong in his forecast of an easy pacification,’
wrote Nicholas in early November. Two weeks later the Emperor told his
mother that ‘I hold a meeting of the Council of Ministers every week . . .
they talk a lot, but do little. Everybody is afraid of taking courageous
action: I keep on trying to force them - even W itte himself - to behave
more energetically. W ith us nobody is accustomed to shouldering respon­
sibility: all expect to be given orders, which, however, they disobey as
often as not . . . I must confess I am disappointed in him [Witte] in a
way.’ By the end of January 1906 Nicholas has lost all faith in W itte as
Prime Minister or overlord of Russian internal affairs.

As for Witte, since the happenings in Moscow [the armed uprising] he has
radically changed his views; now he wants to hang and shoot everybody. I
have never seen such a chameleon of a man. That, naturally, is the reason why
no one believes in him any more. He is absolutely discredited with everybody,
except perhaps the Jews abroad. I like Akimov, the new Minister of Justice,
very much . . . He is no longer young of course, but vigorous and very
energetic, with honest ideas - he has already cleaned up his poisonous minis­
try. Duraovo, the Minister of the Interior, is doing splendid work. I am
very pleased with him too. The rest of the ministers are people without
importance.39

The Emperor’s opinion of W itte was actually quite justified and was
widely shared. Under the strain of these turbulent and terrifying weeks the
Prime Minister appeared at times to lose his nerve. His opinions veered
from side to side in an alarming and contradictory way. Even by 10
December Paul Benckendorff was writing that people, including himself,
who had previously believed that W itte must be supported had now
turned against him. The reason was, in his opinion, that the Prime Minis­
ter had failed to stick to a consistent line and, partly through fear, was
trying to parley with the revolutionaries. By now, added Benckendorff, it
was an illusion to imagine that the government had any alternative but the
full-scale use of force. If, despite the growing disillusionment with W itte,
 T he Years o f Revolution, 1904-1907 155

Nicholas retained his Prime Minister until April 1906 this was above all
because of the latter’s reputation as a financial genius and the strong links
he had with foreign bankers. In the winter of 1905-6 Russia faced financial
disaster. W itte himself wrote to the Foreign Minister, Count Lambsdorff,
‘we are within a hairbreadth of financial (and consequently general) crisis.
W e are getting through from week to week but there is a limit to every­
thing.* Russia was within an inch of being forced off the gold standard,
with disastrous consequences for its creditworthiness. Salvation lay in a
large foreign loan, and W itte’s skills and contacts were seen as essential for
its achievement. In April 1906 the loan was finally secured and Nicholas’s
letter of gratitude to W itte showed both his belief that the Prime Minis­
ter’s role had been decisive and his sense that the deal was ‘a big moral
triumph for the government and a pledge of future calm and of Russia’s
peaceful development’.40
To understand the circumstances of the loan, and why it proved so very
difficult to raise, it is necessary to retrace our steps a little in order to grasp
the broader European context within which Russia’s domestic crisis was
occurring. The years 1903-6 witnessed momentous changes in inter­
national relations in Europe. In the 1890s continental Europe had been
divided into two power blocs. O n the one hand there was the Franco-
Russian alliance, on the other the union between Germany and Austria-
Hungary, of which Italy was a thoroughly unreliable partner. Britain
stood aloof from both power blocs, though its relations with Berlin and
Vienna were in general better than those with France or Russia. Anglo-
Russian rivalry in Asia went deep and had on occasion brought the two
empires close to war. As late as 1898 Anglo-French confrontation in Africa
had also made armed conflict between those two countries appear possible.
W ithin the Franco-Russian alliance the chances of united military action
against Britain were envisaged and planned for.
By 1900 Britain’s rulers were becoming aware that although their coun­
try was still the mightiest state in Europe its power was declining relative
to that of its competitors, and especially Gennany. Resources no longer
fully matched commitments. It had long since been recognized that the
security of Britain’s possessions in the western hemisphere could not be
maintained by force and depended on good relations with the USA. In
1902 Britain’s position in the Far East was bolstered by the Anglo-Japanese
alliance. In 1903 agreement was reached with France on a range of colonial
questions, and relations between London and Paris quickly began to
improve. This raised a big question-mark over the Franco-Russian alliance.
In the first years of the twentieth century, Russia’s relations with Berlin
and Vienna were good. Petersburg’s attention was largely concentrated on
Asia, and London was seen as Russia’s greatest rival. The Anglo-Japanese
alliance was directed primarily against Russia and many Russians believed
156 Nicholas I I

that without it Tokyo would never have dared go to war in 1904. In the
Russo-Japanese W ar, Paris was Petersburg’s ally and London was linked
to Tokyo. W hen the Russian Baltic squadron en route to the Pacific opened
fire on the Hull fishing fleet war between Russia and Britain appeared
possible, to the horror of the French government. Meanwhile Germany
tilted towards Russia during the war, helping to coal Admiral
Rozhdestvensky’s ships as they made their long passage from the Baltic to
the Far East. In Paris it was clear that unless Anglo-Russian reconciliation
could be achieved, France’s foreign policy was heading towards the disas­
trous necessity of having to make a choice between Petersburg and London.
In Berlin it was perceived with equal clarity that Anglo-Russian antagon­
ism, together with the collapse of Russian military power as a result of
defeat in the Far East, provided a great opportunity to split the Franco-
Russian alliance and assert German pre-eminence in Europe. One strand in
this policy was the effort to forge an alliance with Petersburg. The other
was Berlin’s attempt in 1905 to challenge the right of France and Britain to
dispose of Morocco’s future without consulting Germany.
In the autumn of 1904 Berlin sought to play on Nicholas II’s resentment
of Britain’s support for Japan and his desire to stand up to London through
an alliance of the continental powers. Vladimir Lambsdorff, Russia’s
Foreign Minister, warned the Tsar to be very careful since *1 cannot fail to
perceive in the German government’s proposals a continual striving to
shatter the friendly relations between Russia and France’. Nevertheless,
when he met the German Emperor at Bjorkoe in July 1905, Nicholas
agreed to sign a secret alliance with Germany. The Treaty of Bjorkoe
stipulated that if either empire was attacked by another country its ally
would come to its aid with all available forces. The agreement would come
into operation automatically at the end of the Russo-Japanese W ar, at
which point the Russian Emperor would initiate the French into the
treaty’s terms and invite them to join the alliance. For Nicholas one
attraction of the treaty may have been the additional security it offered to
Russia’s now very vulnerable frontiers, in Europe as well as Asia. Above
all, however, the Emperor no longer perceived the German-Austrian-
Italian Triple Alliance as a threat. O n the contrary, Britain, whose alliance
with Japan was renewed and strengthened in 1905, was seen by him to be
the real danger. As he told Lambsdorff, Nowadays the Triple Alliance is,
in essence, only a historical memory and Germany, which then [when the
Franco-Russian alliance was signed] seemed very aggressive, is now per­
sistently proposing to ally itself with us in order to form, with an exclu­
sively peaceful goal, a common alliance of the continental powers, able to
resist English aspirations which have just been sharply confirmed in the
new Anglo-Japanese treaty’. Wilhelm II’s reaction to Bjorkoe shows that
his Russian cousin’s trust was a little naive. The German Emperor wrote
 T he Years o f Revolution, 1904-1907 157

to his Chancellor, Bernhard von Bulow, 4thus has the morning of 25 July
1905 off Bjorko been a turning point in European history, thanks to the
grace of God. The situation of my dear Fatherland has been greatly relieved
as it will now be freed from the terrible grip of the Franco-Russian vice.’41
The Treaty of Bjorkoe was the last gasp of old-style monarchical diplo­
macy. The two imperial cousins disposed of the fate of their empires in the
absence of both Bulow and Lambsdorff, the officials responsible for foreign
policy. Bulow was furious both at the treaty’s fine print and at the fact that
Wilhelm had acted without his knowledge. He immediately threatened to
resign, in the process almost causing the Kaiser a nervous breakdown. As
was his wont, Vladimir Lambsdorff, a much gentler man than Bulow,
merely wrung his hands in despair. The Foreign Minister knew full well
that there was no chance of persuading France to join a continental alliance
against Britain. For Paris, the whole purpose of the Franco-Russian alli­
ance was to act as a guarantee against German aggression. W ith the
Moroccan crisis escalating, French fear and resentment of Germany was at
its height. In 1905 a weakened Russia was in no position to twist France’s
arm or force it to accept Petersburg’s anti-British perspectives. The ques­
tion of the loan impinged here since the French financial market was bound
to be the key to success in this deal and Paris would certainly veto the
loan if any threat was raised against the Franco-Russian alliance. But
Lambsdorffs basic thinking rested on much deeper and longer-term
assumptions than this. As he wrote to A.I. Nelidov, the Russian ambassa­
dor in Paris, in October 1905: ‘from many years of experience I have
drawn the conclusion that to be on genuinely good terms with Germany
an alliance with France is necessary. Otherwise we will lose our indepen­
dence and I know nothing more painful than the German yoke.’ The point
was that Russia was weaker than Germany, and never more so than in
1905. Therefore, in Lambsdorffs view, it could only ensure respectful
treatment from Berlin if Paris stood by its side. Otherwise it would
become a German dependency. As he warned Nicholas in September 1905,
4if the conditions of this treaty become known in Paris then, in all prob­
ability, the long-term goal of German policy will be achieved - the
Franco-Russian alliance will be broken once and for all, and our relations
with England will be sharpened to such an extent that we will be entirely
isolated and linked exclusively to Germany’.42
After some crafty manoeuvring and a little humiliation Petersburg
succeeded in escaping from the Treaty of Bjorkoe, though at the inevitable
cost of annoying Wilhelm II. In the winter of 1905-6 the great aim of
Russian diplomacy was to avoid antagonizing either Paris or Berlin, and to
settle the Moroccan dispute as quickly as possible so that Russia could float
its loan on the Paris market. In the end the dispute was settled and the
Russian loan was successfully launched, but not before Petersburg had
158 Nicholas I I

been forced further to sour its relations with Berlin by coming down
firmly on the French side over the Moroccan question. Simultaneously,
and much to the disgust of General F.F. Palitsyn, the Chief of the Russian
General Staff, the anti-British aspect of Petersburg’s military agreement
with Paris was dropped at French insistence. In 1905-6 a significant,
though by no means final, step was taken towards what would be the line­
up of Europe’s great powers in 1914.
For much of 1905 and 1906, however, the great question asked by
foreign observers was whether Russia would ever be a great power
again. Russia’s internal crisis was at its most severe in the period between
the October 1905 general strike and the government’s successful dissolu­
tion of the first Duma in July 1906. During these months the collapse of
the imperial regime was a real possibility. Should this occur, German
military intervention was likely, if only to protect the very vulnerable
German community in Russia’s Baltic provinces. In the event of Russian
politics swinging as far towards anarchy and socialism as occurred in
1917, more widespread European intervention was certain in order to
protect the huge foreign investments in the empire. The thought that
Russia might go the same way as China or Persia horrified patriots, not
to mention Russia’s diplomatic representatives abroad. The prospect
also inspired great disquiet in Paris and London. W ith Russia eliminated
from the club of great powers German supremacy in Europe would be
inevitable. If a Russian regime had to be propped up by German bayonets
the picture would be clearer than ever. In July 1906 the Russian
ambassador in London, Count Alexander Benckendorff, confessed to
the new Foreign Minister, A.P. Izvolsky, that ‘I have two nightmares
in my head: bankruptcy and immediate [foreign] financial interference
and then, and worse, intervention. It seems mad to think this but
nevertheless I can’t stop myself, not as regards today but to the future.
This idea of German military intervention haunts people here [in
London].’43
In the event, BenckendorfPs fears proved unfounded. The imperial
regime survived. In April 1906 the first Duma was opened in an impressive
ceremony at the W inter Palace, full of pomp and circumstance. The scene
was described in the diary of the Grand Duke Constantine.

In the [Nicholas] Hall were many members of the Duma, some in evening
dress, others in suits or in Russian costume . . . The family had to gather
at 1.30 . . . We were all there . . . their Majesties arrived shortly before
2 o’clock. The Emperor was in the uniform of the Preobrazhensky regiment,
the Empress Marie Feodorovna in a white satin dress edged with Russian sable,
and the Empress Alexandra . . . in white and gold, with a diadem made out
of the huge pearls of Catherine II. The procession moved into the Hall of
 The Years o f Revolution, 1904-1907 159

St George . . . at its head they bore the imperial regalia - the seal, the sword,
the standard, the sceptre and the orb . . . After their Majesties had kissed the
cross Metropolitan Anthony began the religious service before the icon of the
Saviour . . . To the left stood members of the State Council, to the right
members of the Duma . . . The service finished . . . When everyone had
taken their places, the Emperor slowly and majestically approached the throne
. . . Upon a sign from the Emperor the Minister of the Court mounted the
steps and with a low bow presented a paper; the Emperor took it . . . and
stood up . . . loudly, distinctly and slowly he began to read the speech. The
more he read, the more strongly I was overcome by emotion. Tears flowed
from my eyes. The words of the speech were so good, so truthful and sounded
so sincere that it would have been impossible to add anything or to take any­
thing away . . . the Tsar ended his speech with the words: ‘May God come to
my aid and yours!944

Not all the Duma’s deputies were as impressed as the Grand Duke by
this display of imperial dignity and magnificence. Some critics argued that
such ceremonies were out of date and no longer impressed ordinary people.
Some deputies muttered about the contrast between imperial opulence and
peasant poverty. The ceremony had been planned by the Empress
Alexandra who, as always, came in for more than her fair share of criti­
cism. Nine years later when the Empress threw off her grandeur and
worked as a nurse during the Great W ar she also incurred criticism,
though this time from precisely the opposite point of view. Even Lili
Dehn, Alexandra’s close friend, commented that

perhaps the Empress erred in her conception of the mentality of the Russian
peasant. As an impartial critic, I fear this was the case. When she wore the Red
Cross, the sign of a universal Brotherhood of Pity, the average soldier only saw
in the Red Cross an emblem of her lost dignity as Empress of Russia. He was
shocked and embarrassed when she attended to his wounds and performed
almost menial duties. His idea of an Empress was never as a woman, but only
as an imposing and resplendent Sovereign.

In early twentieth-century Russia it was difficult to know how best to

stage the symbolism of monarchy. In Britain or Germany the bourgeois
citizen gloried in the fantasy of royal pomp and circumstance and at the
same time was comforted by the sense that the philistine patriotic values
and respectable family life of George V and Wilhelm II reflected those
existing around the middle-class fireside. But in Russia the average citizen,
and the monarchy’s key constituency, was not the cosy bourgeois but the
peasant. It was not so easy for educated outsiders to understand and
respond to his values and psychological needs. In fact, in ap era when
peasant values and mentalities were changing rapidly these needs were
160 Nicholas I I

likely to be contradictory and often unfathomable even to the peasant

himself.45
The government’s relations with the Duma took a predictable course.
The assembly was dominated by mémbers of the liberal Constitutional
Democratic party (the Kadets). They were committed to parliamentary
government, an amnesty for political prisoners, and partial expropriation
of the big estates. None of these principles were acceptable to the govern­
ment. Moreover it was clear that Kadet domination of the Duma had only
occurred because the socialist parties had refused to participate in the
elections. The initially unaffiliated radicals and peasants who joined the
Trudovik faction stood to the Kadets’ left and demanded, amongst other
things, total confiscation of all private land. The only questions were
when, not if, the government would decide to dissolve the Duma and
whether it would face effective mass resistance upon doing so. In July 1906
dissolution occurred and the population remained deaf to the Kadets’
appeal for a tax strike. Mutinies at the Baltic fleet bases of Kronstadt and
Sveaborg were quickly and brutally suppressed. When a second Duma was
elected and proved even more recalcitrant than the first it too was dissolved
without difficulty. This time, in the so-called coup of 16 June 1907, the
government combined dissolution with changing the electoral law to
ensure that future parliaments would be dominated by Russia’s property-
owning élite. The revolution had finally been defeated. The monar­
chy had survived, albeit in somewhat altered form, and at the price of great
bloodshed, hatred and bitterness.
 CHAPTER 7

Constitutional Monarch?
1907-1914

The years between the outbreak of the Russo-Japanese W ar in January

1904 and the dissolution of the second Duma in June 1907 were a diffi­
cult time for Nicholas. For an innocent and always optimistic patriot
like the Tsar, defeat and revolution were heavy and unexpected blows.
During this period Nicholas and Alexandra experienced one great joy. On
12 August 1904 an heir to the Russian throne was bom. The Emperor
wrote in his diary:4an unforgettable great day for us in which God’s grace
visited us so manifestly . . . Words do not suffice with which one could
thank God sufficiently for this comfort sent by Him in this year of hard
trials.* The little boy was called Aleksei, in memory of Peter the Great’s
father, who was Nicholas’s favourite ancestor. The child’s name had
symbolic resonance. Like many Russian conservatives the Emperor looked
back nostalgically to the era before Peter introduced Western ideas, in the
process creating the divide between Westernized élites and the
Russian masses which remained so crucial right down to the empire’s
demise. In the reign of a new Aleksei, so his father no doubt hoped,
Russia would regain the harmony and patriotism of the times when
’ancient and medieval peoples were strong in spirit, they were not con­
fused by theories or by the various considerations of the Social Democrats,
Trudoviki, and such people, but marched firmly down the road of the
creation of a realm and the consolidation of their power’.1
Between 1895 and 1901 the Empress had given birth to four daughters:
Olga, Tatiana, Marie and Anastasia. The four little girls were beautiful,
healthy and lively children who were greatly loved by their parents.
Nicholas was a fine father and the family circle was full of love, warmth
and trust. If the Emperor had a favourite it was probably Tatiana, whose
personality came closest to that of her mother. Olga, his eldest daughter,
was the most thoughtful, sensitive and intelligent of the four. Marie, the
third, with huge grey eyes and a warm-hearted, simple, friendly manner,
was always the easiest to get on with on first acquaintance. Anastasia,
162 Nicholas I I

bom in 1901, was notorious as the family’s comedian. Under Russian

law, however, no woman could inherit the crown. Had Nicholas died
before 1904, the throne would have gone to his kind-hearted but weak-
willed younger brother, the Grand Duke Michael. Since Michael was a
bachelor in 1904 and subsequently contracted an illegal and morganatic
marriage, the Romanov inheritance would then have passed to a younger
brother of Alexander III, the Grand Duke Vladimir, and his descendants.
Tension and mutual dislike between the 'Vladimir branch’ and the
imperial couple were never far below the surface in the twentieth cen­
tury. Much therefore hung on the life of the little boy bom in August
1904. All the more horrifying was the discovery that the child had
haemophilia.
In the Edwardian era there was no treatment for haemophilia and little
way of alleviating the terrible pain it periodically caused. The chances
were against a haemophiliac living into middle age, let alone being able to
pursue a normal life. For any parents who loved their children as intensely
as the imperial couple did, the physical and emotional strain of a
haemophiliac son was bound to be great. In the case of Nicholas and
Alexandra, however, matters were made worse by the fact that it was
considered unthinkable to admit that the future autocrat of all the Russias
was incurably ill and quite possibly doomed to an early death. The natural
sympathy and understanding which might have flowed to the parents had
therefore to be foregone. Moreover, however harrowing one of Aleksei’s
periodic illnesses might be, a monarch - let alone a Russian autocrat -
had always to keep up appearances. It says something for Nicholas’s extra­
ordinary self-control that, adoring Aleksei as he did, he nevertheless never
let the mask slip. As Alexandra herself once wrote to him, ‘you will
always wear a cheery face and carry all hidden inside'.2
Inevitably, however, it was the mother who bore the greater burden
during her son’s illnesses, not to mention the incessant worry even
when he was relatively healthy. Nor could she escape the guilt bom of
the knowledge that she was the cause of her son’s suffering and of the
extra burden of worry about his dynasty’s future which had been placed
on her husband’s shoulders. Physically frail and always very highly strung,
the Empress poured her last drop of energy into watching over her son
and nursing him during his attacks. As a mother Alexandra clearly out­
shone her cousin, Queen Ena of Spain, who more or less banished her
haemophiliac eldest child from Madrid and failed to see him on occasion
for months on end. But the effort cost the Empress dear. She was often
too ill and exhausted to play the role of a monarch’s consort, incurring
great odium as a result. Moreover, the strain of Aleksei’s illness pushed
his mother close to nervous collapse. As the Grand Duchess Olga rightly
commented, 'the birth of a son, which should have been the happiest
 Constitutional Monarch? 1907-1914 163

event in the lives of Nicky and Alicky, became their heaviest cross’.3
For the Empress religion was the great consolation. She never doubted
that God intervened in the world, testing human beings, punishing them
for their sins, but ultimately forgiving and rescuing them if they prayed
and believed with sufficient purity and commitment. During the Russo-
Japanese W ar, for instance, Alexandra ascribed Russia’s defeats to God’s
punishment for the country’s sins. Paul Benckendorff wrote to his brother
in June 1904 that ‘a very visible religious exaltation at present plays the
major role’. Alexandra’s religion was that of the heart, not the intellect.
She once wrote to Nicholas that ’our church . . . needs soul and not
brain’. Reason and dogma were insignificant beside direct religious
experience, and purity of heart and conscience. The Empress’s attitude
was that of the Pietists, who had a major influence on the mentality of the
eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Prussian aristocracy. It was similar,
too, to that of the evangelical movement, led by Lord Radstock, which
had swept Petersburg high society in the 1870s. But to this essentially
Protestant conception of faith Alexandra added a strong element of
Orthodox mysticism and superstition. For the Empress, as for her
husband, probably the most uplifting religious experience of the whole
reign was the ceremony surrounding the re-burial in the depths of the
Russian countryside of the newly canonized Saint Seraphim of Sarov in the
summer of 1903. By the time the church service was over evening had
fallen. At least 300,000 people had gathered outside the church, in which
the Emperor, both empresses and many grand dukes had participated in
the service.

Leaving the church we truly found ourselves in another temple. People

standing in reverent silence filled the grounds of the monastery; every hand
held a candle. Many had faced the cathedral and knelt to pray. As we passed
through the wall of the monastery, we came upon the same spectacle, but
now even more majestic and awesome. Stretched before us was an enormous
multitude. Everyone had a candle, and some even held several . . . Here,
literally, was a pilgrims’ encampment. . . Chanting voices arose from various
places, but the singers could not be seen, and the voices seemed to come from
heaven itself. . . though the night passed, the singing continued.4

A.A. Kireev’s views on Orthodoxy, Russian nationhood and the union

between Tsar and people endeared him to Alexandra. In addition, the old
general knew how to put her at her ease, liked her, thought her intelligent
and sympathized with her plight. His diaries are therefore a good record of
the Empress’s state of mind. In March 1904 one of Alexandra’s ladies-in-
waiting agreed with Kireev that Alexandra was a practical Englishwoman
on the surface and a mystical Russian underneath. She believed deeply in
164 Nicholas I I

the religious significance of autocracy, in other words in the bonds of

responsibility and affection that tied an Orthodox Tsar both to God and to
the Russian people. "She looks at Russia through the prism of the Sarov
festivities and the people’s acclamations in Moscow during Lent.’ The
revolution of 1905 and her son’s health caused her huge anxiety. In
February and March 1908, for instance, Kireev recorded that although
Alexandra’s health was slowly improving, she was still in a very nervous
state. She kept having terrible dreams about the murder of her husband
and son. She knew too that she was widely disliked and that Petersburg
society was awash with calumnies about her. Two years later, in almost
the last entry in his diary, Kireev wrote that Alexandra’s religiosity was
growing all the time but it was a strange and mystical faith, an altogether
odd sort of Christianity. The Empress felt that her prayers would protect
her husband. Kireev, without knowing about the heir’s haemophilia,
realized that Alexandra’s mental state had much to do with her son. He
feared ‘psychic disorders’ would destroy the Empress and commented that
her state of mind was becoming ‘terrifyingly dangerous’. Nine months
earlier he had mentioned Rasputin’s name in his diary for the first time.
‘They probably look on “ Grisha” as a sort of mascot and think that he
brings good luck?! But such an influence can take very undesirable
forms.’5
The imperial couple first met Rasputin in the autumn of 1905, a fort­
night after Nicholas’s October manifesto had promised Russia a constitu­
tion. Like most of the other rogues who gained access to the Emperor,
Rasputin was introduced to him by Romanov relations, in this case the
Grand Duke Nicholas (Nikolaevich), his wife and sister-in-law. Rasputin
was a Siberian peasant who had become a full-time pilgrim and holy man.
His was the voice of Russian popular religion, whose connection to the
hierarchy and dogma of the Orthodox Church was often rather debatable.
The Orthodox priest and the rituals he performed stood at the centre of
village life but pagan spirits, sorcerers and hobgoblins lurked around its
boundaries. Like others of his type Rasputin found protection both in
Petersburg high society and, more important, in the Church hierarchy as a
sincere, repentant, though no doubt sinful, holy man. He was also seen as
the authentic voice of Russian popular Christianity. Subsequently, as the
damage Rasputin was doing to the prestige of the monarchy and the
Church became apparent, many of his former patrons turned against him,
sometimes denouncing him to the imperial couple. Nicholas and Alexandra
were, however, to a great extent armoured against the attacks of such
turncoats. S.S. Fabritsky recalled that T personally had to hear on many
occasions the same comment expressed with weariness both by the
Emperor and the Empress: “ W e well know that we only have to get close
to anyone whom we like for whatever reason, then people immediately
 Constitutional Monarch? 1 9 0 7 -1 9 Î4 165

begin to say vile things about him .” ’ In the deeply jealous and backbiting
world of Petersburg there was much truth in this comment, even where
Rasputin was concerned.6
Rasputin’s hold over Nicholas and Alexandra was rooted in his unique
ability to stop the bleeding when Tsarevich Aleksei had one of his attacks.
No one has ever been able to provide a fully satisfactory medical explana­
tion for how Rasputin achieved this. In 1913 the Tsarevich suffered his
worst-ever attack while staying in his father’s hunting lodge at Spala. The
child lay literally at death’s door, only to recover miraculously after
Rasputin’s intervention. The Grand Duchess Olga recalls that ‘later that
year I met Professor Pedorov, who told me that the recovery was wholly
inexplicable from a medical point of view’.7
The Grand Duchess herself witnessed an earlier such ‘miracle’ when
Aleksei had an accident in the park at Tsarskoe Selo.

I wonder what Alicky [the Empress] must have thought - and that proved
the first crisis out of many. The poor child lay in such pain, dark patches under
his eyes and his litde body all distorted, and the leg terribly swollen. The
doctors were just useless. They looked more frightened than any of us and
they kept whispering among themselves. There seemed just nothing they
could do, and hours went by until they had given up all hope. It was getting
late and I was persuaded to go to my rooms. Alicky then sent a message to
Rasputin in St Petersburg. He reached the palace about midnight or even
later. By that time I had reached my apartments and early in the morning
Alicky called me to go to Aleksei’s room. I just could not believe my eyes.
The little boy was not just alive - but well. He was sitting up in bed, the
fever gone, the eyes clear and bright, not a sign of any swelling on his leg. The
horror of the evening before became an incredibly distant nightmare. Later I
learned from Alicky that Rasputin had not even touched the child but had
merely stood at the foot of the bed and prayed, and of course, some people
would at once have it that Rasputin’s prayers were simply coincidental with
my nephew's recovery. In the first place, any doctor would tell you that an
attack of such severity cannot be cured within a few hours. Secondly, the
coincidence might have answered if it happened, say, once or twice, but I
could not even count how many times it happened!8

For the Empress, Rasputin’s miraculous interventions to save her son’s

life showed that he was ‘a man of God’s sent to help’ the imperial couple
through the many trials and tribulations of their lives. But it mattered
greatly to her as well that Rasputin was a man of the Russian people. By
now the reader will be weary at the numerous references in this book to
Nicholas and Alexandra’s deeply held populism. This attitude was actu­
ally quite widespread in Russian educated society both on the right and on
the left of the political spectrum. Viewed from one perspective, the
166 Nicholas I I

courage, patience and humility of the Russian peasant were a great deal
more attractive than the habits and morals of either the aristocracy or the
intelligentsia. But psychological factors also influenced many educated
Russians towards a passionate faith in ‘the people’.9
The term ‘populism’ dated back to the 1870s in Russia. It was applied
to young radicals who in the 1860s and 1870s turned against the world of
their parents, the state and Victorian bourgeois society. These young men
and women created a separate little world of their own, an isolated revolu­
tionary counter-culture based on worship of ‘the people’ and commitment
to their well-being. There were many reasons for the emergence of this
counter-culture, not to mention the fanatical and irrational forms it some­
times took: one such reason was the isolation and loss of emotional balance
of people cut adrift from their families and their natural social milieu and
often frantically in search of some alternative star by which their lives
might be guided and given purpose. In a curious way there were parallels
with the Empress Alexandra, lonely and isolated from upper-class Russia,
and driven by her emotions to seek a communion less with the real Russian
people than with her vision of what they ought to be. Still more obvious
was the manner in which the Empress fitted into the tradition of Russian
conservative populism. The most influential strand in nineteenth-century
conservative Russian thought was Slavophilism, whose last major publicist
was none other than General A.A. Kireev. Slavophiles preached that
Russia’s religious, cultural and political values had been preserved and
guarded by the Orthodox peasantry, not by the Westernized élites.
Fyodor Dostoevsky stood partly in this tradition, strongly believing that
educated Russians must go to the simple people to learn from them the
meaning of Christian faith.10
Nicholas II and his family shared many of these beliefs. After her
marriage, his sister Olga was at last able to come into close contact with
the peasantry by visiting the villages of her husband’s estate. ‘I went from
village to village, nobody interfering with me. I went into their huts, I
talked to them and felt at my ease among them. There were hardships and
I saw penury too, of a kind I had never imagined to exist. But there was
also kindness, magnanimity, and an unbreakable faith in God. As I saw it,
those peasants were rich for all their poverty, and I had the sense of being a
genuine human being when I was among them.’11
The Emperor’s position made it impossible for him to act in his sister’s
manner. Nevertheless, on a number of occasions between 1907 and 1914
great celebrations and anniversaries allowed him to meet huge numbers
of peasants, with whom he did his utmost to come into personal contact
and from whom he in general drew thunderous applause. This helped to
reassure the Emperor that the monarchy still retained the loyalty of the
peasant masses, whose riots in 1905-6 could comfortingly be ascribed to
 Constitutional Monarch? 1 9 0 7 -1 9 Î4 167

the efforts of outside agitators from the intelligentsia, and particularly to

Jews and other ‘un-Russian’ and unpatriotic elements. Shortly after the
great celebrations in 1909 near Poltava to mark the two hundredth anni­
versary of the famous victory over the Swedes, Nicholas received the
French military attaché at an audience. When Colonel Matton
commented on the massive crowds’ warm reception of the Emperor,
Nicholas responded in a manner which perhaps reflected not just belief but
also defensiveness and the need for reassurance.

Yes, he said to me, making allusion to the cheers directed towards him, we
were no longer at Petersburg and one could not say that the Russian people do
not love their Emperor . . . He is certain that the rural population, the
owners of land, the nobility and the army remain loyal to the Tsar; the
revolutionary elements are composed above all of Jews, students, of landless
peasants and of some workers. These elements were not represented at
Poltava.

In part, too, Rasputin’s role was to act as the authentic and reassuring
voice of the loyal Russian people, a voice which might blot out the
memory of the radicals and agitators whom the peasants had been cozened
into electing to the first and second Dumas.12
To some extent not only Alexandra but also Nicholas fell victim to
their own need to believe in the people’s devotion. The great myth of the
union between Tsar and people was the cornerstone of the whole tsarist
political edifice. Revolutionaries and historians have expended much
energy in explaining how the Russian peasant was hoodwinked by this
myth and bemoaning the fact. Ironically, Nicholas and Alexandra were as
effectively hoodwinked as any peasant. Nevertheless, it would be wrong
to imagine that Nicholas’s conception of his relationship with the Russian
people was the product simply of naivety and self-delusion. Nor was his
frustration at the obstacles that divided him from the peasantry difficult to
understand.
The Emperor was right to believe that the monarchy was the only
political institution in Russia with some hold on the emotions and loyalty
of both the élites and the masses. Nicholas’s simple, patriotic and
rather philistine values, not to mention the imperial couple’s cosy
domestic lifestyle, were mocked by much of Petersburg high society and
the intelligentsia. But they were potentially more attractive to the com­
mon man and woman. The Emperor genuinely admired, even idealized,
the sterling qualities of the Russian peasant and soldier. And he was not
wrong in thinking that elements of traditional Russian political thinking
were still deeply embedded in the Russian people’s mentality. In 1910
Peter Durnovo, referring to this tradition, commented that ‘according to
168 Nicholas I I

the ideas of our people the Tsar has to be terrible but gracious, terrible first
and foremost and gracious afterwards’. Aspects of Soviet political history
were to bear out this comment. Tsarist religious imagery and paternalism
had their echo in the Lenin cult and in the opinion, still often found
among ordinary Soviet citizens even in the 1970s, that ‘at least Lenin
loved us’. Stalin’s dictatorship was from one angle tsarism at its most
medieval and ruthless, and the dictator himself consciously adopted the
mantle of Ivan the Terrible.
Nor even was Rasputin’s voice always merely absurd and self-seeking.
Sometimes he did express genuine peasant fears and aspirations. In the
autumn of 1913, scared by rumours of impending war and worried by the
newspapers’ incitement of pro-Slav, nationalist frenzy, Rasputin gave two
interviews in which he said that peace should be preserved at all costs. Not
merely should Christians not slaughter each other on principle but, in
comparison to the supposedly Christian peoples of the Balkans, ‘the Turks
are more fair and peaceful on religious things. You can see how it is - but
it comes out different in the newspapers.’ A contrast to this piece of folk
wisdom was the advice given to Nicholas II in Holy Week 1913 by the
President of the Duma, M.V. Rodzyanko. Referring to Russian pro-Slav
feeling, the elected representative of Russia’s élites commented,
‘one must profit from the general enthusiasm. The Straits [Con­
stantinople] must belong to us. W ar will be accepted with joy and will
serve only to increase the prestige of the impend power.’ There is no
question as to whose words were wiser or better reflected the feelings of
the mass of ordinary Russians whose blood would no doubt need to be
spilt generously for the Straits and the government’s prestige in the event
of a European war.13
This is, of course, not to deny that Rasputin’s closeness to the im pend
couple was a disaster for the monarchy. The danger was not the influence
that the starets (‘holy man’) actually wielded, which was dways wildly
exaggerated by Petersburg society gossip. Before 1914, despite endless
stories, there is no evidence that he had any politicd role or influence. He
did, however, help to cause turmoil and division within the Orthodox
Church, the milieu from which he sprang. Rasputin was widely, and
probably correctly, credited with the promotion of the monk Varaava to
the bishopric of Kargopol. The ferocious battle between Rasputin and the
anti-Semitic demagogues Bishop Hermogen of Tsaritsyn and his ally, the
monk Iliodor, brought both the Church and the monarchy into disrepute.
As was his habit, Rasputin boasted to Iliodor about his influence on
Nicholas and Alexandra, giving the monk some letters from the Empress
to prove his bona fides. Iliodor broadcast the boasts and the letters across
the length and breadth of the empire: the boasts were taken at face value
and the harmless if flowery letters augmented by pornographic counterfeit
 Constitutional Monarch? 1907-1914 169

ones. W hen in 1912 Nicholas banished Hermogen and Iliodor from

Petersburg in order to put a lid on the scandal, this was grist to the mill of
those who believed Rasputin’s voice in the Church was all-powerful.
At this time a ferocious argument raged in society over the need to free
the Orthodox Church from the state’s control. Rasputin’s role was a
God-given weapon to those who argued, quite correctly, that state
domination was not in Orthodoxy’s interest. The Rasputin issue was
taken up in the Duma and, by invoking parliamentary privilege, then
given wide publicity in the press. The key figure behind this move was the
Octobrist party leader, Alexander Guchkov. The latter stood for the
independence of the Church and for the removal of Nicholas II, the other
Romanovs and their ‘cliques’ from an active role in politics and govern­
ment. The party leader’s desire to achieve this goal to some extent
reflected his ambition to fill the resulting political vacuum himself but he
also believed that the Romanovs’ removal would contribute to a more
intelligent and efficient system of government. Guchkov may well have
been right but it is a moot point whether élites as vulnerable as
Russia’s could afford to wash their dirty linen in public and damage the
monarchy’s prestige in the way he did. A parliamentary system, in which
rival political leaders openly competed for influence, denouncing each
other and the government in the process, had its dangers from the sel­
fish point of view of the élites. For these élites were now operating
in an increasingly literate society in which preliminary censorship had
been abolished and a number of mass-circulation newspapers had come
into existence.
Guchkov’s goals and tactics were, as already mentioned, similar to
those pursued by Maximilian Harden in Germany in an effort to drive
Wilhelm II and his irresponsible entourage out of active politics. Even
Harden’s accusations of spiritualism and homosexuality in Wilhelm’s
entourage had their echoes in the Rasputin affair. Both Harden and
Guchkov were middle-class representatives of the new urban society
created by the industrial revolution. Guchkov, the elected party politician
from a family of industrialists, and Harden, the newspaper editor, were
trying to rid their respective political systems of any but symbolic ‘relics of
feudalism’. But Harden, unlike Guchkov, was operating in a rich and
relatively stable society with a huge middle class, a rather conservative
peasantry and a working class, much of which had in practice given up the
goal of socialist revolution. That made his campaign both safer and more
likely to succeed than was the case in Russia. Nicholas II still controlled
the army, the police and most of the bureaucracy. His hold on peasant
loyalty was much greater than that of any political leader elected by
Russia’s élites and middle class. Unlike in Germany peasants still
made up 80 per cent of the population. In these circumstances, unless a
170 Nicholas I I

Tsar voluntarily accepted relegation to a purely symbolic role, only

revolution could push him aside. But for members of Russia’s élites,
as they well knew, revolution was a very dangerous fire with which to
play.”
For Peter Stolypin and Vladimir Kokovstov, Russia’s prime ministers
from 1906 to 1914, the Rasputin affair was an extra cross to bear. Their
position was made more difficult by the fact that they never knew the full
story of the heir’s illness or Rasputin’s role in preserving his life. This
increased their frustration at the Emperor’s unwillingness to remove the
starets from Petersburg once and for all. Nevertheless, Rasputin’s signifi­
cance in pre-war Russian politics should not be exaggerated. The starets
was an embarrassment to the government and the affair’s impact on the
dynasty’s prestige was a matter for concern. But among the problems
faced by Russian prime ministers between 1907 and 1914 the Rasputin
affair ranked nowhere near the top of the list.
One great difficulty was the new, hybrid and untested constitutional
set-up. Russia still had an emperor who was described in his official title as
‘autocrat’ and who aspired to be the final arbiter of his government’s
policy. But the monarch now had a potential rival in his Chairman of the
Council of Ministers, who looked on himself as a true prime minister, at
least in embryo. Unless the Emperor gave his full backing to his Prime
Minister the latter would find it impossible to impose his will on other
ministers and senior officials, in which case the co-ordination of policy
between departments, which was the whole point behind the creation of
the Chairman’s position in 1905, would become impossible. But if the
monarch did resign his governmental role in favour of his premier then his
sovereign authority could in time become somewhat akin to that of the
theoretical sovereign in a contemporary West European democracy,
namely ‘the people’. All politicians and officials would act in his name and
proclaim his virtue, while often privately decrying the occasional political
activism of their naive and ignorant sovereign. Periodically he would have
the job of appointing and dismissing his Prime Minister. In the interim,
however, his influence on how his country was governed would usually
be limited. Quite enough has already been said about Nicholas II’s concep­
tion of monarchy to make it clear that he would not easily accept this
reduced role.
Nor was potential rivalry between the monarch and his Prime Minister
the only problem. Russia now had a parliament without whose consent
neither laws nor much of the budget could be brought into force. It is
in the nature of separate executive and legislative branches to fight,
particularly when both sides are anxious to assert precedents in a new
constitutional order and when, as was the case in Russia, the executive
bureaucracy is widely distrusted in society. The party leaders in the Duma
 Constitutional Monarch? 1907-1914 171

were certain to push for more power and Nicholas was equally certain to
resist them. Standing between Tsar and Duma, and often feeling they had
the full support of neither, the ministers’ lot was an unhappy one. More­
over, the situation was further complicated by the fact that the Russian
legislature had two chambers, a lower house (the Duma) and an upper one
(the State Council). Even after property-owners came to dominate the
Duma’s electorate when the franchise was changed by the decree of 16
June 1907, the lower house was still considerably less conservative than
the upper one. The State Council was packed with former ministers and
senior officials, most of them both elderly and conservative. Many of these
men had doubts about the viability of the whole constitutional system,
not to mention the specific reforms proposed by the Duma. Some of these
mandarins were also big landowners, as were the majority of their elected
colleagues who comprised the other half of the upper house. Like the
Tsar, the State Council possessed an absolute veto over legislation. Here,
in other words, was a recipe for stalemate and frustration. The most
frustrated person of all in this system was likely to be the Prime Minister
who, to govern effectively, had somehow to satisfy the very different
wishes of the monarch, his fellow ministers and the two legislative
chambers.15
In the first years of Peter Stolypin’s premiership matters appeared to be
more or less under control. Stolypin’s prestige and his vibrant, command­
ing personality enabled him to dominate the political system. Minister of
Internal Affairs from the spring of 1906, from 23 July 1906 Stolypin
combined this post with the premiership. Impressive in stature and blessed
with a fine, strong face, Stolypin radiated vigour, forcefiilness and self-
confidence. Like a number of other ministers in the wake of the 1905
revolution, Stolypin was much younger than had been the ministerial
norm in the 1890s. O n appointment as Prime Minister he was only 44.
Promoted straight from a provincial governorship to the post of Minister
of Internal Affairs, Stolypin lacked knowledge of the workings of central
government but brought a gust of fresh air into the corridors of the
Petersburg bureaucracy. He had a talent for acting, oratory and public
relations rare among senior officials. His powerful speeches in the Duma,
together with the crushing responses he gave to revolutionary and opposi­
tion spokesmen, rallied Russian conservatives and raised their confidence.
No one could doubt his courage and patriotism. Stolypin was initially
helped by the fact that he was neither a Petersburg bureaucrat nor a
member of the capital’s high society. Like many members of the third
and fourth Dumas, he came from an old and wealthy family of the provin­
cial landowning nobility. This endeared him to both members of the new
parliament and Nicholas II.
Stolypin’s prestige was also enhanced by the savage bombing of his
172 Nicholas I I

home in August 1906 which killed dozens of innocent people and crippled
one of his children. Vladimir Kokovtsov, then serving as Minister of
Finance, recalls that ‘this awful blow directed at his own family did not
disturb the outward composure and great self-control with which he
continued to fight the extreme elements of the revolution . . . After
August 12 . . . he acquired great moral prestige. His nobility, courage,
and devotion to the state were indisputable. He gained in stature and was
unanimously acclaimed master of the situation.’ Four days after Stolypin’s
house was destroyed the Empress Marie wrote to her son, ‘when will all
these horrible crimes and revolting murders stop? There can be no peace or
safety in Russia before these monsters are exterminated! W hat a blessing
that Stolypin’s girls are recovering, and that by a miracle he was not hurt.
How awful it is for the poor parents to see the sufferings of their own
innocent children!’ Three months later Nicholas informed her that ‘there
is still a possibility of more disgusting attempts on the lives of various
people. I don’t feel happy about good Stolypin. He and his family are
living in the W inter Palace; and he comes to Peterhof for reports by
steamer. I cannot tell you how much 1 have come to like and respect this
man!’16
As is the case with democratic electorates in contemporary Western
politics, new Russian ministers tended to enjoy a honeymoon period with
their sovereign. Stolypin’s honeymoon lasted longer than most. This was
in part because during his first two years in office he gave priority to
repressing the revolution and reforming the system of peasant landowner-
ship by weakening the village commune and encouraging the creation of
separate family farms. Both these policies enjoyed widespread support
within the ruling élites. In addition, memories of the revolution
were still fresh and Stolypin was seen as the saviour and indispensable
guarantor of the social order. Even A.A. Kireev, for instance, could not
withhold his admiration for the Prime Minister despite strong misgivings
about his concessions to parliamentarism. In the spring of 1907 he wrote
that ‘although one can’t agree with the whole government programme,
and despite the recognition of Russia as a constitutional country and the
Octobrism which grates on my ears, one can’t but welcome Stolypin’s
civil courage, his conviction and his skill as an orator . . . One feels that
now at last we have a government again.’ Even in December 1908 Kireev
believed that ‘it is beyond question that Stolypin is a strong character and
at the present moment is irreplaceable; he is a gentleman and is not of the
Milyukov [radical-liberal] stamp*.17
By 1909-10 Stolypin’s stock among the élite was falling. Argu­
ments were growing between the Duma, the government and the State
Council as to whether it was yet safe to rescind the ‘states of emergency’
by which much of Russia was governed. This would allow the civil
 Constitutional Monarch? 1907-1914 173

rights promised in the constitution to come into effect and would thereby
reduce the anger of much of Russian educated society against bureaucratic
arbitrariness. Some of Stolypin’s proposed reforms were threatening the
position of powerful groups and interests. The Orthodox hierarchy
denounced efforts to widen and guarantee the rights of other religions
and of non-believers. Industrialists complained about new welfare legisla­
tion for workers. Above all, the landowning aristocracy attacked
Stolypin’s plans to democratize in part local government while at the
same time increasing the control over it of the central administration. The
landowning class disliked bureaucracy only a little less than democracy.
Both were seen as threats to the aristocracy’s power, whose shakiness
had just been rudely illustrated in the 1905 revolution. Landowners
struggling to make big estates profitable were terrified at the prospect of
the increased tax burdens a more democratic local government might
impose. The aristocracy’s intransigence was a measure of its weakness.
Unlike in nineteenth-century England, the upper class felt itself too poor
and too weak to be able to make concessions, buy off opposition and
survive. Under the new constitutional system, the aristocracy was far
better able to defend its interests than had ever previously been the case.
For the first time, the landowners were allowed to organize on a national
scale and their pressure group, the United Nobility, became the single
most powerful lobby in Russia. Moreover, landowning nobles were now
the biggest group in the Duma and were also well entrenched in the State
Council. They could and did block legislation that offended their inter­
ests. The Russian situation was very similar to that of Prussia in the
decades after the 1848 revolution. W hen absolute monarchy gave way to a
conservative and very restricted constitutionalism the aristocracy gained
greatly in political power in both countries. As the class most trusted by
the monarchy, the landowners acquired the predominant weight in parlia­
ment in both Petersburg and Berlin. The agrarian lobby was a thorn in the
flesh of Wilhelm Il’s government. The Russian agrarians helped to wreck
Stolypin.18
Rather like in pre-1914 Germany, Stolypin turned to nationalism as a
means to unite the various sections of the élite. This worked up to a
point. After initial arguments, for instance, the government, the Duma
and the State Council did to some extent co-operate in rebuilding the
army and navy from the ruins of the Russo-Japanese War. Unlike in
Germany, however, the Russian government was too weak militarily and
too scared of revolution to run the risk of appealing to nationalist senti­
ment by an adventurous foreign policy. Humiliation at the hands of
Austria and Germany during the Bosnian crisis of 1908-9 further damaged
the government’s nationalist credentials. After Petersburg had been forced
to back down and recognize Austria’s annexation of Bosnia in the face of
174 Nicholas I I

an ultimatum from Berlin, Kireev wrote in his diary: ‘If Russia were to
have any successes at all, then one could rebuild one’s fortune on them but
there is nothing of the kind . . . On the conclusion of peace [with Japan]
the Tsar said to me “ Russia has been shamed’’ and from that day to this
nothing has happened to redeem its honour.’ Bereft of triumphs in the
field of foreign policy, Stolypin was to some extent forced back on
mobilizing Russian nationalist sentiment against ‘disloyal’ minorities
within the empire, particularly the Poles and the Finns. But although anti-
Finnish and anti-Polish legislation could get through the Duma and the
State Council, it inevitably worsened relations between the empire’s
nationalities and at the same time was a very ineffective way of appealing
to latent nationalist sentiment among the Russian masses.19
As frustration and opposition to Stolypin began to grow amongst both
the élites and Russian society as a whole, the Emperor’s restiveness
also increased. Even with Stolypin as Prime Minister, Nicholas still
enjoyed a great deal of power. When he badly wanted something, he
could usually get his way. The Emperor, for instance, vetoed Stolypin’s
plan to remove most restrictions on Jewish civil rights, following the
traditional conservative argument that the Russian peasantry was too
backward and economically vulnerable to be exposed to exploitation by
crafty Jewish capitalists. Nicholas forced on an unwilling government the
re-creation of an ocean-going battle-fleet and destroyed the Council of
State Defence when the generals tried to use it as a means to block the
navy’s demands for extra money. In his view a mighty navy was needed
not just to reassert Russia’s position as a great power after the catastrophe
of Tsushima but also to make Europe’s two greatest naval rivals, Britain
and Germany, fearful of antagonizing Russia and driving her fleet into the
‘opposition’ camp. Potentially, in other words, the fleet gave Russian
foreign policy the possibility of manoeuvring between Europe’s two lead­
ing powers, Britain and Germany.
Equally determined was Nicholas’s campaign to instill patriotic values
into Russian youth by encouraging the creation of a militarized form of
boy scouts - the so-called poteshnie - in the empire’s schools. The
Emperor pursued this policy in defiance of the views of his Minister of
Education, Professor A.N. Schwartz, whose guiding principle it was to
keep anything touching on politics out of Russian schools. Anger at
imperial interference was one factor behind Schwartz’s decision to quit his
ministerial job, which itself is a small commentary on the limited range of
possibilities for a monarch who had to balance the desire to have his own
way against the need to retain effective ministers.20
It was with Stolypin himself, however, that this issue became most
pressing. Even in the field of foreign policy, which the constitution had
declared to be the monarch’s sole responsibility, Stolypin began to play a
 Constitutional Monarch? 1907-1914 175

major role. Very significantly, in the autumn of 1908 a threat of resigna­

tion by Stolypin resulted in the abandonment of the policy of doing a
deal with Austria over Vienna’s annexation of Bosnia and Hercegovina.
This policy had been agreed between Nicholas and his Foreign Minister,
A.P. Izvolsky, who in strict constitutional principle ought to have been
the only two people with a major say in the matter. But Stolypin’s
position was too powerful and his personality too commanding for his
opposition to be ignored. Perhaps it is not entirely surprising that
Nicholas once commented to his sister, ‘sometimes Stolypin is so high­
handed that I get annoyed, but it does not last, and he is the best Prime
Minister I have had’. W hen on 9 May 1909 Nicholas gathered up his
courage to override Stolypin’s objections and veto the Naval General Staff
Bill, he felt constrained to write to his Prime Minister in the following
terms: ‘Remember that we live in Russia and not abroad or in Finland
. . . and therefore I will not allow any thought of retirem ent. . . I warn
you that I categorically reject a request for dismissal from you or anyone
else.’21
The crisis over the Naval General Staff Bill seemed at first sight to have
blown up out of a trivial matter. The Duma had sought to assert its legiti­
mate role in military affairs by confirming the list of personnel of the
newly established Naval General Staff, which had been created in the wake
of the war with Japan. Looked at more broadly, however, the issue con­
cerned whether the monarch or parliament was to control the armed
forces and was therefore of fundamental significance. This was the ques­
tion over which Charles I and the House of Commons had split in 1641-2.
It was also the issue around which the confrontation between the Prussian
monarch and parliament had revolved in 1862-3, thereby bringing O tto
von Bismarck to power. The establishment of a parliament in Russia made
it very likely that a struggle would occur over the armed forces and that
both executive and legislature would be very anxious to establish firm
precedents in this matter from the start. The Duma and, above all, the
Octobrist leader, Guchkov, conducted a powerful and concerted campaign
to build up allies in the armed forces, weaken the links to the court of both
the army and the navy, and establish their patriotic credentials as respon­
sible and legitimate actors in the military field. It was partly in order to
keep the Duma at arm’s length and maintain imperial control over the
armed forces that General V.A. Sukhomlinov was appointed Minister of
W ar in 1909. As Nicholas’s watchdog in the army, Sukhomlinov was
loathed by influential figures in the Duma, the press and society. Political
battles became entangled with rivalries within the army. In time the
Grand Duke Nicholas, Sukhomlinov’s main military enemy, was elevated
by part of public opinion to the rank of statesman and military genius,
despite the fact that the Grand Duke was in fact emotionally unstable, a
176 Nicholas I I

very poor general and no sort of liberal. By contrast, Sukhomlinov

ended up in gaol. All this was to occur during the First W orld W ar,
when the panic and fury bred of military defeat exacerbated political and
personal hatreds existing in pre-war Russia. Moreover, in March 1917
the links established between party leaders and the High Command were
to be a significant factor in Nicholas’s abdication and the fall of the
monarchy.
In March 1909 Peter Dumovo, now leader of the conservative opposi­
tion in the State Council, denounced the Naval General Staff Bill, and
Duma intervention in military affairs, in the following terms:

Such intervention, however insignificant, creates dangerous precedents for the

direction of the state’s defence and gradually entangles the military and naval
ministries, all their establishments and ultimately the army and the fleet in
civilian attitudes which are alien to them. It introduces discord into military
relations and as a result, slowly and quietly but none the less inexorably,
undermines the foundations on which the military power of the Russian state
rests. Such results will occur because by these impatient interventions the
military administration will be transferred into the hands of the State Council
and the State Duma, which is contrary to the Fundamental Laws, to our basic
beliefs, and to our conception of the high significance of that power which
created Russia and personifies her strength and might.

It was with voices like this in his ears that Nicholas, for the only time in
his reign, vetoed a bill which had been passed by the Duma and the State
Council, in the process arousing Kireev to astonished praise of what he
saw as a rare act of imperial independence and resolution.22
The Naval General Staff crisis is important because it was a significant
stage in Nicholas’s worsening relationship with Stolypin. Though the
Emperor’s attitude can in part be ascribed to irritation, and on his wife’s
part even to jealousy, at being eclipsed by his powerful and charismatic
Prime Minister, the Naval General Staff crisis shows that there was room
too for genuine concern about where the constitutional regime might be
leading the monarchy and Russia. Conservative figures such as Kireev and
Dumovo were experienced, intelligent and loyal servants of the regime. It
is not surprising that Nicholas listened to their words and worried at the
warnings they conveyed.
For Kireev the bottom line was always that ‘a constitutional Russia
won’t last long’. ‘A constitution here!’ he once exclaimed, ‘W e have no
restraining elements, neither English aristocracy nor German culture.’
Kireev would certainly have agreed with the Bavarian diplomat. Count
Moy, that the Russians were impulsive, irresponsible and liable to lurch
from one extreme to another at a moment’s notice. Kireev himself put
 Constitutional Monarch? 1907-1914 177

down this fascination with extremes to childishness and lack of culture,

since only the latter enabled people to see two sides of an issue and respect
alternative points of view. Both the Russian personality and the nature of
Russian society convinced Kireev that it was impossible to govern the
country from the liberal centre. In June 1906, for instance, he wrote, 'the
fact is that in themselves the Kadets don’t represent any force. They are
only strong because of the revolution.’ Still weaker was the Octobrist
party, on which Stolypin attempted to build his alliance with society
despite the fact that Octobrism in reality had very few supporters in
Russia. Kireev commented that 'it seems to me that Stolypin’s mistake
was that he wished to lean on something that doesn’t exist, namely the
centre’.23
Peter Dum ovo’s views were rather similar to those of Alexander Kireev
though they were based less on the psychology of the Russian character
and more on the contemporary level of development of Russian society. In
Dum ovo’s view only an authoritarian regime operating under cover of the
monarchy’s prestige and legitimacy had any hope of holding the Russian
Empire together or governing it effectively. W ithout such a regime, the
problem of the non-Russian nationalities would be hard to control. More
important, the great majority of the Russian people - peasants and
workers - had no respect for the property, culture or values of the
country’s European élites. The instincts of the Russian masses were
egalitarian, collectivist and even socialist. They were anti-bourgeois and
un-European. Revolutionary parties existed to mobilize and channel these
instincts if allowed the freedom to do so. The liberal centrist parties, in
other words the Kadets and Octobrists, enjoyed no support from peasants
and workers. Their pressure for civil rights, the rule of law, parliamentary
government and other European liberal principles might destroy the police
state but could never create an alternative system of government which
could protect the interests of the propertied, preserve order, defeat the
revolutionaries, or hold the loyalty of the masses. The establishment of
constitutional government in Russia could therefore only be the first brief
stage in what would very soon become 'social revolution in its most
extreme form’. Durnovo was more of a materialist than Kireev. In his
view a country’s level of economic development more or less determined
what type of political institutions it could sustain. Carrying out political
reforms or importing Western liberal principles before Russian society
had reached the stage of development where prosperity and property-
ownership were widespread would be suicidal. The police state provided
the essential buttresses and scaffolding which were needed to support the
dwelling of propertied, 'cultured’ and European Russia until the house’s
foundations were securely rooted in a developed capitalist economy and
society.24
178 Nicholas I I

In their hearts Kireev and Duraovo rather despised Nicholas II. He was
not the iron-willed, imposing and clear-sighted autocrat whom, in their
view, Russia needed. Kireev complained that 'the Tsar is the central
figure in our life but he is the very epitome of lack of will’. He added in
December 1908, ‘it is very difficult to work in the political sphere. The
Emperor, who still (in the last resort) actually decides matters, wavers to
such an extent that it is impossible to rely on him .’ In early 1914 Peter
Duraovo is said to have responded to an offer of the premiership in the
following terms: ‘Your Majesty, my system as head of the government
and Minister of Internal Affairs cannot provide quick results, it can only
tell after a few years and these years will be a time of complete rumpus:
dissolution of the Duma, assassinations, executions, perhaps armed
uprisings. You, Your Majesty, will not endure these years and will dis­
miss me; under such conditions my stay in power cannot do any good and
will bring only harm.’ On another, well-authenticated, occasion Duraovo
called Nicholas ‘the kind of man who, if you asked him for his last shirt,
would take it off and give it to you’
The criticisms of Kireev and Duraovo were echoed by so many people
who worked with Nicholas II that they must contain considerable truth.
Nevertheless, it is possible to defend the Tsar up to a point. Peter
Duraovo was a clever man but he could also be cynical and ruthless. His
attitude to the ordinary Russian of his day - peasant or worker - was not
only tough but also contemptuous. His was the voice of the Russian
ruling élite at its least sentimental and populist. In the State Council
he stressed the ‘cultural weakness of the Russian people’, feared that
revolutionary agitators in the countryside could easily appeal to ‘the
half-savage instincts of the crude mob’ and argued that the Russian masses
had no political aspirations beyond a destructive, radical egalitarianism.
Nicholas II was less intelligent and much more naive than Duraovo but,
in addition, his instinct was always to see the best in people. That is one
reason why he found the ruthless world of Russian high politics so diffi­
cult. Long since dissipated by bitter experience where high society or the
political world were concerned, the Tsar’s instinctive trustfulness and
goodwill still prevailed as regards the mass of the Russian people. Not
only Nicholas’s personality but also his conception of his role as Tsar and
father of his people made it impossible for him to see the monarchy as
simply a useful device through which Russia’s cultured and Westernized
élites could protect their interests and in time impose their values on
the masses. The Tsar might at times regard his subjects as annoyingly
wayward children but never under any circumstances as semi-savages
without human values and aspirations.26
In addition, the line urged by Kireev and Duraovo had one obvious
weakness. Both men dismissed the liberal parties in the Duma, and indeed
 Constitutional Monarch? 1907-1914 179

liberal currents in Russian educated society, as unimportant. But although

urban, educated, Westernized Russians still made up a relatively small
part of the empire’s population, in absolute terms they were a large and
rapidly increasing group. Most educated and urban Russians were liberal
or radical in their political sympathies, and this sector of Russian society
was equal in size to the town population of one of the bigger Western
European states. Already by 1914 some Russian newspapers had' circula­
tions of over 100,000. This was the world of Stravinsky, Diaghilev and
Chagall. It was also the world of rapid industrial growth and of a
tremendous expansion of administrative and professional middle-class
jobs. Such a large, well-educated and sophisticated society demanded civil
rights and a political voice. It looked with disdain and even shame on a
political regime which still rested in part on eighteenth-century principles
of absolute monarchy and even older, medieval aspects of tsarist ideology.
The shadowy presence of a figure such as Rasputin only increased this
shame. The Tsar’s own officials sprang from educated society and lived
within it. They were bound to be influenced by its values. As their ever
more frequent marriages to commoners and divorcees showed, even
members of the Romanov family were rejecting the dynasty’s corporate
code and putting the pursuit of individual happiness and fulfilment above
group loyalty and traditional values.
Dumovo and Kireev may or may not have been right to believe that in
Russia, for the present, this European, ’cultured’ and property-owning
élite world could only survive if protected by an authoritarian state.
That was certainly not the view of most educated Russians between 1906
and 1914. After witnessing the revolution of workers, peasants and
Bolsheviks in 1917, even the Kadet party, the main political voice of
middle-class radicalism and liberalism, came to support a W hite counter­
revolutionary movement whose victory would undoubtedly have resulted
in a military dictatorship. The position of the always more conservative
Octobrists was the same. A decade earlier, fairly enough, attitudes were
different.
Nicholas II was under pressure from one group of advisers who told
him that concessions to liberalism would undermine the authoritarian
state and doom property and the Russian Empire to destruction. Another
group, with equal insistence, told him that, without such concessions,
support for the government in educated society would disintegrate and
the regime would collapse. Both sets of advisers had a point. The Tsar
sympathized more with the first, conservative, group of advisers. But the
pressure on his regime from educated society was very great and hard to
oppose. In these circumstances there was some excuse for uncertainty and
wavering.27
In March 1911 Stolypin suffered a major political defeat over his plan to
180 Nicholas I I

introduce elected zemstvos into six provinces in Russia’s western border­

lands (that is, present-day Belorussia and the Ukraine). Hitherto, zemstvos
had been confined to the core Russian provinces because of fears that the
Polish landowners, who predominated in the Ukraine and Belorussia,
would control elected councils and use them against Russian interests.
Stolypin’s new law was cleverly constructed to offer something to
different sections of the political élite. Since experience showed
that provinces with zemstvos provided better agricultural, medical and
educational services to the population, the new law could be defended on
purely administrative grounds. Because many members of the Duma were
liberal or liberal-conservative landowners involved in zemstvo affairs, the
extension of local self-government should also be politically attractive. To
ensure that the new zemstvo would not be controlled by the Polish nobility
Stolypin extended the franchise and set up separate electoral curias. This
could be expected to appeal to the Russian nationalist lobby. As regards
the Duma, Stolypin’s calculations proved correct. The bill sneaked
through by 165 votes to 139, though not without some damaging
amendments.
The next problem was the State Council, through which the bill had to
pass before it could be put on the statute book. As was to be the case many
times between 1907 and 1914, it proved impossible to produce a law on
which both upper and lower house could agree. Some members of the
State Council objected to dividing the electorate into ethnic blocs. Others
protested that lowering the franchise to stop Polish aristocratic control of
the zemstvos established dangerous precedents for the democratization of
local government. Undoubtedly, personal and political antagonism
towards Stolypin also played a role. If the Emperor had exerted all his
influence on members of the State Council in support of the bill then it
would probably have been passed. Instead, when leaders of the upper
house’s right wing stressed to Nicholas II their objections to the bill, both
orally and on paper, he told them to vote as their consciences dictated. As
a result, the bill was defeated by 92 votes to 68.
Stolypin was enraged. The Western Zemstvo Bill had been a key part of
his political strategy. More important, Stolypin saw the bill’s defeat as
part of a broader campaign by ‘reactionary forces’, meaning the monarch
and the State Council, to block any chance of a rapprochement with the
Duma and the classes, interests and opinions which it represented. The
Prime Minister interpreted Nicholas’s comment that members of the
upper house should be guided by their consciences as deliberate sabotage of
government policy. Stolypin was a proud and masterful man: he felt
personally humiliated by his defeat. In addition, he was ill and exhausted
by his struggle to hold monarch, government and legislature together
behind a coherent policy. Running the machinery of government, over-
 Constitutional Monarch? 1907-1914 181

seeing reforms and beating off attaqks from the Duma and public opinion
were difficult enough. Deprived of the monarch’s unequivocal and public
support the burden of office became unbearable. Stolypin resigned. He
insisted that he would only return to office if Nicholas would allow him to
assert his supremacy in a spectacular fashion over all other players in the
political game. Peter Duraovo and Vladimir Trepov, the conservative
leaders in the State Council, must be removed from Petersburg ‘on leave’
for the rest of the year. Both houses of the legislature must be prorogued
for a few days and emergency powers used to put the Western Zemstvo
Bill on the statute book.
Stolypin’s demand presented Nicholas with a dilemma. He did not
want his premier to resign. On 22 May he wrote to Stolypin that ‘your
devotion to me and to Russia, your five years’ experience in the post you
hold, and, most of all, your courageous upholding of Russian political
principles on the borders of the Empire, move me to retain you at all
costs’. Probably even more important in the Emperor’s eyes was worry
about ‘what will become of the government, which is responsible to me,
if the ministers resign because they have a battle today with the State
Council and tomorrow with the Duma?’ Very reluctantly, therefore,
Nicholas complied with Stolypin’s demands. No doubt the Emperor
deeply disliked having to submit to such an ultimatum and must have
realized that to use emergency powers in this way was illegal. Both the
Duma and the State CouncU felt humiliated at the Prime Minister’s
high-handed and unconstitutional action. Well before his assassination on
14 September 1911 Stolypin’s days in office were numbered, for he had
succeeded in infuriating most of the key actors on the political scene.
Undoubtedly, Nicholas himself drew certain lessons from the Western
Zemstvo crisis. It helped to undermine his faith both in the wisdom of his
Prime Minister and in the viability of a constitutional set-up which
appeared to doom his government to paralysis and confusion. In particu­
lar, centring government strategy around a programme of reform
designed to satisfy the Duma’s majority seemed to be a recipe for
dissension between the chambers and for legislation which caused more
problems than it solved.28
One month after Stolypin’s death, his successor, Vladimir Kokovtsov,
had a long conversation with the Empress Alexandra. The new premier
bemoaned the fact that it would be increasingly difficult to get legislation
through the Duma since he enjoyed less support there than Stolypin, and
the major parties were in any case breaking up into increasingly chaotic
factions. The Empress responded with the comment that

we hope that you will never take the road of those dreadful political parties,
who only dream about seizing power or subordinating the government to
182 Nicholas I I

their will . . . Listening to you I see that you are making comparisons
between yourself and Stolypin. It seems to me that you respect his memory
highly and assign too much significance to his personality and activity. Believe
me that there is no need to regret those who no longer live . . . I am con­
vinced that each man fulfils his role and calling and if someone is no longer
with us that is because he has fulfilled his role and had to retire into the back­
ground since he had nothing more to accomplish. Life always takes new
forms and you ought not to try blindly to continue what your predecessor
did. Remain yourself and don't seek support in political parties. In our coun­
try they are so insignificant. Rest on the Emperor’s confidence. God will help
you. I am convinced that Stolypin died in order to make way for you and that
this is for Russia’s good.29

During Kokovtsov’s twenty-nine months as Prime Minister the

government abandoned any attempt to present a coherent package of
reforms to the Duma. This was partly because after Stolypin’s death
the power of the premier declined sharply. As a result, battles between
ministers and conflicting departmental policies began to return to the
pre-1905 pattern. Stolypin’s dominance had depended above all on his
personal relationship with Nicholas, his charisma and his reputation as
the man who had saved Russia from revolution in 1906-7. As premier,
Stolypin had succeeded in choosing most, though not all, of his fellow
ministers. They were for the most part his ‘team’. Vladimir Kokovtsov
had none of these advantages. He inherited his fellow ministers from
Stolypin and was seldom able to promote his own candidates when
vacancies occurred. In the Council of Ministers Kokovtsov was one
veteran Petersburg official among others. The new premier was a clever
and exceptionally hard-working man with decades of experience in
financial and economic matters but he had none of Stolypin’s charisma
or talent for publicity. A small, neat and slightly pedantic man who liked
the sound of his own voice, even in physical terms Kokovtsov lacked
Stolypin’s stature. Moreover his relationship with Nicholas was always
merely correct and official.
W ith the departure of the masterful Stolypin, voices were raised that
the dominant role in domestic affairs should belong not to the Chairman
of the Council of Ministers but rather to the monarch and his Minister of
Internal Affairs. Prince V.P. Meshchersky, an old acquaintance of both
Nicholas and his father, wrote in 1911 that ‘the direction taken by
government policy is decided not by the Council of Ministers and not by
its Chairman but by the Minister of Internal Affairs, in whose hands at
present lies control over all rights and freedoms, over everything relating
to the realization of the act of 17 October 1905’. Constantly sniping at
Kokovtsov, Meshchersky urged Nicholas to take the lead in determining
 Constitutional Monarch? 1907-1914 183

his government’s policy. 'Russia’s salvation is in the power of its Tsar,’

wrote Meshchersky in 1913. ‘O n the day that the Tsar is not strong,
Russia will die.’ Advice such as this emboldened Nicholas to insist on his
own candidate as Minister of Internal Affairs in 1913. The Emperor met
the young Governor of Chernigov province, Nicholas Maklakov, in 1911
and liked him. No doubt he was partly attracted to Maklakov because the
latter, like Stolypin, was in his forties, was full of energy and was an
official with plenty of experience of provincial life rather than a Petersburg
bureaucrat. Subsequently, Maklakov commented that, ‘speaking with
complete sincerity’, everything to do with his appointment ‘was com­
pletely unexpected . . . for me, it was like a clap of thunder from a clear
sky’. For Kokovtsov, the appointment of Maklakov came closer to being
the clap of doom. The previous Minister of Internal Affairs, A.A.
Makarov, had been Kokovtsov’s ally and client. W ith Maklakov’s
appointment it was clear that control over domestic policy was slipping
from the premier’s hands.30
W ithin the Council of Ministers Kokovtsov had some formidable
enemies. Among the most dangerous were Vladimir Sukhomlinov,
Minister of W ar, and Alexander Krivoshein, Minister of Agriculture.
Kokovtsov combined the posts of Prime Minister and Minister of Finance.
In his latter capacity, determined to control spending, he incurred the
wrath of the main spending departments. In Sukhomlinov’s case, the
battle between the treasury and the army over money was worsened by
deep personal enmity between himself and Kokovtsov. In addition, the
Prime Minister was desperate to avoid anything that increased the risk of
war and believed some of Sukhomlinov’s statements and actions to be
needlessly provocative. Nicholas regarded the armed forces as beyond the
premier’s legitimate remit. He trusted Sukhomlinov, whom he had
known for years. He also saw him as an indispensable barrier to the
Duma’s efforts to forge close links with the officer corps. There was no
possibility of the Emperor dropping Sukhomlinov in order to please
Kokovtsov.
Still more interesting was the case of Alexander Krivoshein. The
Ministry of Agriculture, which he headed, had grown enormously in
importance since 1905. This ministry was now responsible for implement­
ing the so-called Stolypin land reforms, in other words for encouraging
the weakening of the commune and the emergence of hereditary, consoli­
dated, privately owned farms in place of the old system of collective
ownership and the division of the village’s fields into strips. By 1917 con­
siderable progress had been made. Between one-quarter and one-third of
all formerly communal land was owned outright by peasants, though the
consolidation of a family’s land into one enclosed farm was often a difficult
task and was proceeding much more slowly. The commune was very far
184 Nicholas I I

from dead but its influence had been weakened in some areas. Nor in any
case were undermining the commune or implementing the land reforms
the only strands in the government’s policy towards agriculture and the
peasantry. Between 1905 and 1914 about one-fifth of all noble land was
sold to peasants, the government providing cheap credit to help the
purchasers. Peasant consumer and trading co-operatives mushroomed.
Krivoshein’s ministry co-operated successfully with the zemstvos, whose
trust it enjoyed. Central government funds poured into the zemstvos to
improve the rural economy and rural life in general. Primary education
got particular priority. By 1914 roughly three-fifths of Russian children
attended school and it was reasonable to predict universal primary educa­
tion by the 1920s.31
All these changes were not merely important in themselves but also had
tremendous political implications for the imperial regime. Inevitably, the
Ministry of Agriculture and Alexander Krivoshein became key actors in
Russian government and politics. In the words of one senior official,
Krivoshein was 4a masterful chief in his own ministry [and] . . . a subtle
diplomat outside it’. Krivoshein’s skilful handling of the huge and
complicated tasks faced by his ministry enhanced his reputation. Astonish-
ingly, by 1914 he enjoyed the sympathy of the zemstvos, much of the
Duma, the State Council and even the Empress Alexandra. Nicholas
discussed with his trusted minister issues which went well beyond the
narrow sphere of agriculture. By the summer of 1913 Krivoshein was
clearly a dangerous rival to Kokovtsov, whose stress on budgetary
stringency he greatly resented. Cheap credit for peasant farmers was a
particular source of conflict. Krivoshein’s plan was to replace Kokovstov
as Minister of Finance with his own friend and client, Peter Bark, which
would ensure more money and a more favourable hearing for the agricul­
tural department’s pet schemes. For a number of reasons Krivoshein
craftily preferred not to take the premiership himself but instead to replace
Kokovtsov with the aged Ivan Goremykin, whom he felt he could control.
From the winter of 1912, ‘in the plans for Krivoshein’s oral reports to
Nicholas, alongside information about the course of the party struggle in
the Duma (which did not at all come within the competence of the head of
agriculture) there appears the point: “ Goremykin’’. Judging by what hap­
pened subsequently, Krivoshein had begun to persuade the Tsar to appoint
Goremykin as premier, in order to operate behind his back’. And indeed
on 11 February 1914 Krivoshein’s intrigue succeeded. Kokovtsov was
replaced by Goremykin as premier and by Bark in the Ministry of Finance.
Paul Benckendorff reported to his brother that Nicholas neither wanted
nor expected Goremykin to do anything. The idea behind his appoint­
ment was to destroy the power of the Chairman of the Council of Minis­
ters as it had existed under Stolypin. Meshchersky and the Empress
 Constitutional Monarch? 1907-1914 185

Alexandra were behind this move. Even under Kokovtsov, in Bencken-

dorfPs words, the ministers had fought among themselves ‘like cats and
dogs’. Further to weaken the chairman’s role was ‘terribly dangerous’.
Benckendorff was right but it is a mark of Krivoshein’s subtlety that his
considerable part in Kokovtsov’s overthrow was invisible even to the
Grand Marshal of the Court. From February 1914 until the summer of
1915 the Minister of Agriculture was the most powerful figure in the
imperial government.32
Meanwhile, armed with the Emperor’s support, Nicholas Maklakov
continued to pursue his own course as Minister of Internal Affairs both
before and after Kokovtsov’s dismissal. Maklakov was an impulsive man.
Not unlike Stolypin, this former governor came to Petersburg with little
experience of Russian high politics or of the city’s character. He did not
fully grasp how very much more powerful public opinion was in the
capital than in the provinces. Nevertheless, Maklakov was by no means
the buffoon generally depicted in Western history books. He came to
office with a clear mandate from Nicholas to launch a counter-attack
against the civil and political rights gained by society since 1905. He used
the states of emergency which existed in many provinces to banish
enemies of the regime against whom there was insufficient evidence to
secure judicial convictions for subversion. He was determined to curb the
press, if possible by enacting a new censorship law but if necessary by
declaring a state of emergency in Petersburg itself. He resolved to stop the
situation in which revolutionary parties used the Duma as a privileged
tribune from which to spread their denunciations of the government
throughout Russia. From the regime’s point of view the logic of some of
Maklakov’s schemes was clear. The Bolshevik party, for instance, used its
deputies in the Duma with the single avowed aim of encouraging armed
revolution. By 1914 the Bolshevik newspaper, Pravda, published between
20,000 and 40,000 copies daily in the same cause, sending 12,000 of them
through the post to regular subscribers. At least as damaging to the
regime, however, were the speeches and articles of the liberal politicians
and press revealing scandals such as an internal government report casti­
gating the police for the massacre of workers in 1912 on the Lena gold­
fields or the Rasputin affair. In the spring of 1914 Maklakov went on to
the offensive against the revolutionaries. In an attempt to undermine
their freedom of speech in the Duma, he indicted the socialist leader
N.S. Chkheidze for subversion because of his advocacy of republicanism.
The editorial office of Pravda was finally shut down in July 1914. But
despite Nicholas’s support, the other ministers blocked Maklakov’s plans
for a more broadly based assault on freedom of the press.
Still more horrified was the reaction of most ministers to Maklákov’s
plans to reduce the Duma’s powers. O n the right the former revolutionary
186 Nicholas I I

and now ultra-conservative Lev Tikhomirov spoke for many when he

argued that the new constitutional system created a dangerous paralysis in
government since ‘everyone can get in everyone else’s way but there is no
one who could force the institutions of state to collaborate’. Nicholas II
himself wrote in October 1913 that he had long favoured a change in the
statutes of the legislative bodies in order to end stalemate between them
and to return to him the final say as to whether laws should be passed.
‘Presenting for the sovereign’s choice and confirmation the opinions of
the majority and the minority [in the Duma and State Council] will be a
good return to the previous calm course of legislative activity and will in
addition be in the Russian spirit.’ Whatever the theoretical advantages of
such a course of action, most ministers shrank from the head-on collision
with public opinion that a new constitutional coup would entail. Even
Michael Akimov, the extremely conservative President of the State
Council, told the Emperor rather gruffly that he had created the constitu­
tional system and would now have to five with it.33
By 1914 talk of revolution was again in the air, fuelled by mounting
labour unrest, the frustrated hopes of the middle classes and squabbling
within the government. In fact the chances of revolution in 1914 were
very slim. After years of good harvests the countryside was quiet. There
were very few signs of discontent in the army, whose loyalty was in
the immediate sense the government’s main guarantee against revolu­
tion. Troops brought back into Petersburg to deal with the city’s ‘general
strike’ in July 1914 appeared completely loyal. Nor were they in the
event needed since the strike collapsed and the police proved able to cope
on their own. In 1914 the authorities reckoned that two-thirds of all
political strikes in Russia occurred in the imperial capital. Even in
Petersburg, however, the solidarity of labour never approached the levels
of 1905 or 1917. Labour unrest reached its peak in July 1914 but even
then most manual workers in Petersburg did not strike. Not only the
great mass of commercial and domestic labourers but even the railway
workers remained aloof. In the run-up to 1905 liberals and socialists had
often marched side by side. Even many from the landowning gentry
had sympathized with the Liberation Movement. Industrialists had also
often supported the opposition, in some cases in resentment at the
government’s promotion of police trade unionism. Nothing similar
occurred in 1914. In the previous seven years most educated Russians had
turned their backs on revolutionary socialism. A few left-wing Kadets and
a sprinkling of young, radical and noisy Moscow industrialists advocated
an alliance with the workers and socialists but most of the party leaders in
the Duma remembered the anarchy of 1905-7 and shunned this idea. The
Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Petersburg industrialists opposèd the
strike relentlessly, efficiently and in unison. Despite the sound and fury
 Constitutional Monarch? 1907-1914 187

of July 1914 in Petersburg, the government was never in any danger.34

In the larger perspective, however, the regime had much more reason
to worry. The bulk of the Russian population had been virtually excluded
from constitutional politics after the franchise was changed in June 1907.
Peasants and workers remained a formidable threat both to the imperial
regime and to the world of Russia’s wealth and property. Though much
of what had happened in the countryside since 1907 was promising from
the government’s point of view, most peasants remained determined to
seize the big estates if the weakness of authority gave them the chance.
Moreover, by encouraging peasants to split off from the communes and
demand separate private farms the Stolypin land reforms had caused a good
deal of conflict within the peasantry. Still worse was the situation among
urban workers. The idea of police trade unionism was dead, killed by
memories of Bloody Sunday and by the anger it stirred up among
employers. But the alternative strategy of legalizing trade unions and
strikes was never followed consistently by the regime. This was partly
because most industrialists, above all in Petersburg and the Ukraine,
strongly opposed unions. It was also because, with good reason, the police
were terrified that legal trade unions would simply become untouchable
headquarters for the various branches of the revolutionary socialist parties.
Denied legal outlets even for economic grievances, the growing radicalism
of workers was inevitable.
The bulk of the middle class, whose political voice was the Kadet
party, were also in an angry and frustrated mood. The constitutional
era had brought them neither fully secure civil rights, nor greater power
and status in Russian society. The Kadet leadership felt, in the words of
F.I. Rodichev, that the government’s intransigence meant ‘that we are
being made fools of in front of all those who say that you will never
achieve anything with this government save by violence’. The main repre­
sentative organs of Russia’s propertied élites, namely the United
Nobility and the Congress of Representatives of Trade and Industry, were
much more conservative than the Kadets but even in these circles the
government’s infringement of civil rights was often resented. In addition,
industrialists grumbled at the agrarians’ influence in the government and
some Duma politicians drawn from the élites itched for ministerial
office. Meanwhile discord between ministers and the lack of a command­
ing presence like that of Stolypin weakened the government’s confidence
and prestige. Memories of the war with Japan, rumours about Rasputin,
and the general belief that the monarch was weak and wavering meant
that very few members of Russia’s élites had much confidence in
Nicholas II’s ability to lead their country.35
Russia’s situation in 1914 did not augur well for a peaceful transition to
liberalism and democracy. This was partly because the Emperor, who still
188 Nicholas I I

retained the last word in such matters, could only be pressured into con­
stitutional concessions by the dire and immediate threat of revolution.
One can envisage circumstances in which the monarch could have been
pushed aside by a coalition of élites, as to some extent happened in
March 1917. Had Nicholas died, it is quite possible to imagine his invalid
son or weak-willed brother becoming a mere constitutional symbol of
authority, as was the case, for instance, when the 9-year-old Prince
Amanda Mahidol ascended the Siamese throne in 1935. Even had the
Russian élites come to power on an impeccably liberal platform,
however, their weakness and vulnerability would soon have forced them
back in the direction of a police state if they wished to preserve their
property and status. Determination to maintain the integrity of the
Russian Empire in the face of nationalist threats would have led in the
same direction. Nor do comparisons with other countries on Europe’s
periphery in the twentieth century inspire one to optimism about the
chances of constitutional liberalism in Russia. There are dangers in
making such comparisons across societies and eras. A country’s history to
a great extent depends on its specific circumstances and on the bewildering
intermingling of events and personalities which form a pattern that is
never repeated. Take out the Bolshevik revolution and all the cards in
twentieth-century European history have to be reshuffled. Nevertheless, it
must be of some relevance to Russia that all the monarchies in inter-war
Eastern Europe either became royal dictatorships or provided a respectable
covering for military or even, in the Romanian case, semi-Fascist rule. In
Italy, where constitutionalism was far more deeply rooted than in Russia,
the House of Savoy made its compromise with Fascism in 1922 and stuck
to it for twenty-one years. In Russia before 1914 the radical right was
weak and divided, in large part because the continuing power of the old
semi-absolutist regime gave Fascism little room or incentive to develop.
But if liberals or moderate socialists had come to power on tsarism’s ruins
then circumstances might have changed rapidly, particularly if Fascist
victory elsewhere in Europe had established a trend.36
The most fruitful comparison with twentieth-century Russia is, how­
ever, probably Spain. Like Russia, Spain was on Europe’s periphery. Its
people were poor and its middle class small by Western European, but not
Russian standards. Class conflict was bitter and, in both countries, the
political spectrum covered the entire range from defenders of medieval
principles of absolute monarchy to numerous supporters of anarchism and
Communism. Castilian and Russian centralizing nationalism fought
autonomist and potentially separatist movements on the countries’ periph­
ery. The entry into politics of the socialist and anarchist masses caused
intense concern to the propertied élites in both Spain and Russia in
the twentieth century. In Russia in 1917 and in Spain in 1931 the political
 Constitutional Monarch? 1907-1914 189

élite abandoned a hopelessly compromised monarchy and sought to

preserve as much as possible of their position under a liberal republic. Very
soon the upper and middle classes came to the conclusion that they could
not live with the growing power of workers and peasants, let alone the
danger of socialist dictatorship. In part unwittingly. Franco achieved what
Dumovo and even Stolypin had advocated. Under the watchful eye of his
policemen and soldiers the Spanish economy was transformed, in the pro­
cess making Spain safe for property and therefore, not coincidentally, also
for democracy. The nature of his regime ensured that most of the costs of
modernization were met by the masses, not the élites. Spanish
industrialists and landowners had far less reason to fear for their property,
status and lives in the 1970s than had been the case forty years before, for
under Franco Spain had acquired a huge middle class and a relatively
prosperous and non-revolutionary working class as well. Even the
bitter conflict between landowners and labourers on the great estates of
Andalusia had been defused, thanks to the departure of most of the
workers to the factories of Catalonia and Castile, and the mechanization
of the latifundias.
The victory of conservatism in Spain and its defeat in Russia had roots
deep in the history of each country. Quite unlike Russia, in Spain autono­
mous municipal, regional and corporate institutions had existed for cen­
turies. The royal state in nineteenth-century Spain had been far weaker
than in Russia. Indeed, in the Napoleonic era it collapsed altogether. The
major conservative interests had therefore to a much greater extent been
forced to act autonomously in defence of their interests. They had thereby
acquired political strength and maturity. This was true above all of the
Church and the army, the two great institutional pillars of Franco’s
victory in the civil war. From its earliest origins the Catholic Church had
always been more independent of the secular authorities than was gener­
ally the case with Orthodoxy. But in nineteenth-century Spain, the
collapse of the absolute monarchy, secularization of Church property, and
open conflict between right and left forced the Church to take up an active
and independent political position. Under the imperial regime the
Orthodox Church had neither the means nor the need to do this.
Nowhere, especially in rural Russia, were priests hated by peasants or even
workers with a ferocity equal to that in southern Spain in the 1930s.
Nowhere in the Russian civil war did the clergy play as active and popular
a political role on the side of counter-revolution as in central and, still
more, northern Spain in 1936-9.
Eighteenth-century Russia witnessed many military coups. Spain at
that time witnessed none. In the nineteenth century precisely the reverse
occurred. The Russian army concentrated exclusively on combating
foreign enemies. Apart from losing a small-scale war with the Americans,
190 Nicholas I I

the Spanish army's role was entirely domestic and encompassed two civil
wars and a number of coups. Geopolitics reinforced tradition. Spain, pro­
tected by the Pyrenees and no longer a great power, could avoid involve­
ment in European wars. Russia, a great power with open frontiers, could
not do so. Spain’s colonial campaigns in Africa created a core of ruthless
professional regiments, ideal for counter-revolution. To fight the Germans
Russia needed a huge conscript force, inherently less reliable as a weapon
of domestic coercion. In 1914 the professional officer cadre of Russia’s
army, which had saved the imperial regime in 1905-6, went to war with
Germany and was destroyed. Thus even a comparison between Russia and
Spain brings us back inexorably to the outbreak of war in 1914, which
played such a huge role in bringing on the end of the Russian monarchy
and the triumph of Bolshevism.37
In the wake of the defeat by Japan and revolution the prospect of a
European war was a nightmare for the Russian government. In the years
that followed 1905 Russia’s military and political weakness was only too
obvious both to its own rulers and to foreigners. Weakness was a terrible
burden for any government to have to carry in pre-1914 international rela­
tions. The feeble were pushed around by other powers. Humiliation
further damaged a regime’s domestic prestige. In its anxiety to stop this
process, a government was apt to make exaggerated statements about its
willingness and ability to stand up for its interests, if necessary in battle. A
gap opened up between rhetoric and intentions, as foreigners soon per­
ceived. As a result firm statements were heard at a discount. Russian
diplomacy suffered from this between 1907 and 1914. To understand why
Russia went to war in 1914 it is also necessary to grasp the values and
mentality of the Russian ruling élites, including Nicholas II. In old
regime Europe the nobleman was brought up to defend his public reputa­
tion and honour at all costs, if necessary with sword in hand. The ethic
of the duel still prevailed in aristocratic and, in particular, military circles.
No crime was worse than cowardice. Kings, aristocrats and generals were
not used to being pushed about or humiliated. In contemporary parlance,
they had a short fuse. In pre-1914 Europe, war was still widely regarded
not only as honourable and even romantic, but also as a sometimes neces­
sary and legitimate means by which great powers could defend their
interests and achieve national goals unobtainable by peaceful measures.
Victory was a meaningful concept even as regards wars between great
powers in a way that makes little sense in the nuclear age. The catastrophe
of 1914 is incomprehensible unless these underlying realities are taken into
account.38
The main aim of Russian foreign policy in the immediate aftermath of
1905 was to remain on good terms with everyone. For a weak country in a
Europe that was increasingly splitting into two power blocs this was a
 Constitutional Monarch? 1907-1914 191

very difficult and, in the end, impossible task. Nevertheless, the new
Foreign Minister, Alexander Izvolsky, did his best. In 1907 agreements
with Tokyo and London very much reduced the risk of conflict over Asian
issues. Since Britain was Japan’s ally and was drawing close to France, the
entente with London also improved Petersburg’s links with Paris while
further guaranteeing Russia against any aggressive moves by Tokyo in the
Far East. As Izvolsky fully understood, however, agreement with Britain
would be counter-productive if it led to bad relations with Berlin. The
Russian Foreign Minister tried very hard to ensure that this would not
happen. He signed a secret treaty with Berlin in 1907, for instance, on
Baltic affairs and in his negotiations with Britain over Persia made very
sure that he kept to his promise ’that no German interests either as related
to the Baghdad railway or to the equality of commercial opportunity
would be in the slightest degree affected’.39
Nevertheless, Russia’s agreement with Britain made it clear to the
Germans that their attempt to play on Petersburg’s hostility to London
and thereby split the Franco-Russian alliance had failed. In addition,
domestic developments in Russia were bound to worry Berlin. As the
British embassy in Petersburg reported, ’the partial emancipation of the
Russian people has been accompanied by a most pronounced and almost
universal outburst of feeling against Germans and Germany’. Officials
with German names, though usually by now fully Russianized, played a
major and often conservative role in the Tsar’s government, which
inspired both anger and envy among many Russians. The German Empire
was seen as the most powerful bulwark of authoritarian conservatism in
Europe, in contrast to Britain and France, the continent’s leading
democratic powers. Moreover, Germans and Austrians were the main
rivals of Slavdom and Russia in Eastern Europe and the Balkans, where
many Russians believed their country’s historical destiny lay.40
Between 1907 and 1914 the outlines of a coalition between sections
of Russia’s economic, political and intellectual élites based on a
combination of liberal and nationalist ideas began to emerge. It encom­
passed a number of leading Moscow industrialists, some of Russia’s
greatest liberal intellectuals and many Duma leaders. By 1914 this
shadowy coalition had important friends in both the army and the bureau­
cracy. Prince Grigori Trubetskoy, who ran the Foreign Ministry’s depart­
ment of Near Eastern and Balkan affairs, was closely linked to the
Moscow industrialists and to Peter Struve, the leading intellectual spokes­
man for the coalition of the liberal-conservative and nationalist
élites. Even Alexander Krivoshein, the Minister of Agriculture,
was a potential ally of this coalition.' His ministry, and indeed he him­
self, maintained cordial relations with the Duma and the zemstvos. On the
whole, they enjoyed a good press. And Krivoshein was not merely inclined
192 Nicholas I I

towards pro-Slav nationalist sympathies, he had also married a daughter of

one of Moscow’s leading industrialist families. It needs to be stressed that
this coalition was still in embryo in 1907-9 and that Germany’s own
aggressive policies played a role in bringing it to life in later years. Never­
theless the Germans were not wrong to watch Russian domestic develop­
ments with great concern in the pre-war era. The idea that the liberal-
nationalist, anti-German and pro-Slav coalition represented the wave of
the future was not unreasonable and was widely believed both in Russia
and abroad.41
Nicholas II was aware of the dangers created by Russian public
opinion’s anti-German outbursts. In June 1908, during the meeting at
Reval between the Tsar and King Edward VII, a senior British diplomat.
Sir Charles Hardinge, had a long conversation with the Russian monarch.

The Emperor admitted that from the point of view of the relations of Russia
to Germany, the liberty of the press had caused him and his government con­
siderable embarrassment since every incident that occurred in any distant
province of the empire, such as an earthquake or thunderstorms, was at once
put down to Germany's account, and serious complaints had recently been
made to him and the government of the unfriendly tone of the Russian press.
He was, however, quite unable to remedy this state of affairs except by an
occasional official communiqué to the press and this had generally but
slight effect. He wished very much that the press would turn their attention
to internal rather than foreign affairs, but this was too much to expect.42

German irritation with Russia was to play an important role in

Petersburg’s humiliation in the so-called Bosnian crisis of 1908-9. The
origin of this crisis lay in Vienna’s determination formally to annex the
provinces of Bosnia and Hercegovina which it had in fact occupied since
1878. This decision reflected in part a broader Austrian wish to assert itself
in the Balkans. Russia was too weak to oppose the annexation so Izvolsky
decided to do a deal with his Austrian counterpart, Baron Aehrenthal,
whom he visited at his estate at Buchlau in September 1908. The two
foreign ministers agreed that Russia would accept the annexation and
Austria would subsequently support Petersburg’s wish to open the Straits
(that is, the sea passage from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean) to
Russian warships. Izvolsky secured the consent of Nicholas II in advance
to a deal. The Foreign Minister believed that opening the Straits would
redound to his and Russia’s prestige. Annexation on the other hand was
not merely a fa it accompli but also an act which would damage Austria’s
standing among the Balkan Slavs, which could only benefit Russia.
Izvolsky’s self-satisfaction soon evaporated. He quickly discovered that
the English and French were not enthusiastic about raising the issue of the
 Constitutional Monarch? 1907-1914 193

Straits. The Austrian circular announcing the annexation stated that it had
Russia’s full consent, which, although true, was not supposed to be
public knowledge. Meanwhile Stolypin, many members of the Duma, and
the press exploded at Russia’s further humiliation, and her betrayal of Slav
interests. W hen the Prime Minister threatened to resign» Russian foreign
policy had to go into reverse. No deals were to be made with Vienna.
Instead Petersburg began to call for an international conference to put a
legal stamp on the annexation and, more important, to save Russia’s
prestige. Since Russia was too weak to force the issue, the Germans and
Austrians were flatly opposed to a conference, and the British and French
were lukewarm, this policy could only end in defeat and humiliation for
Petersburg. This duly occurred in March 1909. Vienna demanded that
Petersburg and Belgrade formally recognize the annexation of Bosnia-
Hercegovina. It prepared to invade Serbia to enforce this demand.
Meanwhile Germany sent Russia a fierce note calling on it to defuse the
crisis by agreeing immediately and unconditionally to recognize the
annexation. Given its military and political weakness, Russia had no alter­
native but to do so.
The Bosnian crisis was a vital turning-point in Russia’s road to 1914.
AU trust in Vienna was gone. Already deeply humiliated by the Japanese,
this further defeat infuriated both the government and public opinion.
Hysteria and lack of realism reigned in much of the press. Nicholas II was
furious at Russia’s humiliation and shared the general indignation against
Austria. In the autumn of 1908 he wrote that 'the main culprit is
Aehrenthal. He is simply a scoundrel. He made Isvolsky his dupe when
they met and now puts things quite differently from the way he did
then.’43
The Emperor’s attitude to the ending of the crisis in March 1909 is
extremely interesting and teUs one much about his basic views on Russian
foreign policy in the foUowing years. He wrote to his mother on 18 March
that

last week . . . I held a Council of Ministers in connection with that wretched

Austro-Serbian question. This affair, which had been going on for six
months, has suddenly been complicated by Germany’s telling us we could
help to solve the difficulty by agreeing to the famous annexation while, if we
refused, the consequences might be very serious and hard to foretell. Once the
matter had been put as definitely and unequivocally as that, there was nothing
for it but to swallow one’s pride, give in and agree. The Ministers were
unanimous about it. If this concession on our part can save Serbia from being
crushed by Austria, it is, I firmly believe, well worth it. Our decision was the
more inevitable as we were informed from all sides that Germany was
absolutely ready to mobilise . . . But our public does not realise this and it is
194 Nicholas I I

hard to make them understand how ominous things looked a few days ago;
now they will go on abusing and reviling poor Isvolsky even more than
before.

The next day Nicholas added a postscript to his letter.

Nobody except the bad people want war now, and I think we have been very
close to it this time. As soon as the danger is over people immediately begin
shouting about humiliation, insults etc. For the word ‘annexation* our
patriots were prepared to sacrifice Serbia, whom we could not help at all in the
case of an Austrian attack. It is quite true that the form and method of
Germany's action - 1 mean towards us - has simply been brutal and we
won't forget it. I think they were again trying to separate us from France and
England - but once again they have undoubtedly failed. Such methods tend to
bring about the opposite result.44

In response to defeat in the Bosnian crisis Russia changed its Foreign

Minister. Izvolsky was replaced by Serge Sazonov. The new leadership
made three basic decisions, with Nicholas II’s approval. Firstly, it
remained fully committed to its agreements with France and Britain.
Secondly, swallowing their pride, the Russians attempted to patch up
relations with Berlin. In an effort to get the Germans to veto any Austrian
aggression in the Balkans, Petersburg made concessions to Berlin on a
range of Middle Eastern economic issues. By 1911, though nothing funda­
mental had changed in Russo-German relations, they were on the surface
quite friendly again.
The third element in Russia’s strategy was to build up an alliance of
Balkan states which would oppose any further Austrian advances in
south-eastern Europe. By the autumn of 1912 this goal had been achieved
but the Balkan allies quickly escaped from Russian control and turned
their efforts to carving up what was left of the Turkish Empire in Europe,
which above all meant Macedonia and Albania. The Russian government
was alarmed by this enormous threat to international stability but proved
unable to hold back its Balkan ’clients’. W ith the Ottoman Empire
tottering visibly as a result of defeat by Italy in the 1911 war, nothing
could stop the Balkan states from settling scores with their old Turkish
enemy and seizing its territory. Having achieved this, the allies then
started another and much bloodier war among themselves over the divi­
sion of the spoils. This horrified Russian public opinion, which cultivated
naïve illusions about its Slav ’little brothers’ and, as always, blamed the
Foreign Ministry for its failure to achieve Russian nationalists’ unrealistic
goals. Though one would never have guessed it from the childish hysteria
which gripped the Russian press, the real loser from Balkan develop-
 Constitutional Monarch? 1907-1914 195

ments in 1912-13 was not Russia but Austria. The two Balkan states
which had gained most territory and prestige from the wars were Serbia
and Romania. Many Serbs and Romanians lived within the borders of
Austria-Hungary and were bound to be the next target for nationalists
in Belgrade and Bucharest. Serbia was Russia’s main client in the Balkans.
In the spring of 1914 Romania was showing strong signs of moving away
from her alliance with Germany and Austria, and towards Russia’s orbit.
In the nine months before July 1914 the Russian Foreign Ministry under­
stood the risk that Vienna might seek to restore its weakened position in
the Balkans by some demonstrative use of force against its Serbian
neighbour.45
In his normal optimistic way Nicholas did not expect the Austrians to
start a war in 1914 and was always inclined to discount gloomy fore­
bodings by his advisers. In February 1912 he had commented that ‘so long
as the Emperor Franz Josef lived there was no likelihood of any step
being taken by Austria-Hungary that would endanger the maintenance of
peace; but when the aged Emperor had passed away it was impossible to
say what might happen’. Concern for the future was partly linked to fears
about the plans of the Austrian heir apparent, whose violent and aggres­
sive language Nicholas recalled, to transform the empire’s domestic con­
stitution and the balance of power between its nations. The Tsar had
never been close to the Habsburgs and felt little sense of monarchical
solidarity with them. He had not met the Austrian heir, the Archduke
Franz Ferdinand, since 1903. In 1913 he foresaw the collapse of the
Habsburg monarchy without alarm.

His Majesty spoke of the disintegration of the Austrian Empire as a mere

matter of time. The day, he said, would come when we would see a Kingdom
of Hungary, a Kingdom of Bohemia, and the incorporation of the German
provinces of Austria into the German Empire, while the southern slavs would
be absorbed by Serbia and the Rumanians of Transylvania by Rumania.
Austria, His Majesty held, was at present a source of weakness to Germany
and a danger to the cause of peace, and it would make for peace were Germany
to have no Austria to drag her into war about the Balkans.46

Traditionally, the Romanovs had been far closer to the Hohenzollems

than to the Habsburgs, whose Catholicism had barred marriages with the
Russian royal house. By the winter of 1913-14 Nicholas’s patience with
and trust in Wilhelm II were, however, wearing thin, though they had
not entirely disappeared. At issue was a growing German interest in
Russia’s traditional spheres of influence in Asia Minor and Persia and,
above all, Berlin’s ambitions in the Straits. The latter was a very sensitive
point for the Russians, above all because so much of their foreign trade
196 Nicholas I I

passed through the Bosporus and the Dardanelles. A great naval power,
once established in Constantinople, could strangle Russia’s all-important
grain trade and dominate the Black Sea, exposing the empire’s whole
southern coast to attack.
Nicholas had always been much more interested in Constantinople and
the Straits than in the Balkan Slavs. On the eve of the Balkan wars, for
instance, he had written: ‘I insist on complete non-intervention by Russia
in the forthcoming military activities. But of course we must take all
measures to protect our interests on the Black Sea.’ Both he and his
Foreign Minister, Serge Sazonov, therefore reacted angrily upon hearing
in the autumn of 1913 that a German general. Liman von Sanders, had
been appointed to command the Turkish corps which garrisoned Con­
stantinople and the Straits. From the German point of view von Sanders’
appointment was a technical detail. Direct command of Turkish units was
necessary if genuine reforms were to be imposed on the army, whose
performance against the Balkan allies had been unimpressive despite years
of effort by German inspectors and instructors. For the Russians, how­
ever, the prospect of direct German command over the garrison of the
capital city and the Straits at a time when the Ottoman Empire appeared
to be on the verge of disintegration was unacceptable, particularly in the
light of Wilhelm’s scarcely veiled intention to dominate whatever Turkish
rump state emerged from the empire’s collapse. In the end the Liman von
Sanders crisis ended peacefully but not without much bad blood between
Petersburg and Berlin, which subsequently was reflected in violent mutual
denunciations in the two countries’ newspapers. In the light of the Liman
von Sanders affair Nicholas believed military intelligence delivered
through spies in the Austrian High Command, who reported that the
Germans were seeking control over the shore batteries on the Bosporus.47
Alarmed by the growing danger of war with Germany, Peter Duraovo
presented a memorandum to Nicholas II in February 1914 about Russia’s
future foreign and domestic policy. Duraovo argued that a great European
war was now likely. Contrary to general belief, it would not be a short
war and would test the overall strength of a country rather than just the
prowess of its armies. Economic strength, financial resources and political
unity would be key factors determining defeat or victory in this conflict.
In all these respects Russia was ill-equipped to fight. Any defeat on the
battlefield would result in a surge of opposition to the government, which
would be blamed for all Russia’s failings and backwardness. Complete
social revolution would be the probable outcome. Duraovo insisted that
there was no reason to take such risks since Russia and Germany’s
interests were not in serious conflict. In his view Berlin’s main argument
was with London and concerned naval, colonial and economic supremacy.
Russia must not be drawn into such a conflict, and least of all on the side
 Constitutional Monarch? 1907-1914 197

of liberal England against conservative Germany. In one sense, Duraovo's

suggestion that Russia should remain on the sidelines while Germany and
Britain fought each other to a standstill had something in common with
Stalin’s stance in 1939.
A sense of Nicholas’s reaction to such ideas is conveyed by a discussion
he had with the British ambassador. Sir George Buchanan, in the spring of
1914.

It was, His Majesty then proceeded to say, commonly supposed that there was
nothing to keep Germany and Russia apart. This was, however, not the case.
There was the question of the Dardanelles. Twice in the last two years the
Straits had been closed for a short period, with the result that the Russian
grain industry had suffered very serious loss. From information which had
reached him from a secret source through Vienna he had reason to believe that
Germany was aiming at acquiring such a position at Constantinople as would
enable her to shut in Russia altogether in the Black Sea. Should she attempt to
carry out this policy he would have to resist it with all his power, even should
war be the only alternative . . . though the Emperor said that . . . he . . .
wished to live on good terms with Germany.

At this point Nicholas did not believe, as W itte for instance still did, that
it would be possible to split Germany from Austria.
O f course Nicholas said nothing to a foreign ambassador about Russia’s
domestic political situation so it is impossible to know precisely what he
thought of this aspect of Dumovo’s memorandum. It is a safe guess, how­
ever, that he considered the Russian people to be much more loyal to the
throne and much more patriotic in any future war than his more hard-
headed and more realistic adviser predicted. Nicholas worried that the
Irish question might stop London acting vigorously in foreign affairs.
This would be very dangerous because the old ‘Concert’ of great powers
which had peacefully managed past crises was threatened with paralysis.
As regards Balkan questions, ‘it was the old story. Europe was divided
into two camps, and it was impossible to get the Concert to work
together.* But at present the vital necessity was for Russia, France and
Britain to unite more closely in order to make it absolutely clear to Berlin
that all three entente powers would fight side by side against German
aggression. The British ambassador concluded that Nicholas wanted ‘a
closer bond of union established between England and Russia, such as an
alliance of a purely defensive character’.48
O n 18 February 1914 Paul Benckendorff wrote to his brother that in
Petersburg ‘absolutely no one wants war or adventure but over the last
few months the feeling that war is inevitable has grown and grown in all
classes’. It was widely believed that Berlin and Vienna would take the
198 Nicholas I I

opportunity to declare war when Russia was least expecting it. The Grand
Marshal of the Court confessed that he himself was beginning to think in
the same way. The arms race had got completely out of hand. The great
geopolitical issues now on the agenda could scarcely be resolved peace­
fully. Similar warnings came from Alexander Izvolsky, now ambassador
in Paris. In October 1912, on the outbreak of the first Balkan war,
Isvolsky had warned that the victory of the Slav nationalist states over the
Ottoman Empire would result in the latter’s collapse and would endanger
the Habsburg monarchy too. ’It would bring forward, in its full historical
development, the question of the struggle of Slavdom not only with Islam
but also with Germanism. In this event one can scarcely set one’s hopes on
any palliative measures and must prepare for a great and decisive general
European w ar.’ Such fears and prophecies had their own self-fulfilling
logic. If war was probable then the key question became how to win it
rather than how to avoid it. Diplomacy strove less to restrain Balkan
clients than to ensure that their armies would stand on one’s side in the
event of war. The influence of the generals rose and the military priorities
of smooth and speedy mobilization and co-ordinated offensives with one’s
allies gained a greater weight.49
The imperial family spent April and May 1914 in the Crimea. The
Council of Ministers no longer had an effective chairman but the monarch
was hundreds of miles from his capital with communications passing by
post and courier. The explanation for this strange behaviour was the
Empress Alexandra, whom General Spiridovich remembered as being in a
state of ’extraordinary nervousness’ at this time, much given to prayer and
tears. Paul Benckendorff commented to his brother that Alexandra was
making life very difficult for her husband. If the Empress could relax
anywhere it was in her new Italian-style villa at Livadia, with its court­
yards, fountains and superb gardens, all at their best in the Crimean
spring. In early June the Romanovs visited the King of Romania, an occa­
sion which was full of political significance given the current state of
Balkan affairs. The strain of a busy one-day state visit was enough to make
Alexandra collapse entirely.50
Returning to Russia, Nicholas toured Odessa and unveiled a monu­
ment in Kishinev. By 18 June he was back at Tsarskoe Selo, ready to
receive an official visit from the King of Saxony. O n 28 June came the
news of the assassination of the Austrian heir and his wife. The first
reaction from the Russian ambassador in Vienna, N .N . Shebeko, was
calm and entirely misunderstood the thinking in Austrian government
circles. ’There is already reason to suppose that at least in the immediate
future the course of Austro-Hungarian policy will be more restrained and
calm. That is what they believe here and beyond question that is what the
Emperor Franz Josef will strive for.’ Over the next few days Shebeko
 Constitutional Monarch? 1907-1914 199

became a little less optimistic and alarming rumours, all of them stoutly
denied in Vienna, began to circulate about possible Austrian action against
Serbia. A British naval squadron visited Petersburg amidst great festivities.
Between its departure and the arrival of President Poincaré of
France, the imperial family slipped away for a few days on the Standart, at
Alexandra’s insistence. The cruise did her no good for her son fell while
boarding the yacht from a small boat and suffered another bad bout of
bleeding. O n 23 July the French President and Prime Minister left Russia
after four exhausting days of speeches, ceremonies and meetings whose
most spectacular moment was a review of the Imperial Guard on the
parade-ground of Krasnoe Selo. That evening the Austrians presented
their ultimatum to Serbia, giving Belgrade only forty-eight hours to
respond.51
At 10 a.m. on 24 July the text of the Austrian ultimatum reached Serge
Sazonov, the Russian Foreign Minister. Sazonov exclaimed, ‘This means
war in Europe!’ For the first time in his life the Foreign Minister made a
report to the Emperor over the telephone. Sazonov stated that the
Austrian note was worded with deliberate brutality and must have been
concocted in agreement with Berlin. The Central Powers (Austria and
Germany) must have realized that ‘the ultimatum could not be complied
with by Serbia’ and therefore must be intending to take military action.
Russia and subsequently all Europe would be dragged into the conflict. In
Sazonov’s opinion, the Germans ‘were certainly in the most advantageous
position owing to the supreme efficiency of their armies’. They were
deliberately starting a war now because they believed that they would win
it. The Emperor heard his minister out and ordered him to convene the
Council of Ministers as quickly as possible.
Shortly afterwards, Peter Bark, the new Minister of Finance, arrived
for his regular weekly audience with Nicholas. His recollections of the
Emperor’s attitude ring very true: as always, Nicholas was optimistic and
inclined to think that his ministers were panicking. Equally familiar was
his belief in the honesty and goodwill of people he had known for a long
time, in this case his cousin Willy. It was hard to believe that the man
who had sat in the neighbouring room twenty years before when Nicholas
and Alexandra became engaged could now deliberately be starting a war
which would engulf all Europe. Peter Bark wrote that

the Emperor . . . remained quite calm and told me that he thought Sazonoff
was exaggerating the gravity of the situation and had lost his nerve. In latter
years conflicts had frequently arisen in the Balkans, but the powers had always
come to an agreement. None of them'would wish to let war loose in Europe
to protect the interests of a Balkan state. War would be disastrous for the
world and once it had broken out it would be difficult to stop. The Emperor
200 Nicholas I I

did not think it likely that the Note had been sent after consultation with
Berlin. The German Emperor had frequently assured him of his sincere desire
to safeguard the peace of Europe and it had always been possible to come to an
agreement with him, even in serious cases. His Majesty spoke of the German
Emperor’s loyal attitude during the Russo-Japanese War and during the
internal troubles that Russia had experienced afterwards. It would have been
easy for Germany to level a decisive blow at Russia in these circumstances -
which were particularly favourable for such an attempt - since our attention
was engaged in the Far East and we were left with insufficient protection
against an attack from the West.52

Peter Bark tended to share Nicholas’s optimism. Given the immense

success of the German economy in recent years, the Minister of Finance
could not believe that Berlin would risk everything by starting an
unnecessary war. Both the Emperor and his minister were wrong. The
Austrian ultimatum to Serbia was designed to make war inevitable.
Vienna believed that its position in the Balkans could only be restored by
forcing Belgrade back into dependence on Austria. Other Balkan states
would learn from this that opposition to Vienna did not pay and that in
the last resort Russia would not protect its clients at the risk of war. The
Austrians tended to believe that fear of revolution would make Russia
back down. If not, Vienna and Berlin agreed that it was better to start a
war now than to delay matters, since Russia’s resources, together with
the rapid growth of her economic and military strength, would make
victory for the Central Powers unobtainable in a few years’ time. In
retrospect it appears certain that the only thing which might have deterred
the Germans was a conviction that Britain would enter the war on the
side of Russia and France. The British Liberal government was unwilling
to make such a commitment at the beginning of the crisis and would have
faced revolt from both Parliament and public opinion had it tried. By
the time the likelihood of British intervention had begun to sink in,
Austro-German policy had gone too far to make peaceful compromise
possible without great damage to Austrian and German prestige. The first
rather hesitant calls to Vienna for restraint from the German Chancellor
were in any case being undermined by contrary advice from Moltke, the
Chief of the German General Staff. Moreover, even by 29 July the Central
Powers’ position remained that Russia must cease military preparations
while the Austrian offensive in Serbia must be allowed to proceed. No
one in Petersburg could have accepted such terms. Nicholas II was much
less enthusiastic about the Balkan Slavs than some of his ministers, let
alone public opinion. But in January 1914 he had promised, ‘we will not
let ourselves be trampled upon’. Now, in July, he commented that ‘puni­
tive expeditions are only undertaken in one’s own country or colonies’.53
 Constitutional Monarch? Î9 0 7 -Î9 1 4 201

At the crucial meeting of the Council of Ministers which took place on

the afternoon of 24 July the dominant voices belonged to Sazonov and
Krivoshein. The Foreign Minister told the Council that ‘the information
at his disposal and his knowledge of events in Central Europe during the
past years had convinced him that Austria-Hungary and Germany were
resolved to deal a decisive blow at Russian authority in the Balkans by
annihilating Serbia’. Both Sazonov and Krivoshein argued that Russia
could not allow this to happen. Domestic political considerations counted
for something: ‘public and parliamentary opinion would fail to under­
stand why, at this critical moment involving Russia’s vital interests, the
Imperial Government was reluctant to act boldly’. More important were
considerations of national honour and prestige. Given Russia’s centuries-
old role in the Balkans, if she allowed herself to be driven out of the region
in so total and humiliating a fashion, no one would take her seriously
again: ‘she would be considered a decadent state and would henceforth
have to take second place among the Powers’. Russia’s obvious weakness
and her many concessions since 1905 had not brought her security.
Instead, they had merely encouraged her opponents to push her around. If
Russia caved in again despite so blatant a challenge to her interests, no
one - ally or enemy - would believe that she would ever stand up for
herself. Having forfeited her Balkan allies, she could then very possibly be
forced to fight in the near future in the face of further German challenges.
Sazonov admitted that ‘war with Germany would be fraught with great
risks’, particularly since ‘it was not known what attitude Great Britain
would take in the matter’. Nevertheless he, and with him the whole
Council of Ministers, decided that if Austria refused all negotiations and
insisted on the invasion of Serbia, Russia could not stand aside. In the
event of invasion, Russia would mobilize four military districts in the
hope that this would be a warning to Austria but not a provocation to
Germany.54
The Emperor’s diary for the nine days before the outbreak of war is a
strange and revealing document. Nicholas II was in one sense Russia’s
chief executive. In another sense he was curiously detached from the
everyday business of government. Even in these days of crisis he was to
some extent a gentleman of leisure. Admittedly on one day he records that
work kept him up until after 3 a.m. and still he had to start his next day at
9 a.m. Nevertheless, Nicholas found time to play tennis, to walk and
canoe with his daughters, and to visit relatives for tea. Days were also
crammed with the ceremonial activities of a head of state: reviews, din­
ners, visits to a hospital and the handing out of prizes. As Germany and
Russia prepared to go to war and the collapse of European civilization
began, an extraordinary piece of old regime archaism intervened in
Nicholas’s schedule. O n 26 July Nicholas received the Master of the Horse
202 Nicholas I I

of the Court of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, a small dukedom absorbed into

the German Empire in 1871, who in time-honoured fashion had come to
bring official notice of the Duke’s death. W hat the Emperor and the
courtier found to discuss in the lunch that followed is a mystery. Reading
the diary one gets the impression of a man indifferent to events. The most
revealing comment about the Emperor’s feelings is his entry for 31 July, in
which he noted that the weather was grey, as was his mood. Reality was
very different. Pierre Gilliard, the tutor to the Tsarevich, commented that
‘one only needed to see the Emperor during that terrible week to
understand what worry and what spiritual suffering he was under-
going’.55
Nicholas did his best to stave off the stampede to war. He dispatched
telegrams and a personal envoy to Wilhelm II begging him to restrain the
Austrians. He rescinded the order for a general mobilization on the
evening of 29 July on receiving what seemed a conciliatory telegram from
Wilhelm II. Pressured by his military and civil advisers, who urged that
war was inevitable and rapid and general mobilization vital, he held out
until the afternoon of 30 July. The Emperor faced a united front of his
main political, diplomatic and military advisers who argued that general
mobilization must not be delayed. Krivoshein, Sazonov and the Chief of
the General Staff, Yanushkevich, all agreed on this. On the afternoon of
30 July, ‘for almost an entire hour the minister [Sazonov] tried to show
that war had become inevitable since it was evident to everyone that
Germany had decided to bring on a collision, otherwise she would not
have turned down all the conciliatory proposals that had been made and
could easily have brought her ally to reason*. The Emperor displayed
‘extreme loathing’ for war, in the words of the Foreign Minister’s diary.
His exceptional nervousness and revulsion at the idea were revealed by a
burst of irritation which, coming from Nicholas, was almost unheard of.
In the end, however, the Emperor had to agree that war was probably
inevitable and that nothing remained but to wage it with the greatest
possible chance of success.56
O n the evening of 1 August, at the moment when the German
ambassador presented Berlin’s declaration of war to Sazonov,

the Emperor, the Empress and their daughters were attending Vespers in the
small church at Alexandria. Having met the Emperor a few hours earlier, I
was struck by his very exhausted appearance: the features of his face had
changed, and the small bags which appeared under his eyes when he was tired
seemed far bigger.
In church he prayed very hard that' God would spare his people this war,
which seemed so close and unavoidable. His whole being seemed absorbed by
religious feeling - simple and convinced. Next to him was the Empress,
 Constitutional Monarch? Î9 0 7 -1 9 1 4 203

whose sad face had the expression of great suffering which I noticed so often
when she was by the bedside of the sick Aleksei Nikolaevich. On this evening
she also prayed with passionate strength, begging that a terrible war be
avoided.
At the end of the service Their Majesties and the grand duchesses returned
to the villa of Alexandria.
It was eight o'clock. The Emperor, before going to dinner, went into his
office in order to look at the dispatches which had arrived during his absence,
and here he learned from a report by Sazonov about Germany’s declaration of
war. He had a short conversation on the telephone with his minister and asked
him to come to Alexandria when he had the opportunity.
Meanwhile the Empress and the grand duchesses were waiting in the
dining-room. Her Majesty, worried by the long absence of the Emperor,
asked Tatiana Nikolaevna to look for her father, but at that moment he finally
appeared, very pale, and, in a voice which, despite his wish, showed his
emotion, announced that war was declared. Hearing the news, the Empress
started to cry, and the grand duchesses, seeing their mother's despair, also
burst into tears.57
 CHAPTER 8

The W ar,
1914-1917

O n 2 August, the day after war was declared, the imperial family attended
a religious service in Petersburg, after which the Emperor came out on to
the balcony of the W inter Palace to bow to the huge crowd which had
gathered in the square below. O n his appearance, tens of thousands of his
people knelt and sang the imperial hymn. Even more vast were the crowds
which greeted the imperial family when they visited Moscow later in the
month. O n 5 August came the news that Britain had declared war on
Germany and that Italy, despite its alliance with Berlin and Vienna, had
decided to remain neutral. On 8 August the overwhelming majority of
Duma deputies committed themselves to unconditional support for the
government’s war effort, in Alexander Obolensky’s words displaying a
unity 4which is something really surprising’. Instead of ‘the usual Duma
chatter and abuse . . . One felt here a very great enthusiasm and a sort of
calm confidence in final victory.’ Nicholas II, buoyed up by popular
support, recovered from the intense worry and gloom of the preceding
days. ‘The State Duma’, he commented, ‘has shown itself worthy of its
position and has truly expressed the will of the nation, because the whole
Russian people feels the insult that Germany has caused it. I now look on
the future with complete confidence . . . I am sure that we will now see in
Russia something like what happened during the war of 1812.91
The Emperor’s optimism was justified up to a point. The potential
resources of Russia and her allies were much greater than those of the
Central Powers. Victory should therefore be attainable. W ithin Russia
almost all sections of the upper and middle classes could unite to fight a war
forced on the country by the Germans and waged in defence of the Balkan
Slavs and of Russia’s position as an independent great power. As leader and
symbol of the nation, the Tsar’s popularity was bound to soar. Omi­
nously, the Russian Social Democrats, unlike their French and German
brothers, did not vote war credits for their government. O n the other
hand, in the first months of the war strikes in the cities almost ceased. As
 The W ar , 1914-1917 205

regards peasant attitudes, opinions differed. Paul Benckendorff wrote to

his brother that the national sentiment was excellent and that mobilization
had gone far more smoothly than during the war with Japan. Other
observers were less sanguine, noting peasant resignation rather than com­
prehension of the w ar’s aims.2
So long as the war was relatively short and ultimately victorious
national unity would prevail. If, as Peter Duraovo had argued in February
1914, the conflict proved lengthy and Russia suffered defeats then many of
the problems he predicted with such foresight were almost sure to emerge:
‘The insufficiency of our war supplies’; ‘far too great dependence, gener­
ally speaking, upon foreign industry’; ‘the network of strategic railways is
inadequate’; ‘the railways possess a rolling stock sufficient perhaps for
normal traffic, but not commensurate with the colossal demands which
will be made upon them in the event of a European war’; ‘the quantity of
our heavy artillery, the importance of which was demonstrated in the
Japanese W ar, is far too inadequate and there are few machine guns’; ‘the
closing of the Baltic as well as the Black Sea will prevent the importation
from abroad of the defence materials which we lack’; ‘the war will necessi­
tate expenditures which are beyond Russia’s limited financial means’;
‘both military disasters - partial ones, let us hope - and all kinds of short­
comings in our supply are inevitable. In the excessive nervousness and
spirit of opposition of our society, these events will be given an exagger­
ated importance, and all the blame will be laid on the government’; ‘in the
legislative institutions a bitter campaign against the government will
begin’; the country would resound with 'socialist slogans, capable of
arousing and rallying the masses, beginning with the division of the land
and succeeded by a division of all valuables and property’; the army,
‘having lost its most dependable men, and carried away by a primitive
peasant desire for land, will find itself too demoralised to serve as a bulwark
of law and order’; and ‘the legislative institutions and the intellectual
opposition parties, lacking real authority in the eyes of the people, will be
powerless to stem the popular tide, aroused by themselves, and Russia will
be flung into hopeless anarchy’.3
In 1914 the overwhelming majority of informed Europeans expected
the war to be brief. In fact, there were good reasons why it would be long.
Germany was Europe’s most formidable military power. The Austrian and
Ottoman empires were huge lands with large populations. The Central
Powers had the advantage of interior lines, and could shift their troops
from front to front with greater ease than the Allies. Among the latter, the
British Empire was potentially the most powerful. But the armies of
Britain and her colonies were tiny. It would be two years before British
potential could fully be realized on the battlefield. Until then Russia and
France would have to carry most of the military burden. Beneath a show of
206 Nicholas I I

bravado, most Russian generals believed their army to be inferior to that of

Germany. Indeed they exaggerated its inferiority. Memories of 1709 and
1812, when military inferiority had been compensated for by strategic
retreat and a war of attrition, loomed large in their minds. None of this
promised a quick end to the war. In any case, in this era military technol­
ogy greatly favoured the defender, entrenched and armed with the
machine gun and the rifle. The old offensive weapon, the cavalry, was
redundant and the tank and the dive-bomber were yet to be bom. Defeated
armies retreated to their railways and supply bases. Attackers plodded
forward on foot, their supplies dragged forward by horse and cart. In
1941-2 the Soviet army suffered much worse defeats then the imperial one
in 1914-15. But the Second W orld W ar moved more quickly than the
First. By the winter of 1943, their third of the war, the Russians had
Stalingrad and Kursk behind them. The tide had clearly turned in their
favour. In 1916 the Russian army had won great victories but the war’s
final outcome was less clear that third winter than in December 1943.
Morale was less easy to sustain.
The British or German soldier of 1914 was the product of many years of
schooling. He was not only literate but had also gone through a course of
patriotic indoctrination. The same was true of the Soviet soldier of 1941.
The Russian man of 1914 might or might not be literate. In the latter case
his education was probably rudimentary, his teacher a miserably paid
member of the intelligentsia who despised the tsarist regime and was not
trusted by it to inculcate its version of patriotism into his, or as often her,
pupils. The horizons of a peasant soldier were always likely to be narrow.
In 1915 the Chief of Staff, General Yanushkevich, claimed that ‘it is
beautiful to fight for Russia but the masses do not understand it . . . a
Tambovets is ready to stand to the death for Tambov province, but the war
in Poland seems strange and unnecessary to him’. In part, this was but one
of Yanushkevich’s many excuses for defeat brought on by bad generalship.
O n the other hand, it was certainly easier to arouse Russian patriotism
in 1941-3, when Hitler’s armies were fighting barbarously on Great
Russian soil. It was harder to explain to Russian peasants in 1914-16 why
they should die in Poland for the rights of Serbia and Russia’s position as a
great power. For all her naïve faith in peasant monarchism, in the summer
of 1915 the Empress Alexandra was forced to appeal to her husband not to
try to mobilize peasants from the reserve militia (opokhenief second class)
‘for internal peace’s sake’. In 1915, as in 1941-2, Russian soldiers surren­
dered in droves to the Germans, sometimes in bewilderment and anger at
cruel and incompetent commanders. Unlike Hitler, the Kaiser’s Germany
did not do its Russian enemy a good turn by murdering these prisoners in
vast numbers and thus deterring further surrender. In March 1917 the
imperial regime was brought down by a revolt of the Petrograd population
 The W ar, 1 9 1 4 -Î9 Î7 207

caused, above all, by the collapse of living standards during the war (the
capital’s name was changed from the German-sounding Petersburg in
August 1914). In 1941 the Soviet regime had greater support amongst the
working class than the Tsar had enjoyed in 1914. In Leningrad, however,
living conditions were incomparably worse than in 1916-17. But there
was much less open inequality in suffering and more confidence in compe­
tent leadership. Above all, with German armies on the city’s outskirts and
Hitler threatening to raze Leningrad to the ground, revolt was scarcely an
option.4
Not only were the defeats suffered by Russia’s armies in 1941-2 much
more complete than anything experienced in 1914-16, they were also to a
far greater degree the result of mistakes made personally by the head of
state, Josef Stalin. But there was no free press to criticize the dictator and
no opposition political parties to challenge his rule. Unlike the Tsar,
Stalin’s regime directly controlled the economy. The Soviet dictator did
not need to bargain with independent industrialists, landowners or even
peasants. The state of siege and the dictatorship, for which some Russians
called in 1914-17, already existed in 1941 before war began. Even in
wartime it was very difficult for a twentieth-century Russian tsar, and
impossible for Nicholas II, to be an Ivan the Terrible or a Peter the Great.
From the start, beneath the Union Sacrée of 1914, suspicions lurked
between government and educated society. Both sides knew that the war
would have an immense impact on Russia’s future political development.
In March 1916 the Empress Alexandra wrote to her husband that ‘it must
be your war and your peace and your and our country's honour and . . . by
no means the Duma’s’. Much of the opposition leadership thought no
differently. W hen the Tsar’s armies were defeated in the spring of 1915
the press, the opposition parties and the various public organizations
launched ferocious attacks on the government’s incompetence. ‘How
unpatriotic,’ wrote Anatol Kulomzin, ‘not to say foul, to seize a share of
political power on the grounds of the country’s misfortune when in fact
they are completely forgetting their country.’ But there was more to the
attacks than a simple struggle for power. The deepest political instinct of
educated Russians, whether members of the intelligentsia or of the land­
owning aristocracy, was that the tsarist bureaucracy was incompetent to
run the country’s affairs and that ‘society’ could do the job much better.
Military setbacks and supply crises merely confirmed this instinct. From
the very start, the war’s outcome was likely to depend on a race between
military victory and the disintegration of the home front. O n balance, the
latter was always likely to come first.5
In the first nine months of the war matters went reasonably well. Defeat
in eastern Prussia in August 1914 was more than outweighed by a series of
victories over the Austrians. By the spring of 1915 the Habsburg Empire
208 Nicholas I I

seemed on the verge of final defeat. In the winter of 1914-15 Russian

troops also often gave a very good account of themselves against the
Germans in Poland. Paul Benckendorff wrote to his brother in October
1914 that the internal political situation was excellent and that he was
convinced unity would survive until the end of the war. The Empress
Alexandra threw herself into organizing care for the wounded and for
soldiers’ families. For a time she enjoyed genuine popularity. The Empress
trained as a nurse and worked with the wounded in her hospital at
Tsarskoe Selo. When dying men asked for her presence, she tried never to
let them down. This was a great physical and still greater mental strain.
‘There were several . . . unknown, solitary men, from obscure line regi­
ments, who died in her hospital whose last hours were comforted by the
Empress. She lost her shyness in her nurse’s dress.’ Like her husband, the
Empress was full of sincerity and goodwill. But to modem eyes her time
was organized with great inefficiency and lack of concern for the impact
which the Empress’s activities could have had on public opinion. Like her
husband, Alexandra hated self-advertisement, which is an essential feature
of modem politics. ‘The Empress wanted every man of the immense army
to have something made with her own hands and strung innumerable
images all through the war. Very few knew this: and the work only tired
her, without being appreciated by those for whom she worked.’ By
January 1915 Alexandra was exhausted, her heart in a perilous state, and
her nerves in tatters. But she remained buoyed up by the mood in Russian
society which she had expressed in early October. ‘W ith God’s help . . .
all will go well and end gloriously, and it [the war] has lifted up spirits,
cleared the many stagnant minds, brought unity in feelings and is a
“ healthy” war in the moral sense.’ Nicholas’s spirits also remained high.
In December 1914, travelling in Russia’s Caucasian frontier lands, he
wrote to his wife that ‘this country of Cossacks is magnificent and rich
. . . They are beginning to be wealthy, and above all they have an incon­
ceivably high number of small infants. All future subjects. This fills me
with joy and faith in God’s mercy; I must look forward in peace and confi­
dence to what lies in store for Russia. W hat the country is achieving and
will go on achieving till the end of the war is wonderful and immense. ’6
In the spring of 1915 moods changed drastically. By March it was clear
that Russia faced a severe munitions crisis. The artillery lacked shells and
the infantry were short of rifles. In May there began a series of massive
German offensives which continued until September and resulted in the
loss of Poland, Lithuania and a small part of the Ukraine. All the belliger­
ents faced munitions crises at this time though that of Russia was more
severe than most because of the country’s relatively low level of industrial
development and her geographical isolation. In Russia, however, politics
and personal jealousies confused the issue. Headquarters, meaning the
 T he W ar, 1914-1917 209

Grand Duke Nicholas and his Chief of Staff, General Yanushkevich, used
the shell shortage as an excuse for'their own incompetence and as a stick
with which to beat their old enemy, the W ar Minister. The Duma and the
press, with which Headquarters had built up a good relationship, joined
gleefully in the attack on Sukhomlinov. The latter was accused of treason,
since Headquarters turned to spy mania as another explanation for defeat.
Sukhomlinov’s associate, Colonel S.N. Myasoedov, was arrested by Head­
quarters and hanged on trumped-up charges of espionage. The whole
Jewish population of the western borderlands also came under suspicion.
Local Jewish leaders, in particular rabbis, were seized and used as hostages.
Jews were driven from their homes and forced to flee into the Russian
interior with a brutality which, in the words of the Council of Ministers,
drove even some notorious Russian anti-Semites to shame and rage. The
Minister of Internal Affairs commented that it was General Yanushkevich’s
‘plan to maintain the army’s prejudice against all the Jews, and to represent
them as responsible for the defeats at the f r ont . . . for Yanushkevich, the
Jews are probably one of those alibis about which A.V. Krivoshein
spoke’.7
W ith panic growing both at Headquarters and in Petrograd some
ministers, led by Alexander Krivoshein, decided that those of their col­
leagues most obnoxious to the Duma and ‘society’ must be removed since
the government needed public support in a time of crisis. Krivoshein no
doubt also rejoiced in the possibility of getting rid of Nicholas Maklakov,
Minister of Internal Affairs and the only minister whose standing with the
Tsar was equal to his own. O n 18 June Maklakov was dismissed since, of
all the ministers, he was the one most hated by public opinion. Along with
him went the ministers of justice and war, together with the civilian head
of the Orthodox Church, all of whom were also conservative figures
odious in the eyes of liberal society. Nicholas was signalling his desire to
maintain the Union Sacrée and to compromise with the Duma. Paul
Benckendorff wrote that the Empress was furious at these changes: ‘There
are going on around me here fantastic domestic dramas.’8
But Nicholas had not given way entirely to pressure for concessions.
The ancient, shrewd and loyal Ivan Goremykin remained as his watchdog
in the Council of Ministers. The Emperor’s view on Krivoshein’s coup
tells one much about his attitude to politics and to his ministers. Peter
Bark, one of Krivoshein’s allies, recalled that

at the end of my report, the Emperor . . . made it clear that he was very
unpleasantly struck by our démarche. He said to me that he could not
understand how we had decided to ask for the dismissal from our group of four
ministers, who were loyal servants of their monarch. This was an act of
disloyalty to colleagues and he could not but express his displeasure to all of us.
210 Nicholas I I

The Emperor added that he was educated in military discipline, and was
accustomed to a military atmosphere. He considered unthinkable in a regiment
a situation where one section of the officers asked the regimental commander to
dismiss some of their colleagues who had committed no offence. The Emperor
considered that solidarity and discipline were required in any body and that any
business would be ruined if these necessary conditions were not observed . . .
I never expected that the Emperor would make an analogy between the
Council of Ministers and a regiment and equate the solidarity necessary among
members of a cabinet with the corporate spirit in military formations.9

Despite Nicholas’s concessions pressure built up on the government.

O n 7 September 1915 the ‘Progressive Bloc’ was formed, to which two-
thirds of the Duma’s members and a sizeable proportion of the State
Council adhered. The Bloc’s programme contained a mass of legislative
proposals, most of which had little relevance to the war and scant chance of
immediate realization in wartime conditions. Some parts of the pro­
gramme, for instance its sections on Jewish rights and local government
reform, were kept deliberately vague since the Bloc’s left and right wings
totally disagreed on these issues. But the Bloc’s essence did not really lie in
its programme. In the eyes of its enemies the Bloc was a conspiracy
designed to remove control over the government from the Emperor’s
hands and to place it in the grasp of the party politicians and the legislature.
The Bloc’s friends argued that, on the contrary, it was designed to unite as
much of the country as possible behind the war effort and to force the
appointment of efficient ministers who would work with the public to
achieve victory. W ithin the Bloc the Progressist party, whose most active
core consisted of wealthy Moscow industrialists, pressed for a government
formally responsible to the legislature. In this they were backed by much
of the press and by most activists in two important organizations, the
Town Union and the Zemstvo Union, which had been created in August
1914 to help the war effort and which did important work in support of
the army and the horde of refugees who had fled into the interior after the
retreat of 1915. To the extent that one can judge, middle-class opinion in
both Moscow and the provinces backed this demand.
Most of the Duma leaders were, however, more cautious. They called
for a government enjoying ‘public confidence’. Decoded, this slogan
meant that the Emperor must appoint a prime minister acceptable to the
Progressive Bloc who must then be allowed to choose and control his
fellow ministers. The party leaders shied away from demanding formal
responsibility to the legislature for fear of antagonizing Nicholas II. In
addition, most of them felt that in present circumstances an experienced
senior official would run the government better than a parliamentarian
unused to administration. The Kadet leader Milyukov, head of Russia’s
 T he W ar, 1914-1917 211

main middle-class party, stated that ‘we don’t seek power now . . . the
time will come when it will simply fall into our hands, it’s only necessary
at present to have a clever bureaucrat as head of the government’. The
Octobrist politician, A.I. Guchkov, whose ambitions were deeply suspect
to Nicholas II, later claimed that he ‘had always looked sceptically on the
possibility of creating a “ society” or parliamentary cabinet in the Russia of
that time’ since among the party leaders and other figures respected by
society ‘one did not find that civic courage which the authorities needed to
show at so responsible a moment. Rather, it was possible to find this
among representatives of the bureaucracy.910
In the summer of 1915 most ministers sympathized with the Progres­
sive Bloc and wished to come to an agreement with it. Indeed it may well
be that some ministers played a hidden role in the Bloc’s formation. The
minutes of the Council of Ministers display a mood of great nervousness, at
times bordering on panic. This was caused in part by the Council’s sense of
its own powerlessness to avert disaster. By Russian law a huge swathe of
territory behind the front line came under military jurisdiction. As the
army retreated, the Council of Ministers even lost control over its own
capital city and found itself begging unresponsive military censors to do
something to tame the furiously anti-government line taken by the press.
Under increasing attack in society, the ministers also felt that their policies
did not enjoy the full sympathy or confidence of the monarch. They
argued that the government needed the support of public opinion and that
only unity between ministers, parliament, key economic interests and the
armed forces could bring victory. General Polivanov, the new Minister of
W ar, argued that ‘the very possibility of victory rests in the union of all
forces in the country. . . But how can one achieve this union, this passion,
when the overwhelming majority is not in sympathy with . . . the course
of internal policy, nor with the government called upon to conduct this
policy? How can men work when they have neither faith nor confidence in
their leaders?’ Polivanov warned those who advocated a policy of hard-line
repression that ‘one should not forget that the army is now quite different
from the one which marched forth at the beginning of the war. The
regular troops are badly thinned out and have been absorbed into the mass
of the armed people, as it is now fashionable to call them, badly trained and
not imbued with the spirit of military discipline . . . the officer corps,
being filled up with speeded-up promotions and ensigns from the reserve,
is not aloof from politics.911
A.V. Krivoshein summed up the position of the Council’s majority by
stating, ‘the demands of the Duma and of the whole country are reducible
to the issue not of a programme but of which people are to be entrusted
with power . . . Let the Monarch decide how he wishes to direct further
internal policy - along the path of ignoring such desires or along the path
212 Nicholas I I

of reconciliation . . . W e, old servants of the Tsar . . . firmly state to His

Imperial Majesty that the general internal situation of the country requires
a change of Cabinet and of the political course.’ Most ministers made it
dear that, unless a compromise was sought with sodety, they could not
stay in office for long. Nor could they work with the Council’s Chairman,
I.L. Goremykin, whose views were flatly opposed to their own. Serge
Sazonov expressed the mood of many ministers when he stated, ‘we are
not puppets . . . we do live in an age when one cannot . . . refuse to
respect people, particularly when these people are ministers and speak of
the impossibility of continuing to serve’.12
The political crisis of the summer of 1915 was sharpened by Nicholas
II’s dedsion to dismiss the Grand Duke Nicholas Nikolaevich, known as
Nikolasha within the family, and himself to assume the supreme command
of the army and the fleet. One element in this move was the Empress’s
jealousy of the tall and imposing Grand Duke, whom she saw as trying to
replace her husband as a symbol of patriotism, military glory and national
leadership. Stories of the Grand Duke’s prestige in the eyes of the people or
comments about the prayers read on his behalf in churches fuelled such
feelings. The Grand Duke Nicholas Mikhailovich, another cousin, wrote
to the Emperor:

as regards Nikolasha*s popularity I will say the following: this popularity was
craftily manufactured from Kiev by Militsa [Nikolasha’s wife], little by little
and by all possible means - by spreading among the people brochures, little
booklets, popular prints, portraits, calendars etc. Thanks to this well-
calculated preparation his popularity did not fall after the loss of Galicia and
Poland . . . I dare to say to you that it is my deep conviction that this
popularity alarms me in a dynastic sense, especially in view of the excited state
of our public opinion, which is becoming more and more evident in the
provinces. This popularity does not at all help the throne or the prestige of the
imperial family but only inflates the prestige of the husband of the Grand
Duchess, who is a Slav woman and not a German . . . Given the possibility of
every kind of disturbance at the end of the war, you need to be on the lookout
and to watch carefully all the ways used to support this popularity.13

The Grand Duke Nicholas Mikhailovich was a clever man. He was also
a great intriguer. His letter oozes with the envy and malice so prevalent in
Russian politics and Petersburg high society. The hint at the German
origins of the Empress was a particularly masterly touch. The Grand Duke
was unfair to Nikolasha, who was never likely to try to supplant his
nephew. Nevertheless the opinions expressed in the letter were not
entirely unreasonable. As Commander-in-Chief the Grand Duke Nicholas
cultivated excellent relations with the Duma leaders, the zemstvo and town
 T he W ar , 1914-1917 213

unions, and the press. The government, and particularly the Minister of
W ar, he tended to ignore and despise. Headquarters became potentially a
major political centre of power. Well before 1914 many conservative and
nationalist Russians longed for a convincing symbol of military glory and
Russian power. Neither Alexander 111 nor Nicholas II satisfied this thirst,
above all because, as Tsars, they had to bear the burden of Russia’s real
weakness and backwardness, which was not the stuff of which nationalist
dreams were made. At the end of the First World War, a victorious and
charismatic military commander could undoubtedly have played a major
political role.14
Apart from personal and political considerations, there were also strong
practical reasons for the removal of the Grand Duke. Headquarters’ refusal
to co-operate with the civilian government, and the cruel and unwise
policies it pursued in the huge region under its control, were causing
chaos. The Council of Ministers protested furiously at the antics of the
Grand Duke, and even more at the behaviour of his Chief of Staff and
protégé, General Yanushkevich. Still worse, both the Supreme Com­
mander and Yanushkevich were poor generals, whose incompetence
played a significant role in the disastrous performance of the army in the
summer of 1915. Moreover, with his armies in full retreat, the very
excitable Nikolasha was in a state of panic that came close to a nervous
breakdown. It would be difficult for the dynasty's prestige to replace a
defeated grand duke as supreme commander with a simple mortal. In
proposing himself as supreme war leader, the Emperor never expected
personally to decide strategy or military operations. These were to be the
responsibility of his Chief of Staff, General M.V. Alekseev, who proved far
more competent than either Nikolasha or Yanushkevich. But the
Emperor was a much more calming influence at Headquarters than his
nervous uncle. In addition, since peasant soldiers were not easily swayed by
a modem sense of nationalism but were still often influenced by veneration
for their Tsar, there was some hope that the monarch’s presence at the
front would improve morale. On top of this, Nicholas’s assumption of the
supreme command did lead to better co-ordination of military and civilian
authority. It also seemed to avert the danger of the army high command
falling out of the monarch’s hands and forming an alliance with the
political opposition.15
Despite these powerful reasons for Nicholas’s assumption of the
supreme command, the Council of Ministers reacted to the news of the
Tsar’s intentions with horror. In part this simply sprang from the panic
prevalent in Petrograd at the time. In part, too, it was due to dismay that
the monarch was taking such a momentous decision without even con­
sulting his ministers. Most important, however, was the ministers’ belief,
based on information from Headquarters, that the military situation was
214 Nicholas I I

disastrous, the surrender of Kiev certain and even the abandonment of

Petrograd a possibility. The thought that the monarch himself might have
to take the responsibility for impending disaster appalled the ministers. As
Peter Bark wrote subsequently, the Emperor’s decision to assume the
command in these circumstances was ‘a sublime act, full of self-sacrifice, of
patriotism, of love for his country and of a profound sense of his duty’. At
the time Ivan Goremykin warned his fellow ministers that the Tsar’s deci­
sion to assume command went beyond mere political calculation and
would never be altered by their arguments.

I must say to the Council of Ministers that all attempts to dissuade the
Emperor will be, in any event, useless. His conviction was formed a long time
ago. He has told me, more than once, that he will never forgive himself for not
leading the army at the front during the Japanese war. According to his own
words, the duty of the Tsar, his function, dictates that the monarch be with his
troops in moments of danger, sharing both their joy and their sorrow . . .
Now, when there is virtually a catastrophe at the front His Majesty considers it
the sacred duty of the Russian Tsar to be among the troops, to fight against
the conqueror or perish. Considering such purely mystical feelings, you will
not be able to dissuade the Emperor by any reasons from the step he has
contemplated. I repeat, intrigues or personal influence played no role in this
decision. It was prompted by the Tsar’s consciousness of his duty to the
motherland and to the exhausted army. I, too, exerted all efforts as did the
Minister of War, to restrain His Majesty from making his decision final,
begged him to postpone it until circumstances are more favourable. I, too, find
that the assumption of command by the Emperor is a very risky step which can
have grave consequences, but he, understanding this risk perfectly, neverthe­
less does not want to give up his perception of the Tsar’s duty. There remains
for us only to bow before the will of our Tsar and help him.16

The ministers would have been wise to heed Goremykin’s words. The
Emperor’s decision to assume the supreme command was not only coura­
geous and irrevocable but also correct. The best solution to the political
crisis was for the monarch to take over the supreme command, leaving
behind in Petrograd an energetic prime minister capable of uniting the
government and collaborating with the Duma and the various organiza­
tions created by society to help the war effort. The ideal candidate for the
premiership would have been Alexander Krivoshein. Had the ministers
been less panic-stricken and supported the Emperor’s decision to assume
the supreme command it is just possible that such an outcome would have
been achieved. But persistent and united ministerial resistance to the
assumption of the supreme command merely aroused Nicholas’s stubborn­
ness. The catastrophic consequences predicted by the ministers if the Grand
Duke Nicholas was removed and the Duma’s session prorogued seemed
 T he W au 1 9 1 4 -1 9 Í 7 215

unconvincing to the Emperor, who in this case too proved a better and
calmer judge than his advisers. The ministers’ refusal to work with
Goremykin also annoyed him. At the end of September he wrote to his
wife that 'the ministers do not wish to work with old Goremykin, in spite
of the stem words which I addressed to them; therefore, on my return,
some changes must take place’.17
O n 22 September Nicholas wrote a letter to his wife which makes
dear not just his attitude to the 'ministerial strike’ but also some of the
assumptions and illusions that were to guide his policy for the rest of his
reign.

The behaviour of some of the ministers continues to amaze me! After all that I
told them . . . I thought that they understood both me and the fact that I was
seriously explaining what I thought. What matter? - so much the worse for
them! They were afraid to dose the Duma - it was done! I came away here
and replaced N, in spite of their advice; the people accepted this move as a
natural thing and understood it, as we did. The proof - numbers of telegrams
which 1 receive from all sides, with the most touching expressions. All this
shows me dearly one thing: that the ministers, always living in town, know
terribly little of what is happening in the country as a whole. Here I can judge
correctly the real mood among the various classes of the people: everything
must be done to bring the war to a victorious ending, and no doubts are
expressed on that score. I was told this officially by all the deputations which I
received some days ago, and so it is all over Russia. Petrograd and Moscow
constitute the only exceptions - two minute points on the map of the father-
land.18

The military and political crisis of the summer of 1915 put Nicholas
under immense strain. Even in June, well before the crisis peaked, the
Emperor wrote to his wife: '1 am beginning to feel my old heart. The first
time it was in August of last year, after the Samsonov catastrophe [at
Tannenberg], and again now - it feels so heavy in the left side when I
breathe. But what can one do!’ O n 23 June Alexandra wrote,

everything is so serious and just now particularly painful and I long to be with
you, to share your worries and anxieties. You bear all so bravely and by
yourself - let me help you, my Treasure . . . I do so yearn to make it easier for
you, and the ministers all squabbling amongst each other at a time when all
ought to work together and forget their personal offences - have as aims the
welfare of their Sovereign and country - it makes me rage. In other words it’s
treachery, because people know it, they feel the government in discord and
then the left profit by it. If you could only be severe, my Love, it is so
necessary. They must hear your voice and see displeasure in your eyes; they are
too much accustomed to your gentle, forgiving kindness.19
216 Nicholas I I

Determination to stiffen her husband's resolve was a constant theme in

Alexandra’s correspondence. After he had overborne his ministers and
assumed the supreme command the Empress asked him to forgive her for
badgering him so much but wrote that she knew his gentleness and how
difficult it was for him to fight with people.

You have fought this great fight for your country and throne - alone and with
bravery and decision. Never have they seen such firmness in you before and it
cannot remain without good fruit . . . What the struggle here really is and
means - your showing your mastery, proving yourself the Autocrat without
which Russia cannot exist. Had you given in now on these different questions,
they would have dragged out yet more of you . . . You had . . . to win your
fight against all. It will be a glorious page in your reign and Russian history,
the story of these weeks and days - and God, who is just and near you, will
save your country and throne through your firmness . . . God anointed you at
your coronation, He placed you where you stand and you have done your
duty, be sure, quite sure of this. . . and He forsaketh not his anointed.20

Nicholas never put down on paper the precise reasons which persuaded
him to reject the deal with the Progressive Bloc which most of his minis­
ters urged on him in the summer of 1915. Immediately after his abdication,
however, he was asked by his trusted Palace Commandant, General
Voeykov, why he had resisted society’s demands.

The Emperor replied that, firstly, any break in the existing system of govern­
ment at a time of such intense struggle with the enemy would lead only to
internal catastrophe and that, secondly, the concessions which he had made
during his reign on the insistence of the so-called public circles had only
brought harm to the country, each time removing part of the defences against
the work of evil elements, consciously leading Russia to ruin. Personally he
had always been directed by the wish to preserve the crown in the form which
he had inherited it from his late father in order to hand it on in the same form
after his death to his son.21

In the summer of 1915, as in the autumn of 1905, huge pressure built up

on Nicholas II to make concessions to society. In retrospect he believed
that the constitution he had granted in October 1905 had made Russia less
stable and less governable. Now further weakening of the monarch’s
power was demanded. A ’government enjoying public confidence’ meant
that Nicholas must devolve most of his power in domestic affairs to a
prime minister, whose stay in office was dependent in part on the support
of the Progressive Bloc. The concessions he had made in June by dismissing
conservative ministers had been followed by a demand for more conces­
sions in August. Particularly if the military situation remained bad, would
 The W ar, 1 9 1 4 -Î9 1 7 217

not further demands be made, with any ‘bureaucrats’ remaining in minis­

terial chairs being held responsible for failures in the country’s war effort
whose real causes were well beyond their control? The Progressive Bloc
was riven with jealousies and differing opinions. It might hold together in
denouncing the government and issuing ringing declarations. Would it do
so when it actually had to produce legislation satisfactory to its constitu­
ents or take some responsibility for governing Russia in the appallingly
difficult conditions of war? Even on the most important and pressing
domestic issue, namely how best to provide adequate supplies of food to
the cities, the Progressive Bloc was split fundamentally and right down the
middle. Alexander Khvostov, Goremykin’s only firm ally in the Council
of Ministers, argued that ‘demands are being presented for changes in the
State structure, not because these changes are necessary for the organiza­
tion of victory but because the military misfortunes have weakened the
position of the authorities and one can now act against them with a knife at
the throat. Today one will satisfy some demands; tomorrow new ones,
which go still further, will be announced.* Goremykin himself stated that
‘while I’m alive, I will fight for the inviolability of the Tsar’s power. The
whole strength of Russia lies only in the monarchy. Otherwise there will
be such a mess that everything will be lost. First of all, one must conclude
the war, instead of occupying oneself with reforms.’ No doubt Nicholas
shared the opinions of both Goremykin and Khvostov.22
In the nine months that followed the crisis Nicholas’s firmness seemed
to bear fruit. Shortly after his assumption of the supreme command the
military situation improved rapidly. Kiev was saved. The front was
stabilized. Small but successful counter-attacks occurred. As important,
the autumn witnessed a dramatic improvement in military supplies thanks
to effective collaboration between the Ministry of W ar and Russian indus­
try, above all the great barons of thé Petersburg and Ukrainian metal­
lurgical factories. W hen the 1916 campaigning season began, the Russian
army was larger and better equipped than at any previous time in the war.
The improved military situation and the collaboration between govern­
ment and industry took much of the sting out of domestic politics. The
liberal parties became much more meek, toning down their demands and
criticisms. Contrary to fears expressed in the summer of 1915, Nicholas’s
refusal of a ‘ministry of public confidence’ did not result in activists in the
zemstvo or town unions boycotting the war effort. In January 1916
M. V. Chelnokov, the Mayor of Moscow and one of the leading figures in
the opposition movement, attended a supply conference at Headquarters,
where, to their mutual astonishment, he and Nicholas bumped into one
another. The Emperor received the Mayor in private audience. ‘He
breathed heavily and jumped every second from his chair when he was
speaking. I asked him whether he was feeling well, to which he replied in
218 Nicholas I I

the affirmative, but added that he was accustomed to present himself

before Nikolasha, and had not expected to see me here. This reply, and his
general bearing, pleased me.’ Five months later the President of the Duma,
M.V. Rodzyanko, had an interview with the Emperor at Headquarters.
Nicholas commented that ’in comparison with last year his tone has
changed and has become less self-confident’.23
The 1916 campaign on the Eastern Front began with failure in the
so-called Lake Naroch battle. Nicholas commented: ’many generals are
making serious blunders. The worst of it is, that we have so few good
generals. It seems to me that during the long winter rest they have
forgotten all the experience which they acquired last year! I am beginning
to complain but that is unnecessary! I feel firm, and believe absolutely in
our final success.’ In the summer of 1916 the Emperor’s faith was to be
vindicated. A major offensive commanded by General Aleksei Brusilov
smashed through the Austrian front. Huge numbers of Austrian and
German prisoners were taken. The well-commanded Russian forces
proved a match for the German army. New and young military talent,
capable of adapting to the needs of modem war, was coming to the fore.
W ith British forces at last committed in huge numbers, and Germany
facing terrible attrition on the Somme and at Verdun, it looked briefly as if
the last hour of the Central Powers might be nigh. In fact the Germans
succeeded in stabilizing the situation. Even so there was some reason for
optimism that, with Allied numbers and resources now much outweigh­
ing those of the Central Powers, the 1917 campaign could bring victory.
But for this to happen, the Russian home front would have to survive its
third winter of war.24
The basic problem here was economic rather than political. In part it
had to do with the railway system, which was strained beyond endurance
by the war. The Russian railway network was thinner than in Central or
Western Europe. It was also geared to moving grain exports to the Black
Sea ports. Now it found itself forced to supply food, forage and fuel to
Petrograd and the front on the empire’s western and north-western bor­
ders. The war’s impact on Russian agriculture altered the pattern of
regional agricultural surpluses and caused further trouble. So too did a
shortage of skilled labour and the impact of inflation on workers’ morale.
Anyone working for the government, such as a railwayman or policeman,
was badly hit by prices racing far ahead of wages. Workers in private
companies in Petrograd and Moscow also suffered from this, albeit not
quite so badly. The cause of inflation was that the government could only
cover much of war expenditure by resorting to the printing press. Easy
money helped the boom in investment in war industries but only at the
expense of a major drop in urban living standards, made all the more
unbearable by the fat profits of some industrialists. The head of the
 T he W ar , 1914-1917 219

Petrograd political police warned in October 1916 that great danger existed
of a popular explosion brought on by collapsing living standards and
exhaustion with the war. ‘The economic position of the masses, despite
the vast increases in pay, is more than terrible.’ ‘The ordinary inhabitant,
condemned to a half-starved existence,* was, ‘to a considerable extent
ready for the most wild excesses on the first suitable or unsuitable occa­
sion.’ The head of the empire’s police forces, A.T. Vasilev, agreed that the
situation was ‘very alarming’ and added that the authorities, including the
Emperor himself, were widely blamed for failure to cope with the crisis on
the home front.25
Even worse than inflation and problems on the railways, though closely
linked to both of them, was the drying-up of food supplies to the cities. By
the winter of 1916-17 this problem had become acute. W ith Russian
industry geared to the war effort and industrial consumer goods’ prices
soaring ahead of agricultural prices peasants had increasingly less incen­
tive to market their grain. Massive army purchases, backed by fixed prices
and administrative controls, further confused the market. A gap began to
yawn between the interests of the country’s northern provinces, where
there was a shortage of grain, and the southern provinces, where there was
a surplus. To a great extent this also meant a battle between town and
countryside. Not just the government but also the Progressive Bloc and
public opinion were sharply divided on solutions to this crisis. To what
extent, if any, should the supply of food be left in the hands of private
grain traders? At what level should grain prices be fixed? Should the
government or the zemstvo and town unions or other public organizations
assume responsibility for the food supply? If the government, then which
ministry? Technical, political and institutional disagreements combined
to make this a supremely intractable problem. Though the liberal opposi­
tion fiercely criticized the government’s food supply policy in the autumn
of 1916, when forced to take responsibility for this problem themselves
after the monarchy’s fall they failed entirely. In the end the Bolsheviks
‘solved’ the problem by ferocious requisitioning o f grain from the
peasantry. But by then the urban population had halved as a result of
hunger and unemployment, and the end of the Great W ar meant there
was no longer any need to feed a massive army in the western border­
lands.26
The Emperor was aware of the crisis on the home front but bewildered
as to how to resolve it. In June 1916 he reported that the Minister of
Communications, A.F. Trepov, declared that the railways ‘are working
better than last year, and brings forward evidence to that effect, but
complaints are being made, nevertheless, that they do not bring up all that
they could! These affairs are a regular curse; from constant anxiety about
them I cannot make out where the truth lies. But it is imperative to act
220 Nicholas I I

energetically and to take firm measures, in order to settle these questions

once and for all.’ Three months later Nicholas added that,

together with military matters, the eternal question of supplies troubles me

most of all. Alexseev gave me today a letter which he received from the
charming Prince Obolensky, the President of the Committee of Supplies. He
confesses frankly that they cannot alleviate the situation in any way, that they
are working in vain, that the Ministry of Agriculture pays no attention to their
regulations, that the prices are soaring and the people beginning to starve. It is
obvious where this situation may lead the country. Old Sturmer [the Prime
Minister] cannot overcome these difficulties. I do not see any other way out,
except by transferring the matter to the military authorities, but that also has
its disadvantages. It is the most damnable problem that I have ever come
across! I never was a business man, and simply do not understand anything in
these questions of supplying and provisioning.27

The strain of wartime leadership told severely on the Emperor’s health.

Even in early 1915, S.S. Fabritsky recalled that, 'not having seen their
Majesties and the family for about 10 months I was shaken by the change
which could not but strike one. The Emperor and the Empress, who had
given herself up to the care of the wounded, had a very tired and worried
appearance, and in addition the Emperor had aged noticeably.’ Meeting
Nicholas again at Headquarters in September 1916 Fabritsky was even
more alarmed. 'H e had greatly aged and his cheeks were sunken. Sitting
almost opposite His Majesty and not taking my eyes from him, I could not
but pay attention to his terrible nervousness, which had never existed
before. It was evident that the Emperor’s spirit was troubled and that it
was difficult for him to hide his agitation successfully from his entourage.'
Paul Benckendorff told D r Botkin, the Emperor’s physician, that

he can’t continue this way much longer. His Majesty is a changed man. It is
very wrong of him to attempt the impossible. He is no longer seriously
interested in anything. Of late, he has become quite apathetic. He goes
through his daily routine like an automaton, paying more attention to the
hour set for his meals or his walk in the garden, than to affairs of state. One
can’t rule an empire and command an army in the field in this manner. If he
doesn't realise it in time, something catastrophic is bound to happen.28

Nicholas complained that the ministers 'persist in coming here nearly

every day, and take up all my time; I usually go to bed after 1.30a.m.,
spending all my time in a continual rush, with writing, reading and recep­
tions!!! It is simply desperate.’ Especially when reporting on technical
economic questions ministers often felt that the monarch was far away. As
Minister of Agriculture, Alexander Naumov bore chief responsibility for
 The W ar, 1914-1917 221

supplying food to the army and the cities. In June 1916 he made a report to
the Emperor at Headquarters.

I tried to tell His Majesty in detail about the situation of the food supply, about
the harvests and what was the prospective yield, and about the organization of
agricultural work in the agricultural regions of the south. The Emperor kept
on interrupting me with questions that related not to the business side of my
official journey but rather to everyday trivia that interested him . . . how the
weather was, whether there were children and flowers . . . I must admit that
this kind of attitude from the Emperor towards matters of fundamental
national importance at the time discouraged me greatly . . . I became clearly
aware of a certain characteristic of the monarch which I attribute to general
nervous exhaustion brought about by all the adversities attending his reign and
the extraordinary complications he had encountered in governing the country
since the outbreak of war in 1914. Like the neurotic who preserves his
equanimity only until some vulnerable point is touched, the Emperor, clearly
exhausted under the pressure of very complicated national concerns and tre­
mendous responsibility, instinctively looked for peace and preferred to think
and talk about lighter and happier things when we reported to him, rather
than to hear and discuss urgent, difficult and worrying issues.29

Peter Bark served as Minister of Finance until the monarchy’s fall in

March 1917. He wrote in his memoirs that

when I had to go to Headquarters to present a report to the Emperor, His

Majesty more than once told me how good he felt among his army and how
unpleasant to him was the whole atmosphere of the capital when he returned
for short periods to Tsarskoe Selo. At the front people defended their country
and sacrificed themselves but in the rear they were taken up with gossip,
intrigue and personal interests. Unfortunately the apathetic attitude of the
Emperor to the rear inspired him to a certain indifference as regards the tasks of
government. Having taken the path of his own personal policy, having
assumed the supreme command and determined the course of internal affairs
despite the opinions of the majority of the Council of Ministers, the Emperor
had taken upon himself the whole burden of responsibility for the administra­
tive machine. The Council of Ministers, as a united government, had ceased to
exist and the ministers had been turned simply into bosses of the departments,
whom the Emperor summoned separately to hear their reports on current
affairs.20

Bark was a little unfair on Nicholas, whose attitude to the rear and its
problems was as much one of bewilderment as of apathy. But the Minister
of Finance was absolutely correct in describing the civilian government as
in many ways leaderless. Throughout the war the pattern established in
222 Nicholas I I

January 1914 prevailed. A weak Chairman of the Council sat alongside

powerful heads of department, of whom the Minister of Internal Affairs
was the most important as regards domestic policy. Ivan Goremykin,
who served as Chairman until January 1916, was an intelligent and experi­
enced man but he had been bom in 1839. In his wartime letters Paul
Benckendorff stressed on many occasions the need for a powerful and
inspiring prime minister who could co-ordinate and energize govern­
ment policy. In the summer of 1915 he commented that if Goremykin
could obey the logic of his political views and act as a dictator, all well and
good. In fact, however, he was far too old and was exhausted after one
hour of conversation. In January 1916 Goremykin was succeeded as
premier by Boris Sturmer, nine years his junior in age and considerably his
inferior in personality. Sturmer had been a competent provincial governor
many years before but as a war leader or dictator he was out of his depth.
Benckendorff complained that no one could even hear his speeches in the
Duma or State Council. Still older, though nicer and more intelligent, was
the last premier, Prince N.D. Golitsyn. For a country in the midst of deep
crisis even the symbolic presence of such elderly and tired figures at the
helm of government was both depressing and psychologically disastrous.
But Nicholas and Alexandra knew, liked and trusted these old men. They
would not seek to push the Emperor aside or gang up with the Duma
behind his back. Above all, they had the values of the older generation of
senior officialdom. They would stay in office and execute the Emperor's
policy even if they disagreed with it. By contrast, younger ministers were
much more likely to insist on resigning if their opinions and those of the
monarch diverged.31
W ith Ivan Goremykin's appointment as Chairman of the Council in
February 1914 Nicholas II had established a pattern whereby a powerful
Minister of Internal Affairs had the biggest say as regards domestic policy
and worked directly to the Emperor. In June 1915, in an effort to appease
the Duma and public opinion, the Tsar dismissed Nicholas Maklakov and
replaced him as Minister of Internal Affairs with Prince N.B. Shcherbatov.
Maklakov was a reactionary in the correct sense of the term, meaning that
he wanted, as far as possible, to return to the pre-1905 system of govern­
ment. The Soviet historian, V.S. Dyakin, comments that 'Maklakov was
no fool, raised by chance to a ministerial post. He was one of the most
consistent, decisive and open defenders of the autocracy.’ His successor,
Shcherbatov, was much more popular but also less competent. He was a
conservative aristocrat, a man drawn from 'society', not a bureaucrat. One
of his ministerial colleagues recalled that Shcherbatov 'w on great sym­
pathy by his straight character and his gentle treatment of people, however
. . . not having any experience in the work of the huge and complicated
bureaucratic apparatus he became completely lost'. For the rest of the war
 The W ar, 1914-1917 223

Nicholas tried hard not to alienate public opinion totally, partly because he
needed the support of liberal members of public organizations, for instance
in the zemstvo and town unions, to manage the food supply, cope with
the refugee problem and provide a number of services to the front-line
army. This more or less ruled out the appointment of one of the small and
shrinking band of tough conservative bureaucrats to run the Ministry of
Internal Affairs. O n the other hand, in the summer of 1915 the Emperor
rejected a ‘ministry of public confidence’, thereby making it impossible to
leave the Ministry of Internal Affairs in the hands of a liberal-conservative
official of Krivoshein’s type. The monarch’s options in appointing men to
this vital position therefore became very narrow. Many of the available
candidates were mediocre and gérontocratie. A perfect reflection of this
was the fact that for four months in 1916 Boris Stunner doubled as Prime
Minister and Minister of Internal Affairs. Less offensive to the Duma than
Goremykin, for the last fifteen years Sturmer had enjoyed a reputation for
loyalty, even subservience, to the crown, but combined with a manner and
attitudes which smoothed over relations with zemstvos and liberal activists
to the extent that that was possible.32
In the winter of 1915-16 the Ministry of Internal Affairs was headed
by Aleksei Khvostov, whose uncle Alexander was also a member of the
cabinet at that time. The younger Khvostov, who was both a former
provincial governor and a right-wing member of the Duma, seemed to
have the right qualifications for the job: administrative experience,
loyalty to the crown, the ability to cope with the Duma. In addition,
Khvostov was young and energetic. Alexandra described him as ‘a man,
no petticoats’, who was ‘energetic’ and ‘with cleverness and deci­
sion’ would sort out the domestic political and food supply crises. The
new minister’s programme was to undercut the liberal opposition by
reducing inflation and the cost of living, demonstratively combating
speculation and loudly denouncing the role of non-Russians, and especially
people of German origin in the economy. Khvostov was not just a
demagogue but also a rather shady character. Though he had cultivated
Rasputin when seeking office, he quickly realized that the man was a
liability to the regime and decided in desperation to have him killed. The
security police was not, however, in pre-revolutionary days an organiza­
tion that arranged contract murders. Its director, S.P. Beletsky,
denounced Khvostov and a frightful scandal ensued, which further
damaged the crown’s prestige. W hen Khvostov was appointed, Paul
Benckendorff described him, a little snootily, as a ‘mediocre arriviste’ of
doubtful morals, one of a number of vulgar, unscrupulous types who were
forming a clique around the Empress. Reporting to his brother on 9 March
1916 about the bungled effort to kill Rasputin, he commented: ‘that is all
that was lacking’ .33
224 Nicholas I I

Alexander Protopopov, the last Minister of Internal Affairs in Imperial

Russia, was appointed on 29 September 1916. On paper Protopopov
seemed a perfect candidate. He was the Vice-President of the Duma and
came not from its right wing but from its Octobrist centre. Like many
Octobrists, Protopopov’s political principles were distinctly flexible and,
appointed to ministerial office, he proved a loyal servant of the crown.
Nevertheless, since the Duma’s President, M.V. Rodzyanko, had actually
recommended Protopopov to Nicholas it seemed reasonable to expect that
his appointment would smooth relations with the parliament. Protopopov
was both a landowner and an industrialist. He enjoyed excellent relations
with the Petersburg financial oligarchy, whose support for both the
regime and the war effort was very important. In March 1916 Protopopov
had been elected chairman of the Council of Metallurgical Industrialists,
a group which played a key role in supplying the army and one whose atti­
tude to the government was much less hostile than that of the Moscow
industrialists who were linked to Alexander Guchkov and to the Progressist
party. As chairman of the Duma delegation which had visited Britain,
France and Italy in 1916 Protopopov had won golden opinions in Western
Europe. Dyakin commented:

a good orator and conversationalist, and anything but a stupid man,

Protopopov knew how to make a good impression. The Russian ambassadors
in London, Paris and Rome told Nicholas about this in their reports, the King
of England expressed his joy that Russia possessed such outstanding people,
some ministers made favourable comments about him . . . From his side,
Rodzyanko put forward Protopopov as a candidate for the Ministry of Trade
and Industry in a conversation with Nicholas in June 1916.

In early August 1916 the Emperor talked to Protopopov for the first
time. He reported to Alexandra, who became a firm supporter of
Protopopov, ‘yesterday I saw a man whom I liked very much -
Protopopov, Vice-President of the State Duma. He travelled abroad
with other members of the Duma and told me much of interest. He was
formerly an. officer of the Grenadier Guards Cavalry Regiment, and
Maximovich [assistant to the commander of Imperial Headquarters]
knows him well.’ In the winter of 1916-17 the story current in parlia­
mentary circles was that Protopopov was becoming insane as a result of
having contracted syphilis. Perhaps the tale was true. But Nicholas can be
excused for saying wearily, when told about this, that Protopopov’s
insanity must have come upon him suddenly after his appointment by the
crown to responsible office.34
For all his qualifications, Protopopov turned out to be a disastrous
minister. Peter Bark recalled
/ that
 T he W ar, Î9 1 4 -1 9 Î7 225

in the Council of Ministers Protojfopov created a very negative impression by

his statements. His explanations and judgements were unusually superficial, he
enjoyed no authority and seemed a pitiful figure because of his lack of compe­
tence or knowledge. Alongside this were the very best intentions to show firm
authority not only in his own ministry but even to widen the activity of his
department by transferring to it the food-supply question from the Ministry of
Agriculture. He succeeded in doing neither, despite the fact that via the
Empress he put up the latter question for the Emperor’s well-disposed deci­
sion. One must do him justice as regards one talent - he was extremely
eloquent and could talk without end . . . In his reception room crowds of
people gathered waiting the time for their meetings with him, which never
took place, and urgent current business fell into a chaotic state. But it was
impossible to be angry with him. He was in the highest degree a well-educated
person, attentive, courteous, winning sympathy by his kind treatment of
people. He was the prototype of those of his colleagues who after the revolu­
tion formed the first revolutionary Provisional Government - dreamers, filled
with good intentions, lacking any experience of statesmanship, possessing a
talent for oratory and giving great significance to words, without knowing
how to turn words into actions.

Peter Bark spoke with the bias of a bureaucrat and a banker but there
was much truth even so in what he said. Had Nicholas and the Progressive
Bloc come to an agreement in the summer of 1915 it is possible that able
and experienced officials could have directed the war effort with parlia­
mentary and even some public support. Instead, in the winter of 1916-17,
the crown was lumbered with sole responsibility for the efforts of a
parliamentarian promoted into a key office which he lacked the talent to
manage and subjected to a barrage of frenzied and inflammatory criticism
from the press and his increasingly panic-stricken former colleagues in the
Duma.35
Assaulted on all sides by pleas to remove his Minister of Internal Affairs
Nicholas gave in. O n 23 November 1916 he wrote to his wife: *1 am sorry
for Protopopov - he is a good, honest man, but he jumps from one idea to
another and cannot make up his mind on anything. I noticed that from the
beginning . . . it is risky to leave the Ministry of Internal Affairs in the
hands of such a man in these times.9 The Empress responded:

Darling, remember that it does not lie in the man Protopopov or x, y, z, but
it9s the question of monarchy and yr. prestige now, which must not be
shattered in the time of the Duma. Don’t think they will stop at him, but they
will make all others leave who are devoted to you one by one - and then
ourselves. Remember, last year Yr. leáving to the army, when also you were
alone with us two against everybody, who promised revolution if you went.
You stood up against all and God blessed your decision. I repeat again - it does
226 Nicholas I I

not lie in the name of Protopopov but in your remaining firm and not giving
in - the Tsar rules and not the Duma.

Descending on Headquarters, Alexandra persuaded Nicholas to change

his mind about Protopopov’s dismissal, no doubt appealing to his own
belief that the frequent changing of key ministers under parliamentary
pressure was a sign of weakness and a road to disaster. Because Nicholas
kept Protopopov he was forced to accept the resignation of A.F. Trepov,
Stunner’s replacement as Prime Minister, who made his own stay depen­
dent on the Minister of Internal Affairs’ removal. In Trepov’s place there
came the septuagenarian Prince N.D. Golitsyn, the last Chairman of the
Council of Ministers in Imperial Russia.36
Alexandra’s intervention to save Protopopov was the most spectacular
example of the influence she wielded over her husband during the war.
When he stood up to his ministers in the summer of 1915 and moved to
Headquarters, Nicholas invited his wife to take a more active political role.
‘Will you not come to the assistance of your hubby now that he is absent?’
he wrote on 7 September 1915. ‘I know of no more pleasant feeling than to
be proud of you, as I have been all these past months, when you urged me
on with untiring importunity, exhorting me to be firm and to stick to my
own opinions.’ ‘The feminine influence is at its peak,’ wrote Paul
Benckendorff to his brother in November 1915 and this was a theme that
the Grand Marshal of the Court was to repeat in many later letters, com­
menting that the only partial counterweight to Alexandra was General
Alekseev at Headquarters.37
In one sense Alexandra’s influence was nothing new in principle. The
Romanov regime had always been a family firm in which the monarch was
influenced by his relatives. No single Romanov in the earlier years of
Nicholas’s reign had been as dominant as Alexandra was during the war,
partly because by that time the Emperor was increasingly isolated even
from his own family. Nevertheless, the Empress Marie’s influence on key
appointments in the first decade of her son’s reign had been considerable.
There was, however, a fundamental difference between the political views
of the two empresses. Marie moved easily in the capital’s high society and
shared its views and moods. She told Alexander Krivoshein during the war
that ‘it is impossible to govern a large nation without the support of
enlightened people and against public opinion’. Alexandra on the other
hand loathed high society, distrusted its W hig sympathies and believed in
firm autocratic power resting on the supposed union of Tsar and peasant.38
Political sympathies aside, Alexandra was dangerous to her husband
because of her German blood, which made her an easy target for the
rumours and accusations of treason which flew around in the increasingly
hysterical wartime atmosphere of Petrograd and Moscow. Secret police
 The W a t, 1914-1917 227

reports stressed the public belief that the Empress headed a pro-German
court party anxious for peace with Germany. There was no truth whatever
in these stories. Alexandra bitterly regretted the war and was made miser­
able by the thought that her brother, the Grand Duke of Hesse, was on the
other side of the lines. But not only did she associate entirely with Russia,
the land of her husband and son, she also understood that peace with
Germany would be inconceivable for domestic political reasons. In June
1915, for instance, she wrote to Nicholas that she had assured his unde,
the Grand Duke Paul, that ‘you were not dreaming of peace and knew it
would mean revolution here’. Nevertheless, the combination of panic and
rumour in Petrograd, of deliberate attempts by the press to blacken the
dynasty, and of the shady dealings of some members of Alexandra’s circle
all encouraged the story that ‘dark forces’ grouped around the ‘young
empress’ were trying to end the war on German terms.39
Alexandra was the victim of her own isolation, nervousness and
credulity, which made it impossible for her to see through some of those
who tried to win her sympathy. Paul Benckendorff described the Empress
as having ‘a will of iron linked to not much brain and no knowledge’. On
another occasion he commented that once Alexandra had made up her
mind on a subject, no amount of rational argument or fresh evidence
would make her alter her views. He wrote to his brother on 10 April 1916
that he did not wish even to raise the anodyne issue of appointing
George V Colonel-in-Chief of a Russian regiment since one never knew
nowadays how Alexandra would react to such an innocent suggestion. As
this letter makes clear, the Empress was by 1915-17 in a state of great
nervous agitation and instability. The extra strains of wartime, and of the
domestic political crisis, had proved too much for her. Increasingly,
Rasputin came to be her tranquillizer, her amulet which would ward off
the dangers which threatened her husband and family. As she wrote in
November 1916, ‘had we not got Him [Rasputin] - all would long have
been finished, of that I am utterly convinced’. Inside the shell of seeming
confidence and toughness, Alexandra was deeply uncertain of herself and
her husband. Rasputin, she wrote, ‘will be less mistaken in people than we
are - experience in life blessed by God’-40
In August 1915 Paul Benckendorff mentioned Rasputin’s name to his
brother for the first time, his letter showing clearly his belief that the
ambassador would not previously have known anything about the starets.
During the next sixteen months much of Petrograd came to believe in
Rasputin’s power and thence the rumours about his role spread to the
army and through the interior of the empire. Alexandra’s letters certainly
show that a major consideration for her as regards appointments, above all
in the Church and the Ministry of Internal Affairs, was whether the man
in question would defend Rasputin from verbal and physical attack.
228 Nicholas I I

Where key political appointments were concerned, however, it is very

doubtful whether the absence of Rasputin would have made any significant
difference. Given the course which Nicholas was steering, suitable candi­
dates for key government offices were few and far between and it is easy
to point to influences other than Rasputin's advice which resulted in the
appointment of individuals to top positions. Even in 1915-16 what really
mattered about Rasputin was not his actual political influence but the fatal
impact he had on the monarchy’s prestige. The starets frequently, visited
Anna Vyrubov, Alexandra’s bosom friend, who was the daughter of A.S.
Taneev, the head of the Emperor’s Own Personal Chancellery. He also
called on some top officials, including the various prime ministers. The
Empress was known to respect his opinions and to rely emotionally on his
support. No one could doubt Alexandra’s closeness to her husband or the
fact that he listened to her advice. Rumour and Rasputin’s own boasts
about his power did the rest. Taken up by some of the silliest elements in
fashionable female Petrograd and fawned upon by unscrupulous seekers
after office and government contracts, Rasputin’s head was completely
turned. His drunkenness and sexual antics were a further gift to the press
and the monarchy’s enemies. Some of the dynasty’s friends and even
members came to see Rasputin as the linchpin of Nicholas’s political
strategy, which to them appeared suicidal. On 30 December 1916 the
starets was murdered by a group that included Prince Felix Yusupov,
husband of the Emperor’s niece, as well as the Grand Duke Dimitri, who
was Nicholas’s first cousin. Another conspirator was V.M. Purishkevich,
a Duma deputy of the far right.
The murder of Rasputin by figures from ultra-conservative and high
society circles reflected the great fear in such quarters of impending revolu­
tion. Increasing discontent in Petrograd, caused above all by soaring
prices and growing shortages, was the background to their action. At
the other end of the political spectrum in ‘respectable society’, a mood of
panic was also setting in. When the Kadet leader, Paul Milyukov, stood
up in the Duma on 14 November and accused the government of treason in
a speech which reverberated across Russia he hoped to satisfy his increas­
ingly enraged middle-class electors, to distance himself from the regime
and to ward off criticisms of liberal spinelessness. But though his danger­
ous and irresponsible speech made an enormous impact on public opinion,
the last thing that Milyukov actually wanted was revolution on the streets
of Petrograd.
In the winter of 1916-17, for the second time during the war, enor­
mous pressure built up on Nicholas II to concede a government which
would rely on the support of the Duma. Even now some voices urged him
to resist this pressure. Peter Dumovo had died in 1915 but his mantle had
to some extent been taken up by Nicholas Maklakov. In November 1916
 The W ar, 1914-1917 229

he wrote to the Emperor that the opinion was widespread in society, and
even now in some government circles, that if the Emperor conceded a
parliamentary regime in Russia ‘a golden age will begin’ and the govern­
ment would emerge successfully from its present crisis. The reality was
that the Duma majority parties were ‘so weak and uncoordinated that
their victory will be very unstable and b rie f. The Kadets, though they
were Russia’s major liberal party and called themselves democrats, had no
support among the mass of the population. Their constituency was almost
exclusively the professional middle class. The Octobrists had far less back­
ing even than this. They were for the most part landowners, whose pre­
tensions to liberalism would disappear the moment a single noble estate
was looted by peasant rioters. The great threat came from the left, where
the socialist parties represented *a serious danger and a real strength’. The
masses might be changeable in mood, swinging from chauvinism to anar­
chy very easily, but they were ‘strongly united by a feeling of hatred for
the wealthier classes and by a fervent desire to seize other people’s property
and for class w ar’. No parliamentary government could hold the socialist
revolution in check. The day after parliamentarianism triumphed would
come ‘social revolution . . . communes . . . the end of the monarchy and
of the property-owning class and the triumph of the peasant, who will
become a bandit’ .41
In 1914 those who thought like Maklakov were a small minority. By
the winter of 1916-17 even previous pillars of conservatism such as the
United Nobility warned Nicholas of impending revolution and begged
him to concede a ministry resting unequivocally on the support of the
Duma’s majority. Members of the imperial family joined the chorus. The
Emperor’s brother-in-law, the Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich,
wrote to Nicholas in February 1917 that the Duma’s majority did not
want revolution and would be satisfied by limited concessions. W hat was
needed was a united government led by a powerful prime minister who
enjoyed the Duma’s confidence. A full parliamentary regime was neither
necessary nor desirable but ‘the present situation in which all responsibility
lies on you and you alone is unthinkable’. The legislature must share the
burden of responsibility and government must be responsive to public
opinion. Still more alarming in a way was a letter from Alexander’s
brother, the normally quiet and apolitical Grand Duke George, who in
November 1916 was visiting the front commanded by General Brusilov.
The Grand Duke wrote to Nicholas that

literally everyone is visibly worried about the rear, in other words about
Russia’s internal condition. They say straight out that if matters go on as now
within Russia then we will never succeed in winning the war and if we don’t
do that then it’s the end of everything . . . Then I tried to make dear what
230 Nicholas I I

measures could heal this condition. To that I can reply that the universal cry is
for the removal of Sturmer and the establishment of a responsible ministry . . .
This measure is considered to be the only one which could avoid a general
catastrophe. If I had heard this from leftists and various liberals then I would
not have paid any attention to it. But this was said to me by people here who
are deeply devoted to you and with their whole souls want only your good and
Russia's, which are indivisible.

Perhaps the Grand Duke did not feel the need to underline the point that
the army’s commanders were the monarchy’s most vital supporters and
that if they came to see the imperial government as an obstacle to victory
over Germany then the dynasty’s cause was truly hopeless.42
To most observers it seemed that Nicholas II was stumbling blindfold
towards revolution, whose danger he completely ignored. It is true that
both the Emperor and the Empress continued to feed on illusions about
popular support for the monarchy. As always during Nicholas II’s reign,
the cheers which greeted him on his travels helped to persuade the mon­
arch that he enjoyed far more public sympathy than his advisers pretended.
On the very eve of the revolution Nicholas said to Frederycksz’s deputy,
’how can even you, Mosolov, talk to me about a danger to the dynasty,
which right now everyone is trying to din into me? Can you too, who
have been with me during my inspections of the troops and have seen how
both the soldiers and the people receive me, also get frightened?’43
Nevertheless, the picture of complete blindness and stupidity is a little
exaggerated. The danger of rioting in Petrograd was understood and plans
were drawn up to contain it. The authorities would confront disturbances
with a three-stage strategy and only if all other measures failed would
soldiers be required to use firearms. Only the companies created to train
non-commissioned officers would be used, since these were regarded as
more reliable than ordinary troops. Battalions of the supposedly loyal
Naval Guards were brought back from the front to reinforce the garrison.
The police well understood popular despair at living conditions but
believed that their arrests of revolutionary activists in Petrograd in January
and February 1917 would deprive rioters of effective leadership. Apart
from the Ministry of Internal Affairs, which Protopopov was throwing
into confusion, the key domestic departments in the winter of 1916-17
were communications and agriculture. The former was headed by E.B.
Krieger-Voynovsky, the latter by A.A. Rittikh, both of whom were
intelligent and efficient professionals where railway and food-supply ques­
tions were concerned. Tsuyoshi Hasegawa, among Western historians the
leading expert on the February revolution, considers that ’the tsarist
government’s over-all performance in handling this enormous task of food
supply was not as bad as is often argued . . . the army did not suffer from
 The W ar, 1 9 Î 4 - Î 9 Î 7 231

lack of provisions and no one in the cities starved. The collapse of the
mechanism for supplying food actually came after the February Revolu­
tion.' Speaking to A.I. Piltz, the former Governor of Mogilev, in early
February 1917, Nicholas II betrayed an awareness of danger which he
revealed only to the very few people whom he fully trusted. ‘I know that
the situation is very alarming, and I have been advised to dissolve the State
Duma . . . But I can't do this . . . In the military respect we are stronger
than ever before. Soon, in the spring, will come the offensive and I believe
that God will give us victory, and then moods will change.944
O n 7 March Nicholas left Tsarskoe Selo for Headquarters. The next day
disturbances began in Petrograd. By Sunday, 11 March, it was clear that
the crowds, emboldened by the authorities' unwillingness to use firearms,
were becoming uncontrollable. Almost all Petrograd's factories were on
strike, food shops were being looted and enough members of the revolu­
tionary parties were still at liberty to provide political leadership and
colouring to the demonstrations. The military and government authori­
ties in Petrograd played down the seriousness of the situation in their
messages to Headquarters in Mogilev. On 11 March the moment of crisis
came when troops were ordered to open fire in order to clear the central
areas of the city from occupation by demonstrators. Initially force proved
effective and the crowds dispersed. Ominously, a small mutiny occurred
in one company of the Pavlovsky Guards regiment on the afternoon of
11 March but it was contained. The next day, however, in response to the
shootings on 11 March, mutiny spread at great speed through most of the
Petrograd garrison. On 12 March Nicholas learned that his government
had lost control of the capital. He decided to return to Tsarskoe Selo and
ordered General N.I. Ivanov to command a special force drawn from front­
line units with which he was to restore governmental authority in the
capital. Nicholas's own train was blocked from reaching Tsarskoe Selo and
the Emperor chose to divert to Pskov, the headquarters of the northern
front, where he arrived in the early evening of 14 March. The reason for
choosing Pskov was its proximity to Nicholas's train and the possibility
of rapid communication between the northern front headquarters and
Petrograd by a primitive form of teleprinter. Meanwhile on 12 March a
so-called Provisional Committee of the Duma had come into existence and
began to assert control over the capital. Though some of the Duma politi­
cians were happy to take power into their own hands, others did so very
cautiously and out of fear that the alternative would be anarchy and the
seizure of control by the socialist-dominated Workers and Soldiers Coun­
cil (that is, the Soviet), which also began to form on 12 March.
The fate of the monarchy now depended on the Duma politicians and,
above all, on the military commanders. Only if the latter were willing to
sanction a rapid move on Petrograd by large numbers of troops could
232 Nicholas I I

Nicholas’s throne be saved. O n arrival at Pskov at 7.05 p.m. on 14 March

the first signs were not encouraging. General Ruzsky, the commander of
the northern front, greeted Voeykov, the Palace Commandant, with the
words: ‘Look what you have done . . . all your Rasputin clique . . . what
have you got Russia into now?’ Later that evening Ruzsky, who was in
touch with Rodzyanko, the President of the Duma, pressed on Nicholas
the latter’s view that only the immediate concession of parliamentary rule
could save the dynasty.45
The Emperor’s response to Ruzsky’s demand tells one much about his
political and personal philosophy.

*1 am responsible before God and Russia for everything that has happened and
is happening,’ said the Emperor, ‘regardless of whether ministers are respon­
sible to the Duma or the State Council. Seeing that what the ministers are
doing is not for Russia’s good, I will never be able to agree with them,
comforting myself with the thought that matters are not in my hands and that
the responsibility is not mine.' Ruzsky tried to show the Emperor that his idea
was mistaken and that one must accept the formula: 'The monarch reigns but
the government rules.* The Emperor said that this formula was incomprehen­
sible to him and that he would need to have been differently educated, to be
bom again, and once more he stressed that he was not personally hanging on to
power but only that he could not take decisions which were against his
conscience and, having shed responsibility for the course of events before
people, he still could not consider that he was not responsible before God. The
Emperor, with unusual clarity, ran through the views of all the people who
could govern Russia in the near future as ministers responsible to the legisla­
ture and expressed his conviction that these non-bureaucratic public figures,
who would undoubtedly make up the first cabinet, were all people without
any administrative experience who, having taken on the burden of office,
would not be able to cope with their task.46

After a tremendous struggle, during which the General browbeat the

Emperor and controlled the flow of information to him, Ruzsky finally
persuaded Nicholas to agree to a government responsible to the Duma. By
the next day, however, it became clear that the discussion had been
academic. Rodzyanko, in the name of the Duma’s Provisional Commit­
tee, now asserted that only the Emperor’s abdication offered any hope of
avoiding further bloodshed in Petrograd. The other front commanders,
though not as brusque or hostile as Ruzsky, all advised the Emperor that
he should abdicate for Russia’s good. The senior generals were not certain
of their troops’ loyalty in the event of clashes with revolutionary soldiers of
the Petrograd garrison. Most of them* had lost confidence in Nicholas II’s
ability to rule Russia. Above all, none of the generals wanted internal
complications which might stand in the way of fighting the Germans, a
 The W ar, 1914-1917 233

priority which the Emperor himçelf fully shared. Had the military com­
manders been faced with anarchy in Petrograd or the coming to power of
the socialist-led Soviet then the army’s intervention would have been
certain. There is also a real chance it would have been successful. But once
the Duma leaders assured the generals that they were in control of events
and that military intervention would lead to civil war the front-line com­
manders were prepared to compromise. Abandoned by his generals,
Nicholas II had no alternative but to abdicate. On 15 March he renounced
the throne. General Alekseev, the Chief of Staff, only agreed to the Tsar’s
abdication in the conviction, inspired by Rodzyanko, that the monarchy
would be preserved in the person either of the Emperor’s son or of his
brother, the Grand Duke Michael. By 16 March, however, the majority of
the Provisional Committee of the Duma had decided that, in view of the
mood of the Petrograd workers and soldiers, the continuation of the
monarchy in any form was impossible. They persuaded the Grand Duke
not to assume the crown. Alekseev was faced with a fait accompli. Three
hundred years of Romanov rule had come to an end. Meanwhile the
imperial train made its sad way back from Pskov to General Headquarters
at Mogilev. General Voeykov entered Nicholas’s coupé, where the
Emperor was sitting in the darkness, the only light coming from the lamp
shining by the icon in the comer. 4After all the experiences of this sad day
the Emperor, always distinguished by his enormous self-control, no longer
had the strength to restrain himself. He embraced me and wept.’47
 CHAPTER 9

A fter the Revolution,

1917-1918

After returning to Headquarters at Mogilev, Nicholas bade farewell to

General Alekseev and the rest of his military staff. On 21 March the
former Emperor issued his last address to the army. In this time of great
personal agony, his overriding concern remained the fate of his country,
and the need for national unity in order to achieve victory. His agree­
ment to abdication had indeed been greatly influenced by his generals’
argument that this would avoid civil war and thereby allow the struggle
with Germany to be pursued successfully. ‘For the last time’, wrote the
Emperor,

I appeal to you, the troops whom I so fervently love. Since my abdication . . .

power has passed to the Provisional Government . . . May God help it to
lead Russia along the road to glory and prosperity. May God help you, my
valiant troops, to defend our homeland against the cruel foe. For two and
one half years you have hourly borne the heavy burden of war. Much is the
blood that has been shed; many are the efforts that have been made; and the
hour is already near when Russia, bound to her gallant allies by a single
common striving for victory, will crush the last efforts of the adversary. This
unprecedented war must be brought to full victory. Whoever now dreams of
peace, whoever wishes it - that one is a traitor to his fatherland, its
betrayer. I know that every honest soldier thinks so. Carry out your duty
then; protect our gallant homeland; subordinate yourselves to the Provisional
Government, obey your commanders.

Though the whole purpose of the appeal was to strengthen the posi­
tion of those in authority, the Provisional Government did not allow the
address to be published. O n 21 March Nicholas was placed under arrest.
The next day he was taken back to Tsarskoe Selo.1
For Alexandra the fortnight of her husband’s absence had been a time
of immense strain and agony. News of the abdication was a terrible
 A fte r the Revolution, 1917-1918 235

blow. Revolutionary troops in Tsarskoe Selo came within 500 yards of

storming the palace. All her children were dangerously ill with measles,
not a disease to trifle with in those days. Aleksei had a temperature of
104°; In addition to measles, his sister Marie had contracted double
pneumonia, coming close to death. Somehow pride and royal training
allowed the Empress to preserve her outward dignity in these terrible
days.
Lili Dehn, Alexandra’s close friend, was in the imperial family’s apart­
ments on 22 March when Nicholas returned from Headquarters.

As we went into the red salon, and the light fell on the Emperor’s face, I
started . . . I now realised how greatly he had altered. The Emperor was
deathly pale, his face was covered with innumerable wrinkles, his hair was
quite grey at the temples, and blue shadows encircled his eyes. He looked like
an old man; the Emperor smiled sadly when he saw my horrified expression,
and he was about to speak, when the Empress joined us; he then tried to
appear the light-hearted husband and father of the happy years; he sat with
us and chatted on trivial matters, but I could see that he was inwardly ill at
ease, and at last the effort was too much for him. T think I’ll go for a
walk - walking always does me good*, he said . . .
The Empress and I . . . stood by one of the windows which looked out
over the Park . . . the Emperor . . . by this time was outside the palace. He
walked briskly towards the Grande Allée, but suddenly a sentinel
appeared from nowhere, so to speak, and intimated to the Emperor that he
was not allowed to go in that direction. The Emperor made a nervous
movement with his hand, but he obeyed, and retraced his steps; but the same
thing occurred - another sentinel barred his passage, and an officer told the
Emperor that, as he was now to all intents and purposes a prisoner, his exer­
cise must be of the prison-yard description! . . . We watched the beloved
figure turn the corner . . . his steps flagged, his head was bent, his whole
aspect was significant of utter dejection; his spirit seemed completely broken.
I do not think that until this moment we had realised the crushing grip of
the Revolution, nor what it signified . . .
The Empress said nothing, but I felt her hand grasp mine; it was, for her,
an agonizing experience . . . that day the Emperor and the Empress dined
and spent the evening together. The Empress told me afterwards that the
Emperor lost his self-control when he was alone with her in the mauve
boudoir; he wept bitterly. It was excessively difficult for her to console him,
and to assure him that the husband and father was of more value in her eyes
than the Emperor whose throne she had shared.2

The five months that the imperial family were to spend in captivity at
Tsarskoe Selo brought many further humiliations. Some were trivial
though hurtful, such as the soldiers’ insistence on taking away Aleksei’s
236 Nicholas I I

toy gun. Others were more serious. For the whole of April, for instance,
Nicholas and Alexandra were kept apart and not allowed to have any
conversation in private. The mood of the soldiers was fickle and unpre­
dictable. In many units the officers were terrified of their men, over
whom they had no control. Clashes between the soldiers and the palace
servants occurred on a daily basis. The disloyalty of supposedly devoted
friends and servants was a great blow, just as the faithfulness of some of
the court officials, such as Paul Benckendorff and Sofia Buxhoeveden,
was a tremendous consolation. The fate of the heir’s two sailor ‘minders’
was typical of the times. One, Derevenko, turned on Aleksei, abused
him and abandoned the palace. The other, Nagomyy, remained loyal and
later, in Siberia, paid for his faithfulness with his life. A tremendous extra
worry for Nicholas was all that he heard from the front about the dis­
integration of the army and the faltering of the war effort. In the words
of the children’s tutor, Pierre Gilliard, this caused the Emperor ‘great
grief*. As always, however, Nicholas’s optimism struggled against bad
news. ‘I get a little hope from the fact that in our country people love to
exaggerate. I can’t believe that the army at the front has become as bad as
they say. It couldn’t have disintegrated in just two months to such a
degree.’3
Nevertheless, life at Tsarskoe Selo had its compensations for the
Emperor. Bearing sole responsibility for Russia’s government in wartime
had been an appalling strain. Holding out for months on end against
overwhelming pressures for political change had demanded a toughness
and self-confident resolution which did not come easily to Nicholas and
cost him dear in terms of emotional stress. At Tsarskoe he could spend all
his time with his family, whom disaster had united more closely than
ever. In office the Emperor’s gentleness and his lack of self-assertiveness
had been weaknesses. Now they were strengths. His personal humility
and his self-discipline stood him in good stead. Not only at Tsarskoe but
also later in Siberia no one ever heard the Empress or her husband
complain about their fate. On the contrary, it was for their children,
their friends and their servants that they worried. As Alexandra wrote to
Lili Dehn in March 1918, ‘for us, in general, it is better and easier than
for others’. During the war the Empress’s stubbornness, her irrationality
and her political activities had driven Paul Benckendorff to frenzy. Now
it was her courage and dignity that impressed him. ‘She is great, great
. . . but I had always said that she was one of those people who rise to
sublime heights in the midst of misfortune.’4
O n the throne the religious convictions of the imperial couple had
been a hindrance. They had encouraged a certain fatalism in Nicholas and
persuaded him that his duty to God demanded of him an active role as
autocrat which did not fit his personality. Alexandra had searched for
 A fte r the Revolution, 1 9 1 7 -1 9 Î8 237

God’s hand in politics. Now that the imperial couple were helpless
victims of fate their submission to God’s will, faith in His mercy, and
natural otherworldliness became pillars of strength. Alexandra wrote to
Lili Dehn in the spring of 1918 that

I feel the Father’s presence near me and a wonderful sense of peaceful joy
thrills and fills my soul . . . one cannot understand the reason for it, as
everything is so unutterably sad, but this comes from Above and is beside
ourselves, and one knows that He will not forsake His own, will strengthen
and protect . . . Do not worry about us, darling, dearly beloved one. For
you all it is hard and especially for our country!!! This hurts more than any­
thing else - and the heart is racked with pain - what has been done in one
year! God has allowed it to happen - and therefore it must be necessary so
that they might understand, that eyes might be opened to lies and deceits. . .
everything generally hurts now - all one's feelings have been trampled
underfoot - but so it has to be, the soul must grow and rise above all else;
that which is most dear and tender in us has been wounded - is it not true?
So we too have to understand through it all that God is greater than every­
thing and that He wants to draw us, through our sufferings, closer to Him.
Love him more and better than one and all. But my country - my God -
how I love it, with all the power of my being, and her sufferings give me
actual physical pain.5

Immediately after the revolution, it seemed possible that the imperial

family would go into exile in Britain. To his honour, the Kadet leader,
Paul Milyukov, now Foreign Minister in the Provisional Government,
requested that the British government offer Nicholas and his family
asylum in England. Initially the British felt constrained to agree. Very
quickly came second thoughts and it was the King, an old personal friend
of his Russian first cousin, who took the lead in closing off the possibil­
ity of asylum. His secretary, Lord Stamfordham, queried, on King
George’s behalf, how the imperial family would support themselves
financially in exile. Political worries were, however, the decisive factor.
Fearful of reaction from British socialists and the labour movement. King
George did not want his dynasty to be associated in the public eye with
the hated, and now fallen, Russian Tsar, let alone with his half-English
wife. Lord Stamfordham wrote to the Foreign Secretary that ‘from the
first the King has thought the presence of the Imperial family (especially
of the Empress) in this country would raise all sorts of difficulties, and I
feel sure that you appreciate how awkward it will be for our Royal
Family who are closely connected both with the Emperor and the
Empress.’ Requests for visas from two grand dukes were also turned
down. As regards Nicholas and Alexandra, it may well be that the
238 Nicholas I I

British derision made no difference. It would have been politically very

difficult for the Provisional Government to have allowed the Emperor
and the Empress to leave the country, even in the first weeks after the
revolution. Moreover, both Nicholas and Alexandra were resolutely
opposed to abandoning Russia, come what may, for neither of them gave
much priority to their personal fates. Products, as they were, of Victorian
Europe, it was inconceivable to either of them that anyone should seek
to harm their children, a boy of 13 and four girls. In King George’s
defence, it can be said that 1917 was not a good time either for compas­
sion or for risk-taking by ruling dynasties. O n learning of the Emperor’s
death, King George overruled Stamfordham and attended the memorial
service for his cousin, commenting in his diary: ‘I was devoted to Nicky,
who was the kindest of men and a thorough gentleman: loved his coun­
try and people.’ Nevertheless, the British response to the Romanovs’
need for asylum leaves a somewhat sour taste in the mouth.6
Early in August the imperial family learned that they were to be sent
to Tobolsk, a provincial backwater on the border between the Urals and
western Siberia, far from the turbulent politics of Petrograd. The day
before their departure, 12 July, was Aleksei’s birthday and a religious
service was held to invoke God’s protection for the family on their
journey. The icon from the Church of O ur Lady of Znamenie was
brought to the palace across Alexander Park in a solemn procession. Paul
Benckendorff recalls that ‘the ceremony was as poignant as could be: all
were in tears. The soldiers themselves seemed touched, and approached
the holy Ikon to kiss it. They followed the procession as far as the
balcony, and saw it disappear through the Park. It was as if the past were
taking leave, never to come back. The memory of this ceremony will
always remain in my mind, and I cannot think of it without profound
emotion.’7
The Romanovs were escorted to Tobolsk by P.M. Makarov, the Pro­
visional Government’s emissary, and by the commander of the guard.
Colonel Evgeni Kobylinsky. Both were decent men who did their best
for the prisoners. Kobylinsky, twice wounded in the war, was a regular
officer. ‘Makarov was a professional architect: a socialist revolutionary,
he had, under the old regime, been in prison for a time. He was an
honest man and we owed him nothing but thanks.’ Among Makarov’s
services to the family were his strenuous efforts to clean up and make
habitable the house of Tobolsk’s former Governor, which was to be their
residence until April 1918. The house was relatively comfortable and,
especially in their first months in town, the Romanovs did not go short
of food. Their main problems were lack of news and physical exercise.
D r Botkin’s son, who lived with his father opposite the Governor’s
house, ‘could see the Grand Duchesses walking in a dirty courtyard - a
 A fte r the Revolution, 1917-1918 239

cut off portion of the street, really, converted into a yard and surrounded
by a wooden fence, some eight or ten feet high . . . They could walk
only in that abominable yard and a small garden on the other side of the
house.’8
Tobolsk was neither an industrial centre nor on a railway line and in
1917 was therefore not greatly infected by the revolutionary mood. ‘Far
from showing any hate towards the Emperor, the good citizens of
Tobolsk took off their caps and crossed themselves every time they passed
the house in which the Imperial family were held captive. And hardly a
day passed without a cake or some candies, or an icon or some other
present being sent to the Imperial family.9 Nor were the soldiers of the
guard by any means all hostile to the Romanovs. The escort was made
up of men from the First, Second and Fourth Guards Rifle Regiments.
The Second Regiment was unfriendly and became more and more
unpleasant as Bolshevik propaganda spread. But the men of the First and
Fourth Regiments were much more kindly disposed, especially to the
children. ‘Part of the guard from the Fourth Regiment, which consisted
almost entirely of older men, showed special affection to the imperial
family and it was a joy for the whole family to see these honest people on
duty. On those days the Emperor and the children used to go secretly to
the guard house to talk and play cards with the soldiers."
Events in the rest of Russia were, however, to seal the Romanovs9
fate. In November 1917 the Bolsheviks overthrew the Provisional
Government. Given the ruthlessness of Russia’s new rulers, it was
never likely that the imperial family would escape with their lives once
Lenin had come to power. In January 1918 the Bolsheviks closed the
democratically elected Constituent Assembly, in which they had only
one quarter of the seats, though the winter of 1917-18 represented the
peak of Bolshevik popularity. In March peace was signed with the
Germans at Brest-Litovsk, which bought the new regime time at the
price of surrendering all the territorial gains made by Russia since the
mid-seventeenth century and risking German domination of Europe.
These actions, antagonizing wide sections of political opinion and
allowing no peaceful means to oppose Bolshevism, made civil war inevit­
able. Civil war breeds ruthlessness and Nicholas II and his family were
always likely to be among its first victims. Bolshevik rule was shallowly
rooted in the Urals and western Siberia in 1918. The overwhelming
majority of the population in both regions had voted for other parties
in the elections to the Constituent Assembly. In the spring of 1918
armed resistance to Bolshevik rule exploded, spearheaded by the Czech
Legion.10
The centre of Bolshevik power in the Ural region was the city of
Ekaterinburg. Here were to be found the Bolshevik-run Ural Soviet, in
240 Nicholas I I

other words the headquarters of the regional government, as well as the

directorate of the local Cheka, the secret police. The Chairman of the
Soviet was A.G. Beloborodov. The top Chekist was F.N. Lukoyanov.
The former was an electrician with a rudimentary education who had had
a spell in gaol for aiding Bolshevik ‘fighting detachments* during the
1905-7 revolution. The latter was an official’s son, a former student of
Moscow university, who prided himself on his skill as a journalist. Both
were ruthless men in their mid-twenties, who already had blood on their
hands before they helped to organize the murder of Nicholas Il’s family
and that of other Romanovs imprisoned in their region. After a success­
ful career in the 1920s as head of the Russian People’s Commissariat of
Internal Affairs (that is, inter alia9 police chief) Beloborodov, like most of
the former Ural leadership, was to fall foul of Stalin because of his links
with Trotsky. He was killed in 1938. Exceptionally, Lukoyanov survived
both the 1930s and the Second W orld W ar, dying in his bed in 1947.
His life may well have been saved by the nervous breakdown he suffered
in 1919, from which he never fully recovered, as a result dropping out of
the murderous race for high office in the Soviet Union. Illness did not,
however, stop him from denouncing a good many party enemies in
Stalin’s heyday.11
The most powerful Bolshevik in the Urals was ‘Filipp’ Goloshchekin,
the region’s Military Commissar. Forty-two years old, and a party
member since 1903, Goloshchekin had spent six years in exile in Siberia,
where he had met Jakob Sverdlov, who in 1918 was Lenin’s right-hand
man and the supremo for internal affairs throughout Russia. ‘Sverdlov
and Goloshchekin were linked not only by common views but also by
personal friendship,’ wrote Sverdlov’s wife in her memoirs. The veteran
revolutionary socialist and historian Vladimir Burtsev, ‘who knew
Goloshchekin personally, characterised him thus: “ an executioner, a cruel
man, with some features of degeneracy’’.’ Subsequently Goloshchekin
was to make a brilliant career as party secretary in the Urals and Siberia,
as a member of the Cheka’s ruling collegium, and from 1924 as head of
the Central Asian republic of Kazakhstan. In the latter role Goloshchekin
was to purge all honest and even remotely independent native cadres
from the party leadership. Despite the new regime’s anti-imperialist
claims, Goloshchekin upheld the colonial land settlement inherited from
the monarchy. Even in the supposedly ‘tolerant’ 1920s he carried civil
war into the Kazakh villages in order to break the power of local native
leaders, fully aware of the economic chaos this would cause. From 1929
to 1932 he was to preside enthusiastically over what was probably the
greatest crime committed by white colonial rulers in twentieth-century
Asia, namely the forced collectivization and deliberate mass starvation of
the Kazakh people. ‘Archival data show that the number of Kazakh
 A fte r the Revolution, 1917-1918 241

households declined from 1,233,000 in 1929 to 565,000 households in

1936* as a result of the drastic collectivization imposed in the first three
years of this period, during which four-fifths of the cattle belonging to
the still largely nomadic Kazakhs were destroyed. The party leadership
ruthlessly purged all officials who protested or attempted to slow down
this policy. In the West the Ukrainian collectivization and famine are
quite well known, and the purges of the Communist élite and of
intellectuals in the late 1930s are the subject of a large literature. It is
seldom remembered that in the 1930s ioss of human life was propor­
tionately greater in Kazakhstan than anywhere else in the Soviet Union*.
Goloshchekin outlived many of his former comrades in the Ural leader­
ship, but Stalin finally had him killed in 1941. Needless to say, the death
sentence had nothing to do with the crimes previously committed by this
evil man.12
In the spring of 1918 the Ekaterinburg Communists wished to get
their hands on Nicholas II and his family. They concocted schemes to
abduct the Romanovs from Tobolsk. The central party leadership, how­
ever, had decided to bring the Tsar to Moscow and with that aim in
mind sent V.V. Yakovlev to Tobolsk with an armed detachment. Because
Aleksei was ill Yakovlev left him and three of his sisters behind in Tobolsk
and set off with Nicholas, Alexandra and the Grand Duchess Marie.
En route he was intercepted by the Ekaterinburg Bolsheviks and a furious
argument occurred as to the Romanovs’ destination. Yakovlev was
believed to be trying to spirit the imperial family away, possibly in the
direction of Japan and safety. In the end the locals won the argument, in
Richard Pipes’s view ’possibly after the intervention of Moscow, which
did not wish to antagonize the Ekaterinburg Bolsheviks and was not
quite certain what to do with the Romanovs in any event’.13
O n 30 April 1918, Nicholas, Alexandra and Marie arrived in
Ekaterinburg where they were imprisoned in the house of Nicholas
Ipatev, an engineer, which had been commandeered for this purpose. On
23 May the rest of the family arrived. The Ipatev House’s inhabitants
now included seven Romanovs, D r Botkin, the Empress’s maid and
three other servants. The regime in the Ipatev House was strict and
humiliating. Guards, all of whom were male, accompanied the grand
duchesses to the lavatory and scrawled obscenities over the walls. Almost
all communication with the outside world was ended. Initially the guards
were workers from the Zlokazov factory, lured by high pay and an easy
billet, infinitely preferable to being sent to fight the counter-revolutionary
threat on the Siberian front. Their commander was Alexander Avdeev,
who had worked for the Bolsheviks as a propagandist in the Zlokazov
works. The guards, who stole everything on which they could lay their
hands, were reinforced in May by workers from the town of Syserti.
242 Nicholas I I

Once again high pay and easy conditions were used as bait, though in
this very Bolshevik town the authorities also reminded workers that
failure to back the Communist cause might lead to the victory of the
counter-revolution, and with it revenge for the murderous treatment of
the local peasantry by worker detachments.
Goloshchekin spent the first days of July in Moscow, where he stayed
in the fiat of his friend Sverdlov. It was at this point that the decision was
taken to kill all the Romanovs in the near future. Although the Soviet
regime right down to its last days claimed that the Romanovs’ murder
was purely the responsibility of the Ural Bolsheviks, recent evidence
coming out of Russia shows conclusively that this was not the case, and
that the command came from Lenin personally and from the top party
leadership. This had in fact been known in the West for many years as a
result of the publication of Trotsky’s diary. In it he recorded a conversa­
tion with Sverdlov, which took place after the fall of Ekaterinburg and
after Trotsky’s own return to Moscow from a short expedition to the
provinces. Informing him that all the family had been kUled, the Com­
missar for Internal Affairs commented that ‘we decided it here [Moscow].
Dich [Lenin] considered that we could not leave them [the counter­
revolution] a live banner, especially in the present difficult circumstances.’
Sverdlov’s justification for the murders was rubbish. The Bolsheviks had
ample time and means to remove the Romanovs from Ekaterinburg and
the war zone had they wished to do so. The W hite leaders were not
intending to restore the monarchy and would certainly have preferred a
Romanov other than the discredited Nicholas II or his invalid son had
they ever decided to change their minds. For the counter-revolution a
martyred Tsar was more useful than a live Nicholas. As the liberal his­
torian Yuri Gote put things with cruel accuracy on hearing of the Tsar’s
death: ‘his disappearance constitutes the untying of one of the innumer­
able secondary knots of our Time of Troubles, and the monarchical prin­
ciple can only gain from it’.14
O n 4 July Avdeev was replaced as commandant of the Ipatev House by
Yakov Yurovsky, the deputy head of the Ekaterinburg Cheka. W ith him
Yurovsky brought his assistant, Grigori Nikulin, a rather handsome and
presentable young man who was already an experienced killer, despite
having only worked for the Cheka since his factory closed in March.
Nikulin had taken up factory work in order to avoid conscription during
the First W orld W ar. Unlike many of the worker guards in the Ipatev
House he was cold-blooded, fully literate, ruthless and sober. W hen
Nicholas arrived in Ekaterinburg from Tobolsk he brought with him
his former aide-de-camp, Prince V. Dolgorukov, who was Paul
BenckendorfPs stepson. Dolgorukov was arrested immediately on arrival
and shot by Nikulin, who subsequently complained about having to
 A fte r the Revolution, 1917-1918 243

cany his dead victim’s suitcases. Yurovsky, 40 years old in 1918,

described Nikulin as his 'son* and remained close to him for the rest of
his life. He made Nikulin the executor of his will. W ithout much formal
education, Yurovsky was an intelligent and cruel man. He appears to
have been a true believer in Communism and he was not a thief, unlike
many of those who guarded the Romanovs. A Bolshevik since the 1905
revolution, Yurovsky was considered by Lenin to be 'the most reliable of
Communists’. His brother Leyba on the other hand commented that 'he
enjoys oppressing people’, to which his sister-in-law added that he was ‘a
despot and an exploiter’. Like his peers in the Ural Bolshevik leadership
Yurovsky became part of the Soviet élite and lived quite comfort­
ably in the 1920s and 1930s. Cancer saved him from his probable fate at
Stalin’s hands though his daughter Rimma, who in Ekaterinburg had
played a prominent role in the campaign against the Orthodox Church,
was to spend twenty years in Soviet camps.15
Immediately after Yurovsky took over at the Ipatev House, pre­
parations for the killings began. The murder itself was left to Yurovsky
but disposal of the bodies was the responsibility of P.Z. Ermakov, the
Military Commissar of Verkh-Isetsk, a Bolshevik stronghold. Ermakov
was an old acquaintance of Goloshchekin, who was his direct boss.
Before the revolution he had robbed banks and other commercial estab­
lishments to raise money for the Bolsheviks. Like many others involved
in this activity, he was part political activist, part bandit. In 1917 he
had set up his own marauding band to 'squeeze’ the local rich. In
his memoirs he boasted about having personally killed leaders of local
peasant protests against Bolshevik rule. His most famous exploit was
the decapitation of a former police agent. The day after the murder of
Nicholas and his family, fellow Bolsheviks of Ermakov’s type were to
hurl Alexandra’s sister, the Grand Duchess Elizabeth, and a number
of other Romanovs down a mine-shaft at Alapaevsk, not far from
Ekaterinburg. The victims were left to die slowly of their wounds and
hunger.
Confirmation that Nicholas and his family were to be killed imme­
diately came from Moscow on 16 July. The murders were scheduled for
that night. Matters were delayed for ninety minutes by the late arrival
of Ermakov with the lorry that was to remove the bodies. Ermakov
ordered his driver to start the lorry’s engine at his command in order
to muffle the sound of firing. The Romanovs and their servants were
woken before 2 a.m. and, after being given some minutes to dress,
were led down into one of the rooms in what was a semi-basement. To
avoid panic or resistance they were told that there was disorder in the
town and it was safer to come down from the exposed upper floor. The
ploy worked and it seems that none of the victims showed particular
244 Nicholas I I

fright or alarm. W hen they were brought into the room Alexandra, by
now barely capable of standing for long, asked for chairs for herself and
her son, who was recovering from another attack of bleeding. Chairs
were brought and immediately afterwards Yurovsky and his squad
entered the room.
Yurovsky himself reported to Moscow that the squad consisted of
twelve men, of whom seven were non-Russians. Though usually
described as Latvians, these seven men were, it seems, Hungarian
ex-prisoners of war from the Habsburg army. At the last moment two
Hungarians refused to shoot the young women. Among the other
members of the gang were Yurovksy himself and Nikulin, together with
P.S. Medvedev, who commanded the detachment of worker guards from
Syserti. Subsequently captured by the Whites, Medvedev’s testimony
was to be the centre-piece of the very thorough investigation of the
murders by Nicholas Sokolov, virtually all of whose findings have been
confirmed by new evidence coming out of the Soviet Union since 1988.
Ermakov and one of his assistants also participated in the killings. Edvard
Radzinsky claims that the murder gang had another member, Aleksei
Kabanov, and cites his memoirs.
Immediately after the squad entered the room Yurovsky said that in
view of the attacks on Soviet Russia by Nicholas’s relatives, the Ural
Executive Committee had decided to shoot the Romanovs. The Tsar had
no time to do more than exclaim before the firing began. To get a sense
of the hideous butchery that followed it is necessary to remember that
the room was small: in all at least twenty-three people were packed into
a room of only twenty-four square metres. Murderers and victims were
almost standing on each other’s feet. Some members of the murder squad
got burned by their neighbours’ guns. The Emperor, the Empress,
Dr Botkin and three of the servants died quickly. Most of the children
did not. Nor did the maid, Anna Demidov. The grand duchesses had
to go through a terrible and lengthy agony partly because the bullets
ricocheted off the jewels that they had sewn into their corsets. But
Aleksei, now just 14, was protected by no jewellery, and he also took a
long time to die. Yurovsky reported his "strange vitality’. Even after the
shooting and screaming was finished and the victims lay on the floor in
pools of blood, all was not over. Some of the girls were still alive.
Ermakov stood on the arms of the Grand Duchess Anastasia and stabbed
her repeatedly with a bayonet. It says something about the men who com­
mitted this atrocity that they always took great pride in their act but fell
out amongst themselves, since at least three of them claimed to have killed
the Tsar with the night’s first shot. In the 1930s Ermakov was frequently
turned out to describe the murders, which he did in graphic detail, to
summer camps of Pioneers, the Soviet equivalent of scouts and guides.
 A fte r the Revolution, Î 9 Î 7 - 1 9 Î 8 245

Presented with flowers, he was held up as a heroic model for Russian youth.
The night’s horrors did not end with the murders. The bodies,
dumped in the lorry, were driven to an area of mine-shafts in Ermakov’s
fiefdom of Verkh-Isetsk. Ermakov had arranged a guard of roughly
twenty-five men around the mine-shafts and others were on patrol to
keep away unwanted visitors. The guards, some of whom at least had
the excuse of being drunk, were indignant that the Romanovs were not
brought to them alive. Some amused themselves after the bodies were
stripped of their clothes. But gloating over the grand duchesses’ bodies
gave way to other feelings when the jewellery in their corsets was
revealed. Immediately after the murders in the Ipatev House the guards
had begun to steal their victims’ watches, jewels and other possessions.
Now the same story began again. Yurovsky had to dismiss most of
Ermakov’s 'trusties’ and put a stop to their Bacchanalia. He was furious
to discover that the place to hide the bodies had been ill chosen and no
spades or other equipment prepared. The bodies were tipped down a
shaft and grenades thrown in after them. Whether Yurovsky always
intended this to be a temporary hiding place is a moot point. It may be
that on his return to Ekaterinburg he discovered that Ermakov’s heroes
had talked and that the Romanovs’ grave was no secret. The Bolsheviks
were determined that when the Whites took Ekaterinburg, which was
now a matter of days, they should not find the bodies. So on the night of
17 July Yurovsky returned to the mine-shaft, recovered the bodies and
set off towards deeper shafts in an area more suitable as a permanent
hiding spot. On the way there the lorry got stuck in the mud and it was
decided to bury the bodies on the spot. Just in case the Whites should
discover the corpses, the bodies of Aleksei and one of the women were
burned and buried separately. In this way the corpses in the grave, whose
faces were deliberately smashed and disfigured, would not be associated
with the victims from the Ipatev House. This ploy proved unnecessary.
Not until the 1970s was the Romanovs’ burial place suspected. Only
after the fall of the Communist regime could it be excavated and the
bodies identified.16
For many years the Soviet government pretended that Nicholas alone
had been killed. Only among themselves could the Communist veterans
take pride in the massacre of the Tsar’s children and servants. For that
reason Trotsky’s attempt to explain the extermination of the family by
the need to terrify friend and foe alike makes little sense. In July 1918 the
order went out from Moscow to kill all the inhabitants of the Ipatev
House because individual lives meant nothing to Lenin and the Bolshevik
leadership. Murder was the quickest and least troublesome way to be rid
of a hated and inconvenient group of class enemies. But perhaps Richard
Pipes is right in suggesting a deeper rationale.
246 Nicholas I I

Like the protagonists in Dostoevsky’s Possessed, the Bolsheviks had to spill

blood to bind their wavering adherents with a band of collective guilt. The
more innocent victims the Bolshevik Party had on its conscience, the more
the Bolshevik rank and file had to realize there was no retreating, no (alter­
ing, no compromising, that they were inextricably bound to their leaders,
and could only march with them to ‘total victory* regardless of the cost, or
go down with them in ‘total doom’.17
 CHAPTER 10

Then and N ow

After 1917 Imperial Russia and its history lived in the shadow of the Soviet
present. Soviet Communism was an attempt to organize a modem society,
economy and system of government in an entirely novel way. It aroused
great enthusiasm among some outside onlookers, and fear and hatred
among others. Particularly after 1945, when the Soviet Union became one
of the world’s two superpowers, the one attitude which never existed was
indifference: no one could deny the importance of Communism or of the
Soviet superpower which embodied the Communist ideal. By contrast
Imperial Russia seemed an irrelevant medieval relic rightly consigned to
history’s dustbin. This attitude was the official Soviet line but it also had
very many adherents in the West. Tsarist Russia and its system of govern­
ment were completely alien to Western, and above all Anglo-American,
traditions. Most British or American historians of Russia were liberals or
socialists. Their sympathy and interest were largely directed towards indi­
viduals or groups which shared these loyalties in pre-revolutionary Russia.
Much good history was written but tsarism got a bad press. More impor­
tant, explicitly or otherwise, a great deal of the history of Imperial Russia
was defined by the attempt to explain why it was that Bolshevism
triumphed in 1917.
The collapse of the Soviet regime in 1991 has altered perspectives. The
huge body of knowledge built up on Soviet politics and economics is
suddenly threatened with redundancy and ‘irrelevance’. The Soviet dino­
saur can no longer be studied on the hoof. It must now be pursued to the
museum. Particularly for students of political science and international
relations, for some of whom Russia and the world only began in 1917 or
even 1945, the simultaneous disappearance of the Soviet Union and of
bi-polarity in world affairs is a cause of some bewilderment. The laws of
nature have been abolished. The earth.no longer orbits the sun.
By contrast, a weak but friendly light warms the historians of Imperial
Russia. Suddenly they are no more ‘irrelevant’ than anyone else. Psycho-
248 Nicholas I I

logically, they are attuned to the idea of dramatic change in Russian affairs.
Their perspectives on Russia are long. The world of the 1990s is very
different to the one that existed before 1914 but important similarities do
exist and useful comparisons can be made. The same is true where the
collapse of the imperial and Soviet regimes is concerned. W ithin Russia
there is enormous interest in the pre-Soviet era. Much that was hidden or
never discussed can now be revealed. Honest answers can be sought in
Russia’s past for the tragedies of her twentieth-century history. For the
last seventy years Marxism-Leninism has defined Russian statehood.
Russia was subsumed in a Soviet and Marxist identity. Now the collapse of
Communism and of the Soviet Union means that a new Russian political
identity must be found. It can only be discovered in Russian history and
culture, and in the country’s geopolitical position. This has ensured a
great debate about Russia’s past. Old battles have resumed between
‘Slavophiles’, ‘Westernizers’ and ‘Eurasians’. Even so serious a newspaper
as Literaturnaya gazeta can discuss the possibility of the monarchy’s restora­
tion. O f more importance, the age-old question of Russia’s boundaries and
borderlands is now on the agenda. This adds further heat to the argument
over Russia’s historical values and identity, as well as over where her
interests should lie in the future.1
In the last four years tremendous interest has been shown in Russia
about the murder of the country’s last monarch and his family. In part this
is simply the desire to know about a famous tragedy which was never
allowed to be discussed in the Soviet era. More significantly, it reflects
concern about the origins of the Stalinist system and of the moral nihilism
which came to pervade so much of Soviet society. Many Russians now
feel that the murder of the Romanovs was an important moment in this
process. The event’s bestiality and lawlessness, the trumped-up accusations
that the family was ‘attempting to escape’, above all the ruthless contempt
even for the lives of children - all these were to be familiar hallmarks of the
Soviet regime and represented a clear break with the world of Victorian
Europe. W hen one looks at the later lives of some of those who took a
prominent part in the Romanovs’ murder it is hard to dispute the link
between Leninist and Stalinist terror. Against this it is sometimes argued
that civil war breeds horror and that the Reds behaved no worse than the
Whites. There is something in this argument but not much. The civil war
did not occur by accident. In Í917 the other socialist parties, in other
words the Mensheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries, were partly guided
by their fear of and revulsion for civil war. In the winter of 1917-18 the
overwhelming majority of Russians supported one or other of the socialist
parties. An all-socialist coalition would have made counter-revolution
inconceivable, particularly since it would have rested on the only legiti­
mate authority in Russia, namely the Constituent Assembly. Some
 Then and N ow 249

Bolsheviks would have accepted a socialist coalition but Lenin was not one
of them. The Bolshevik leader rejected this course and pursued policies
which, as he well knew, made civil war inevitable. Political leaders who
wish civil war on their own people bear a heavy responsibility for its
horrors, especially when most of the-premises and calculations behind their
actions turn out to be mistaken. He cannot therefore be absolved from
responsibility for its horrors. It is certainly true that the Whites often acted
with chaotic brutality. Their treatment of the Jews in particular was an
abomination. But to the best of my knowledge no one has ever shown that
the top W hite leaders, General Denikin or Admiral Kolchak for instance,
ordered the extermination not just of enemy politicians but of their whole
families, children included. Even Yurovsky’s mother survived untouched
during the W hite occupation of Ekaterinburg. The cold-blooded rational­
ization of class terror carried the world into a new dimension of political
crime.2
Before the revolution the Tsar was the embodiment of Russian state­
hood and, to some extent, the symbol of Russian national identity. He was
both a secular and a religious leader. Not surprisingly the contemporary
debate over his murder therefore involves questions of statehood, national
identity and religion. The call to canonize the Tsar, along with other
victims of Bolshevism, arouses passions on both sides. An important point
here is that Yurovsky, Goloshchekin and Sverdlov were all Jews. The Jews
were traditional targets of Russian nationalist hatred. Anti-Semitism is
still strong in Russia. The accusation that it was Jews who destroyed the
bearer and symbol of Russian nationality and statehood is a powerful
weapon in the anti-Semitic arsenal. Those who wish to use it seldom have
the honesty to admit that Yurovsky’s murder squad contained more
Russians than Jews; that Ermakov’s gang at the mine-shaft was over­
whelmingly Russian; and that the final decision to commit murder came
from Lenin at least as much as from Sverdlov.3
Contemporary interest in the last decades of Imperial Russia goes
beyond the debate on statehood, national identity or political morals. In
this era Russia was becoming integrated into the world capitalist economy.
This was the classic time of bankers, stock exchanges and Russian entre­
preneurship. In 1917 revolution reversed this process. The Bolshevik
seizure and consolidation of power, the workers’ revolt and the peasant
rebellion were three distinct though linked phenomena. But all of them
were directed against capitalism and private property as they existed in
Edwardian Europe. In the 1990s Russia is once again attempting to join
Europe and the world market. Popular attitudes to entrepreneurship,
inequality and property will in part determine the extent to which this
attempt proves successful. This adds interest to the study of Russian
economic and political history in the late imperial era. At the very least one
250 Nicholas I I

can expect more realistic and sympathetic studies of the achievements and
problems of Russian capitalism in this era to be written by Russian his­
torians in the next few years.4
But it is not only Victorian and Edwardian Russia which are in some
ways very familiar to the contemporary observer. The same is true of the
pre-1914 world as a whole. In that era Russia was part of Europe. The
Edwardian world economy was unequivocally capitalist. Its monetary
principles, based on the gold standard, were severe. The European banks,
backed if necessary by gunboats, were its IMF. The stability of the
international financial and commercial systems was linked to British pre­
eminence and threatened by Britain’s decline. Commercial rivalry caused
bitterness between Mercantilist’ Germany and free-trade Britain, whose
economies were structured and managed in rather different ways. Among
the key debates of the time were questions about the levels of state inter­
vention and social welfare which were compatible with efficient capitalism.
Another major issue concerned which country would prove itself to be
the most powerful and competitive bearer of capitalist progress in the
twentieth century. All of these issues are still very much with us in the
1990s, though the USA now stands in Britain’s place and its major com­
mercial rival is Japan rather than Germany.
In politics the strong trend in the late Victorian and Edwardian world
was towards constitutionalism and, beyond it, liberal democracy. Most
educated Russians were convinced that their country too must be subject
to this universal law of historical development. The majority of Marxist
socialists merely argued that the last stage on the road would be not
‘bourgeoisdemocracy’ but socialism. Even most conservative tsarist states­
men, rather than opposing liberal constitutionalism in principle, held that
their country was not yet ready for it. Belief in liberalism reflected an
optimistic faith that as human beings became richer and better educated
they would become happier and more reasonable. Conflicts could therefore
be resolved peacefully within a constitutional framework. Some people
believed that this might be possible not merely within societies but also
between them.
From the 1880s the world’s domination by liberal capitalism came
under threat from both the right and the left of the political spectrum. By
1914 Europe possessed political parties which carried the seeds of Fascism
and Leninism. The threat to the Victorian order from the extreme left was
in principle less anti-rational and more anti-capitalist than was the case
with Fascism. But in time both far left and far right evolved messianic
ideologies which were anti-liberal to the core. These ideologies were a
serious threat in themselves. They became immensely dangerous when
they captured Germany and Russia, the continent of Europe’s only two
potential superpowers. In the last hundred years only Germany and Russia
 Then and N ow 251

have possessed the demographic, military and economic resources poten­

tially to dominate all Europe. Two great wars in this century above all
revolved around their competition to control people and resources in
Eastern and Central Europe, thereby acquiring a power which would
inevitably make them masters of the whole continent. The first stage in
this conflict destroyed Nicholas II, his family and his empire. In 1940, after
France’s collapse, the alliance between Hitler’s Germany and Stalin’s
Russia meant that Victorian civilization and its heirs had been subjugated
throughout the whole European mainland. Thanks to the British and,
above all, the Americans, Fascist Germany was destroyed in 1945 and
Soviet Communism was undermined and worn down in the Cold War.
Miraculously, fifty-three years after the Nazi-Soviet pact, liberal and capi­
talist values appeared to triumph from Dublin to Vladivostok. Whether
this perspective of 1992 will continue to prevail is a moot point. But at
present much of European history between 1917 and 1991 appears to be
merely an abberation, a detour.
The same is true if we think of contemporary developments in Europe
and Northern Eurasia under the heading of decolonization. This has been a
major theme in the history of Eastern and Central Europe and the Middle
East for the last 170 years. In 1800 all of this vast area was controlled by
four great empires: Ottoman, Habsburg, Romanov and Hohenzollem.
The Ottoman Empire was the first to crumble and the Balkans, the first
region from which it retreated, became a zone of instability and a major
cause of the First W orld W ar. A war originating in the Balkans resulted in
the break-up of the Austrian and German empires and the Balkanization of
all Eastern and Central Europe, creating a string of small and unstable
states in the region locked in conflict with their neighbours over borders
and ethnic minorities, and too weak to defend themselves against Germany
or Russia, the area’s great powers. The vacuum created by decolonization
in this region was a major cause of the Second World War. Victory in
1945 brought a pax Soviética to Eastern and Central Europe and Northern
Eurasia. Between 1945 and 1991 the basic geopolitical fact about this huge
region appeared to be that whereas all other empires had collapsed, the
Russian one had survived and had even been strengthened under Soviet
rule. This fact had not been inevitable. In 1917-18 the Russian Empire had
disintegrated and German domination of Europe seemed likely, but
Berlin’s defeat on the Western Front in 1918 saved Lenin and allowed the
Russian Empire to be reconstituted in Bolshevik form.
The survival of a Russian empire, which seemed an immutable fact in
the post-war era, now, however, appears to have been a mere delay in the
long-term historical process of decolonization. As a result, European states­
men are once again gazing in bewildered horror at the Albanian, Bosnian
and Macedonian problems, all of them long-established nightmares of
252 Nicholas I I

pre-1914 diplomacy. Moreover, in the late 1980s the basic law of European
geopolitics reasserted itself. As Russia rises, Germany falls and vice versa.
The collapse of the Soviet Union was accompanied, by no means acciden­
tally, by German reunification. In time that seems likely to entail German
pre-eminence in most of the area of the former Habsburg Empire and many
of the western republics of the former USSR.
O f course the world of the 1990s is a very different place to Nicholas IPs
Europe. The existence of nuclear weapons, a single non-European super­
power and the feminist movement - to take but three examples almost at
random - makes this clear. Modem German society has values and ambi­
tions very different to those that drove the Kaiser’s Reich. Nevertheless, in
significant ways Europe is closer to what it was in 1900 than to the
continent of the 1930s or 1970s. This adds tremendous interest to the
study of Europe and Russia before 1914. It also presents a rather different
perspective on the events of those pre-war decades. However much histo­
rians may wish to divorce themselves from the present and study the past
in and for itself, in reality the end of the Cold W ar and the collapse of the
Soviet regime are likely to lead to considerable changes in the way the
history of Imperial Russia is conceived and written, above all in Russia
itself, but also to some extent in the West.
The most obvious and traditional comparison between Imperial and
Soviet Russia is that between Peter the Great and Stalin. This comparison
is in many ways unfair. The Tsar was not only more selfless than Stalin,
but also has a far better claim to have brought enlightenment to Russia.
But both men were cruel autocrats who imposed immense suffering on
their peoples in order to strengthen their empire and ensure its status as a
great power. After Peter’s victory over the Swedes Russia became a
European great power, a position which it has retained to this day. Only in
the 1920s was this position really in question but Stalin’s forced industrial­
ization, followed by victory in the Second World W ar, not only reasserted
Russia’s great-power status but also turned the Soviet Union into one of
the world’s two superpowers. Neither Peter nor Stalin transformed the
system of government which they inherited. Rather, they emphasized and
developed all the most oppressive and authoritarian aspects of that system.
In Peter’s case this meant compulsory state service, heavy taxation and
serfdom; in Stalin’s it entailed a reversion to the Leninist terror and forced
requisitioning of 1918-20, combined with taking authoritarian tendencies
within the party to their logical limit. After the death of Peter and Stalin
the élites received some relief from the political system’s harshest
aspects. In eighteenth-century Russia this meant the end of compulsory
service and security for property. After 1953 the Soviet élites
achieved freedom from terror and, under Brezhnev, job security as well. In
both cases, however, the core principles of the political system remained.
 Then and N ow 253

The greatest contrast between Imperial and Soviet Russia is that whereas
Peter’s legacy survived until the 1860s, and arguably even 1917, radical
reform of the Stalinist system began within four decades of the dictator’s
death. Thirty-eight years after Stalin’s departure his regime had fallen.
Ever since the days of Peter the Great, Russian governments have
judged their country’s success or failure in relative terms. The standard
against which they have measured Russia has always been the power,
wealth and prestige of the leading Western states. For the imperial govern­
ment the decisive measure was always military power and security. In the
nineteenth century, however, Russian educated society increasingly based
its comparisons on relative prosperity and freedom, as a result coming to
conclusions which were unflattering both to Russia and its government.
In the Soviet era the regime was able for many decades to isolate its people
from the outside world, thereby making comparisons much more difficult.
In addition the new élites and new middle class created by Stalin in
the 1930s constituted a public opinion which was less cosmopolitan and
sophisticated than its tsarist equivalent at the turn of the century. For the
Soviet regime military power vis-à-vis the West remained very important
but the ideological factor also entered the picture. In competition with
Western capitalism, Marxism-Leninism was supposed to show superior
efficiency and justice, thereby proving that progress and history were on
its side. Particularly after Khrushchev’s commitment to peaceful coexis­
tence, the decisive sphere for competition between the two systems became
the economy. To legitimize itself in the eyes of the Soviet peoples, and
indeed of the ruling élites themselves, Marxism-Leninism had to
prove itself more capable than capitalism of producing goods and dis­
tributing them widely and fairly.
Precisely because competition with the West has been a key factor in
Russian history since Peter, it is possible to see the last three centuries in
Russia in terms of three great cycles of modernization, each of them
initiated from above, by the state, and each of them designed to achieve
parity or better in the competition with the leading Western great
powers.
The first of these cycles could be described as ‘catching up with Louis
XIV’. Its aim was to make Russia the equal of the other great European
absolute monarchies which dominated the continent in the eighteenth
century. The best-known figure associated with this cycle is Peter the
Great though in fact the attempt to catch up with Russia’s European
neighbours preceded his reign and only achieved full success later in the
eighteenth century. Not until the 1760s and 1770s was Russia regarded
abroad as the equal of Habsburg Austria or Bourbon France. By the end of
the century, however, Russia’s position as one of the continent’s three or
four greatest military powers was universally recognized and completely
254 N khoias I I

secure. Alexander Fs defeat of Napoleon further increased his country’s

prestige and in the first half of the nineteenth century Russia was generally
perceived to be the continent’s leading military power. A key point to
remember about this first great cycle of modernization, which lasted from
the 1690s to the 1850s, was that the factors which determined a country’s
power changed slowly during this period. All the leading continental
states were agrarian societies with rather small industrial bases and urban
populations. Power was to a considerable extent the product of rulers’
intelligence and of the effectiveness with which they taxed and recruited
their subjects. As a result of the revolution of 1789 the French state became
more streamlined and effective. Popular enthusiasm could, up to a point,
be mobilized in a way that was difficult in the states of the European old
regime. Even the revolution and Bonaparte, however, allowed a more effi­
cient use of the existing factors of power rather than their fundamental
transformation. This helps to explain why in 1812-15 the European old
regime monarchies could succeed in overthrowing Napoleonic France.
In the mid-nineteenth century the factors of power changed fundamen­
tally because of the industrial revolution. The Crimean W ar brought
home this lesson to the Russian government in a shocking and humiliating
fashion. As a result the government initiated the second great cycle of
modernization, which one could describe as Russia’s attempt to remain a
great power in the smokestack era. This cycle lasted from the 1850s to the
1970s. Just as Alexander Fs entry into Paris in 1814 symbolized Russia’s
success in the first great cycle of modernization, so the capture of Berlin in
1945 marked the Soviet Union’s achievement of great-power status in the
industrial era. A process begun by the imperial regime and interrupted by
the First W orld W ar and the revolution had been completed, albeit by
socialist means, under Stalinist rule. By the 1970s the Soviet Union had
achieved seemingly assured superpower status through military parity
with the USA. Not since the days of Nicholas I (1825-55) had Russian
power been rated so high at home or abroad. Realities were, however, as
deceptive in the Brezhnev era as they had been in the reign of Nicholas I.
Beneath the menace and glitter of military might, the factors of power in
the world were changing quickly. In Nicholas’s day it had been the spread
of the industrial revolution in Western Europe which had jeopardized
Russia’s status as a great power. Under Brezhnev it was the revolution of
the micro-chip and the computer. Gorbachev initiated the third great cycle
of modernization from above in order to catch up with Russia’s Western
competitors in this new era of the scientific and technical revolution. He
did so because he understood that unless fundamental changes occurred in
the Soviet economy, society and system of government, there was no
chance of his country remaining one of the world’s superpowers into the
twenty-first century. The pride and patriotism of the Soviet ruling
 Then and N ow 255

élites were at stake. So too, in the longer run, were the regime’s
legitimacy and even its survival.
Striking parallels exist between the eras of Nicholas I and Brezhnev. The
Tsar had participated in Russia’s military triumph in 1812-14 and
Brezhnev was a product of the years of victory between 1942 and 1945.
Not surprisingly, neither leader was inclined to question the basic princi­
ples of a society and system of government which had proved so successful
in the supreme test of war. Radical domestic reform is always difficult and
can be dangerous for rulers, who are bound to come into conflict with
powerful vested interests. In rigid but brittle authoritarian systems of
government such reform is not only notoriously hard to manage but also
can actually prove fatal to the regime itself. W ith military security and
great-power status seemingly certain, neither Nicholas nor Brezhnev had
the incentive to risk radical domestic change, though the Tsar believed
serfdom to be both immoral and economically inefficient. In their first
years both men pursued a policy of conservative, cautious but often intel­
ligent incremental reform. In time, however, gerontocracy, immobility
and fear paralysed efforts at change. In foreign affairs a combination of
Russia’s seeming power and its government’s bullying and bluster
succeeded in uniting against it a wide coalition of enemies. In the Crimean
W ar an isolated Russia was opposed by the British, French, Turks and
Piedmontese. Justified fear of Austrian and Swedish intervention was a
further incentive for Petersburg to agree to a humiliating peace in 1856. By
Brezhnev’s death the Soviet Union was faced by a coalition of all the
capitalist powers, having cemented the American-European alliance by its
hamfisted policy on introducing SS-20s. Soviet behaviour had also suc­
ceeded in adding China to its list of potential enemies. In both eras a very
high financial price was paid for policies which won for Russia such an
extraordinarily large number of possible foes.5
Among the younger generation of the governing élite the last
years of the Nicholas and Brezhnev eras brought increasing frustration at
the incompetence of gérontocratie bosses and growing awareness of
Russia’s dangerous backwardness. Gorbachev and his peers had almost
exact equivalents among the Milyutin brothers and other ‘enlightened
bureaucrats’ of the 1840s and early 1850s. Many of the directors of depart­
ments in Nicholas’s administration were much better educated and more
energetic than their bosses. They understood which way the world was
moving. Thanks to the American historian Bruce Lincoln, we know a
great deal about the lives, ideas and values of these officials, who in the
1850s and 1860s were to spearhead Alexander II’s reforms. It is possible
to see how reformist ideas and Western influences spread from educated
society to reach these key decision-makers in the government. W e can
trace the schools, clubs, salons and personal friendships which played a role
256 Nicholas I I

in this process. One day a historian of Gorbachev’s reforms will need to do

similar work. No doubt he or she will pay much attention to the research
institutes from which so many of Gorbachev’s advisers came. Perhaps, too,
attention will be paid to the younger relations of the Soviet Union’s rulers,
whose changing perceptions and openness to Western influences may
have been another channel through which the ruling élite and the
broader educated class was linked. In pursuing this line it will be necessary
to remember that, by the standards of the rich in the West, the relatives of
the Soviet élite did not actually live as well as is sometimes imagined
even in material terms, let alone as regards security, freedom and self­
esteem. At this level knowledge, confidence and dissatisfaction could
unite.6
The reform programmes of Alexander II and Gorbachev had much in
common.7 Their aim was to mobilize Russia’s human and natural
resources more effectively, in the process creating a more prosperous and
powerful country able to withstand international competition and satisfy
its rulers’ pride. Economic initiative and energy had to be raised through
the abolition of serfdom and the dismantling of at least part of the Soviet
command economy. If society was to show initiative and generate wealth
it needed security for an autonomous existence beyond the reach of
arbitrary bureaucratic action. Legality (zakonnost') was a catchword
of both eras. So too was publicity (glasnost’). New ideas had to be
allowed to circulate. Censorship had to be scaled down. Locked in
battle with powerful vested interests, a reformist leader needed to
release critical voices which would undermine the intellectual case for
conservatism.
But in both eras reform had strict limits. Its end result was never
expected to be democracy. Public opinion was to be listened to but it was
only to play an auxiliary role in government. Real power was to be
retained by the centralized authoritarian bureaucratic machine. Both
Alexander II and Gorbachev knew that their own position depended on
this machine’s survival. They believed that their empire could only be
preserved, and ordered reform from above implemented, so long as this
machine retained the dominant say in Russian life and government. This
belief may have been self-serving but it was not unjustifiable and in personal
terms was probably sincere.
As always, controlled liberalization proved an extremely difficult policy
for an authoritarian regime to manage. It was easier to sanction critical
voices than to silence them when they went too far. Under Nicholas I and
Brezhnev some dissidents had espoused beliefs so radical that the existing
regime, even in its most liberal mood, could never satisfy them. Both
Alexander and Gorbachev soon found that, despite their reforms, they had
enemies on the left as well as the right. Both the imperial and the Soviet
 Then find N ow 257

reformers were terrified of exposing the bulk of the population to the full
blast of a market economy. The existence of the commune under the last
three tsars, for instance, meant that peasant land could neither be sold nor
mortgaged. Gorbachev put strict fences around the private enterprise and
private property which his reforms were supposed to encourage. Free
prices were anathema. In the non-Russian borderlands the imperial and
Soviet regimes were usually less legitimate than in the Russian heartland.
Even more than in Russia proper, political stability rested on force and
inertia. Liberalization under Alexander II led in 1863 to revolution in
Poland. Under Gorbachev the explosion of nationalism in many of the
republics was a decisive factor in the collapse of the Soviet regime.
Given the similar goals and intended limits of the two reformist leader­
ships one has to ask why the end result of their policies was so different.
Imperial Russia survived for sixty years after Alexander II’s accession and
even then its destruction required a world war. Six years after Gorbachev
came to power the Soviet regime and the Soviet Union itself disintegrated
in the midst of peace. One reason for the difference was that, from the
start, Alexander II was very clear in his own mind about the limit beyond
which he would not go. Though pressed to concede a constitution and set
up a parliament in the early 1860s he refused to so so. When he decided to
crack down on opposition no institution could challenge his action.
Gorbachev, on the other hand, permitted semi-democratic parliaments to
come into being at the central and republican level. No doubt in part this
was a tactical ploy designed to increase the General Secretary’s freedom
from the control of the party élite. Perhaps, too, it was a bow to the
norms of an age much more democratic than the 1860s, as well as a reflec­
tion of the fact that in theory legislative institutions had always existed in
the Soviet Union and simply required reinvigoration. Whatever the causes,
however, from the point of view of the Soviet regime the result was disas­
trous. Alternative centres of power and legitimate authority emerged.
Most fatal was the opposition’s capture of the Russian presidency and
parliament. Parliament and press formed a front and their influence on
public opinion was great. By the time Gorbachev decided that enough was
enough, power had to some extent slipped from the regime’s hands. Its
recapture would have required an extremely risky and bloody military
crackdown which would have ruined Gorbachev’s historical reputation
and put him at the mercy of hardliners who loathed him and blamed him
for the regime’s collapse. By refusing to lend his legitimate authority to a
crackdown Gorbachev doomed conservative efforts to save both the Com­
munist party and the Soviet Union.
In comparison to the rulers of late Imperial Russia Gorbachev was
very fortunate as regards the international and military situation. The
existence of nuclear weapons and the whole climate of Western public
258 Nicholas I I

opinion by the 1980s made any outside attempt to challenge the Soviet
Union’s territorial integrity inconceivable. The equation of economic
backwardness with military danger was nowhere near as stark as under
the tsars or in the 1930s. The economy, however, was much more of a
problem than in the last decades of the monarchy, which had witnessed
very impressive economic growth. By 1986-7 it seemed clear that the
socialist command economy, even when purged of Brezhnevite sloth by
Andropov’s reforms, could not hope to compete with capitalism in the era
of the micro-chip and the computer. But, as the 1990s have shown, even in
countries where the transition from socialism to the market is inherently
easier than in the Soviet Union the process is bound to be lengthy, risky
and very painful. Moreover, the nationalities problem was also much more
serious than in the monarchy’s last years. The bulk of the non-Russian
population were no longer peasants and nomads, largely immune to
nationalist appeals. Large middle classes existed in all the republics. Under
Soviet law these republics were states in embryo, possessing even the
constitutional right to secede. A Soviet regime which stressed its allegiance
to the rule of law and began to breathe democratic life into representative
institutions which previously had been merely a façade faced enormous
risks.
Difficult ‘objective circumstances’ were therefore one reason why,
unlike under Alexander II, Gorbachev’s attempt to introduce controlled
modernization from above went swiftly off the rails and led to the collapse
both of Communism and of the Soviet Union. Nevertheless, the ‘human
factor’ cannot be ignored. The disintegration of the economy was, to a
very great extent, due to a string of disastrous blunders made by the
Gorbachev leadership itself, whose grasp of the principles underlying eco­
nomic reform was very weak. By 1989 the economy was being integrated
and disciplined neither by the old methods of command nor by a market.
Complete financial irresponsibility reigned. Moreover, until it was far too
late the leadership vastly underestimated the threat of minority nationalism
and had no policy with which it might realistically be combated. Even in
March 1990 a decision to accept the Balts as a special case and to offer
generous levels of autonomy to other republics might well have held the
core of the Soviet Union together but blindness continued to prevail.
Economic collapse, which devastated Moscow’s prestige and appeal,
coupled with republican nationalism killed the Soviet Union but the pro­
cess was far from inevitable.8
The story of the Soviet Union’s collapse makes the last years of the
imperial government look relatively good. The Romanovs’ regime only
fell under the immense strains of the First W orld W ar. As regards eco­
nomic policy there is no comparison between the intelligent profession­
alism of the imperial Ministry of Finance and the awful bungling which
 Then and N ow 259

wrecked the Soviet economy in the 1980s. Even the illusions cultivated by
Nicholas II about the monarchist faith of the Russian peasantry seem to me
a little less naive and extraordinary than the blindness of the Gorbachev
leadership to the nationalist threat. Yet in both the imperial and Soviet
cases the rulers9blindness was not the result of stupidity. Its cause was the
extraordinary degree to which the state's supreme leaders were isolated
from the people whom they governed.
Seen against the panorama of the whole of modern Russian history,
how should we judge the life and reign of the last Romanov Emperor?
From everything said in this book it should be clear that the tasks facing
any ruler of Victorian and Edwardian Russia were formidable. It was
almost impossible to reconcile the demands of external security and domes­
tic stability. The economy and society had to be modernized at great speed
if Russia’s survival as an independent power was to be ensured. In post­
war India, for instance, multi-national and poor though it is, economic
development has occurred alongside a surprising degree of democracy and
political stability. One key to this lies in the policies designed to buy off
peasants, the lower middle class, scheduled castes and trade unionists at the
expense of seriously impeding capitalism and economic growth. Even if,
miraculously, the Edwardian ¿Ute of a European country had been
prepared to swallow Indian-style policies, for instance the expropriation of
the big estates, the demands of great-power competition would still have
made it impossible for Russia to accept any drag on economic develop­
ment. Rapid capitaUst industrialization occurred, to some extent, at the
expense of the working class, and capitaUst values were very different to
those of either the peasantry or the intelUgentsia. The Russian entrepre­
neurial and landowning classes were weak by European standards. In
cultural even more than in economic terms a great gulf yawned between
the Westernized ¿Utes and the Russian masses, and history added
distrust and sometimes even hatred to mutual incomprehension. In time
the development of a capitaUst economy would have changed much of this
picture but, above aU for geopoUtical reasons, time was something that
Russia’s rulers did not possess. A key problem for the imperial govern­
ment was that the country’s ¿Utes wanted to keep their property,
status, values and income intact while enjoying the civil and poUtical rights
of their European peers. I do not myself beUeve that it was possible to
satisfy both these wishes in anything but the short run, given the vulner-
abiUty of the ¿Utes’ position.
Nicholas II was the victim not the cause of these problems. The last of
Russia’s monarchs can be faulted for his isolation, above aU from the
¿Utes and currents which were beginning the transformation of his
country. The Tsar’s heart lay in old Russia. Since most of Russia was still
rural, peasant and ‘old’ there was some justification for Nicholas’s attitude
260 Nicholas I I

but it went too far. Father George Shavelsky, the last Chaplain-General of
the armed forces, wrote that Nicholas and Alexandra promoted the build­
ing of churches which copied sixteenth- and seventeenth-century styles,
‘extolling the ancient and belittling the contemporary9, in the process
ignoring ‘modem great masters of religious art - Vasnetsov, Nesterov
and others9. This reflected instincts and attitudes on matters well beyond
the narrow confines of church architecture and decoration. Unlike the last
German Emperor, Nicholas was consistently old-fashioned, not a curious
and tension-ridden combination of ancient and modem. As we have seen,
the Tsar often had no time to read the newspapers and gave up the habit
altogether during the First W orld W ar. By contrast, a surprised senior
German official noted that Wilhelm II ‘reads thirty to forty newspaper
clippings one after the other and makes marginal comments on them9.
Wilhelm’s biographer remarks that this reflected less the Kaiser’s vanity
than ‘his sense that public opinion played a crucial role in determining the
political behaviour of nations9.9
As chief executive officer of the Russian government Nicholas was
responsible for a number of blunders. O f these, the most disastrous and
culpable were the errors that led to the war with Japan in 1904. The
greatest difficulty was, however, that the Emperor could not co-ordinate
and manage his government effectively but was in a position to stop any­
one else from attempting to do the job for him. By the early twentieth
century no human being could have acted as chairman of the Russian
government throughout his adult life. The strain of the job was simply too
great. The Russian administration was a large and quite sophisticated
organization carrying out varied and complicated tasks. Contemporary
chief executives who serve for over a decade tend to exhibit signs of
exhaustion, a declining grasp of reality, and a desire to concentrate on
favourite issues and, above all, on foreign affairs. These presidents and
prime ministers are not selected by hereditary chance, brought up in the
isolated world of a court, or dumped in the top executive office at the age
of 26. They are served by effective personal offices, which are part of the
fabric of government. It is not at all surprising that Nicholas liked to
retreat to his palace at Livadia in the Crimea or that, during the First
World W ar, he showed signs of physical and emotional collapse. But it
was precisely during that time that Russia suffered most glaringly from the
lack of an effective and formidable chief executive capable of co-ordinating
and energizing the machinery of government and symbolizing resolution
and strength in the pursuit of victory.
Nicholas’s failure was partly personal but was more a product of the
system of government which he inherited. The élites, not just in
Russia but in many other countries too, were unwilling to vest sove­
reignty in ‘the people9 and thereby accept a democratic system of govern-
 Then and N ow 261

m ent. In the pre-1914 w orld the only alternative source of sovereignty was
the monarch. This to some extent worked in Japan where history and
dynastic tradition ensured that the Emperor’s role was largely symbolic.
The various groups w ithin the élite were left to work out compro­
mises and policies among themselves. Even in Japan, however, the result of
this species of political system was that nobody could co-ordinate military
and civilian policy, or keep the armed forces under control, w ith disastrous
results in the 1930s.
The Russian dynastic tradition expected a monarch to rule as well as
reign. If the country’s affairs appeared to be going well, the sovereign
m ight feel justified in distancing himself somewhat from affairs of govern­
m ent. This was much less easy when, as in Nicholas II’s Russia, signs of
crisis existed wherever one looked. No doubt, if he could find a Bismarck a
monarch m ight take a back seat but Iron Chancellors are not easily found
and in any case both international and domestic realities for the moment
ruled out Bismarckian solutions to the Russian government’s problems.
Bismarck’s Prussia was likely to defeat its great-power rivals in war:
Russia was not. Nicholas II was served by some very able ministers, of
whom the best known were Serge W itte and Peter Stolypin. Both men’s
policies aroused tremendous opposition w ithin Russian society, however,
above all in sections of the élite which were the monarchy’s oldest
supporters. The monarch could not shut his ears to their complaints,
particularly since the policies pursued by both W itte and Stolypin did
indeed entail serious disadvantages and dangers.
Nicholas II was not stupid. O n the contrary, his problem tended to be
that he could understand many points of view and wavered between them.
The dangers Russia faced were very great. Responses, let alone solutions,
to the country’s difficulties were often mutually exclusive. The Russian
Empire was neither a nation nor a bourgeois society. A Russian monarch
could not save himself or his dynasty simply by putting on a top hat and
becoming a citizen king. Nicholas interpreted fate as the'w ill of God. The
latter had imposed on him the duty of acting as guardian of his country’s
destiny. The sentry does not abandon his post ju st because conditions are
hard and danger threatens. This is doubly true when he believes that no
one else could do the job adequately if he deserted. Under the Russian
system of government the Emperor bore ultim ate responsibility for every­
thing. The burden was crushing, not least because a corollary of autocracy
was that Russian people tended to accept responsibility for nothing,
blaming their own sins and their country’s failings exclusively on the
empire’s rulers. Nicholas II loved his country and served it loyally and to
the best of his ability. He had not sought power and he was not by tem­
perament or personality very well equipped to wield it. He was a very
kind, sensitive, generous and initially naive man. Russian high politics in
262 Nicholas I I

these traumatic years required something very different and would prob­
ably have destroyed any man who sat on the throne. There is a bitter irony
in the fact that a ruler who idealized the ordinary Russian and wished only
for his or her well-being should go down in the collective memory of
twentieth-century Russians as Nicholas the Bloody. W ith the collapse of
the Soviet regime comes the moment not for whitewashing or mytho­
logizing old Russia and its last ruler but instead for presenting a fairer,
more human and more balanced judgem ent than that imposed on the
Russian people for the last seventy-five years.10
 Notes

Chapter 1: The Inheritance

1. The first two volumes in Longman's History o f Russia are good up-to-date guides to
the subject: J. Fennell, The Crisis o f Medieval Russia, 1200-1304 (Harlow, 1983); and
R.O. Crummey, The Formation o f Muscovy, 1304-1613 (Harlow, 1987). For an
interesting essay on the Tatars' influence on Russia see CJ. Halperin, Russia and die
Golden Horde: The Mongol Impact on Russian History (London, 1987).
2. On Imperial Russia as a great power there is a very good recent book by William
Fuller, Strategy and Power in Russia, 1600-1914 (New York, 1992). On the growth
of the Russian Empire see also M. Rywkin (ed.), Russian Colonial Expansion to 1917
(London, 1988).
3. There are a number of surveys of Imperial Russian history and society. In my view
the most interesting is R. Pipes, Russia under the O ld Regime (London, 1974).
4. On eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century Russsian government see: J. Le
Donne, Absolutism and Ruling Class (New York, 1991); and I. de Madariaga, Russia
in the A g e o f Catherine the Great (London, 1981). On Uvarov, see C.H. Whittaker,
The Origins o f Modem Russian Education: A n Intellectual Biography o f Count Serge
Uvarov (DeKalb, 1984).
D. Field, The End o f Serfdom (Cambridge, Mass., 1976), p. 55.
io

A good introduction to this theme is S.P. Huntingdon, Political Order in Changing

>o

Societies (New Haven, 1968), especially Ch. 3.

7. Benckendorff expressed this fear inter alia in an interesting letter to the new Foreign
Minister, Alexander Izvolsky, dated 12/25 July 1906. See A.P. Izvolsky, A u Service
de la Russie, Alexandre Iswolsky, Correspondance Diplomatique (2 vols., Paris, 1937 and
1939), Vol. 1, pp. 335-8.
8. On international relations in this era, AJ.P. Taylor, The Stmggle for Mastery in
Europe, 1848 -1 9 1 8 (Oxford, 1971), remains a classic. I have tried to look at these
issues from a Russian angle in D.C.B. Lieven, Russia and the Origins o f the First World
W ar (London, 1983).
9. N. Stone, Europe Transformed, 1878-1919 (Glasgow, 1983), is a quirky and fasci­
nating study of European society in this era.
10. Many recent works tackle these themes when looking at the history of various
groups in late Imperial Russia: see, for instance, D.R. Brower, The Russian C ity
between Tradition and Modernity (Berkeley, 1990); G.L. Freeze, The Parish Clergy in
264 Noies

Nineteenth-Century Russia (Princeton, 1983); SJ. Seregny, ‘Zemstvo Rabbits,

Antichrists, and Revolutionaries: Rural Teachers in Saratov Province, 1890-1907*,
in R.A. Wade and SJ. Seregny (eds.). Politics and Society in Provincial Russia
(Columbus, 1989), pp. 113-38; and W. Fuller, Civil-Military Conflict in Imperial
Russia, 1881-1914 (Princeton, 1985), especially Ch. 2.
11. K.B. Pyle, ‘Meiji Conservatism*, in M.B. Jansen (ed.). The Cambridge History o f
Japan. Volume 5: The Nineteenth Century (Cambridge, 1989), Ch. 11, p. 696.
12. In January 1887, for instance, Alexander III told his Foreign Minister: ‘if we lose the
confidence of public opinion in our foreign policy then all is lost*. A.F. Rotstein
(ed.), Dnetmik V .N . Lamzdorfa, 1886-1890 (Moscow, 1926), p. 36.
13. The first chapters of R. Pipes, The Formation o f the Soviet Union (Cambridge, Mass.,
1970), remain the best overall survey of the nationalities problem in the last decades
of Imperial Russia.
14. There is a huge literature on Russian labour before the revolution. T. McDaniel,
Autocracy, Capitalism and Revolution in Russia (Berkeley, 1988), is a useful introduc­
tion to this issue. His bibliography is a good guide to the literature. See also, for
example, R.E. Johnson, Peasant and Proletarian: The Working Class o f Moscow in the
Late Nineteenth Century (Rutgers, 1979). The capitalists* perspective has received far
less attention. The best English-language source on this is O. Crisp, ‘Labour and
Industrialization in Russia’, in P. Mathias and M.M. Postan (eds.), The Cambridge
Economic History o f Europe (Cambridge, 1978), Vol. 7, Part 2, pp. 308-415.
15. Pyle, ‘Meiji Conservatism’, p. 710. Apart from McDaniel, Autocracy, see also M.K.
Palat, ‘Police Socialism in Tsarist Russia, 1900-1905’, Studies in History, Vol. 2,
No. 1, 1986, New Delhi; and J. Schneiderman, Sergei Zubatov and Revolutionary
Marxism (Ithaca, 1970).
16. I have discussed the Russian aristocracy’s position within a comparative European
framework in D. Lieven, The Aristocracy in Europe, 1815-1914 (London, 1992).
Two contrasting works on the upper class in late Imperial Russia are S. Becker,
Nobility and Privilege in Late Imperial Russia (DeKalb, 1985), and R. Manning, The
Crisis o f the O ld Regime in Russia (Princeton, 1982).
17. H-D. Löwe, Die Lage der Bauern in Russland, 1880-1905 (St Katherinen, 1987).
18. Apart from Löwe three collections of essays on the Russian peasantry have recently
been published in English: B. Eklof and S.P. Frank (eds.), The World o f the Russian
Peasant (London, 1990); R. Bartlett (ed.). Land Commune and Peasant Community in
Russia (London, 1990); and E. Kingston-Mann and T. Mixter (eds.). Peasant Econ­
omy, Culture and Politics o f European Russia, 1800-1921 (Princeton, 1991).
19. On middle-class Russia there is a very good recent collection of essays edited by
E.W. Clowes, S.D. Kassow andJ.L. West, Between Tsar and People: Educated Society
and the Quest fo r Public Identity in Late Imperial Russia (Princeton, 1991).
20. The literature on the radical and revolutionary movement is colossal. No single
work synthesizes all this literature and provides a simultaneous guide to the radical
intelligentsia’s counter-culture and the revolutionary movement’s various strands
throughout the last half-century of the old regime. As regards political ideas, the
best guide is A. Walicki, A History o f Russian Thought from the Enlightenment to
Marxism (Oxford, 1980). On the spirit of the intelligentsia, F. Venturi, Roots o f
Revolution (London, 1960), remains a classic work.
21. On Tkachev see D. Hardy, Petr Tkachev: The Critic asJacobin (Seattle, 1977).
 Izotes 265

Chapter 2: Childhood and Youth

1. Marie, Grand Duchess of Russia, Education o f a Princess (New York, 1931), p. 14.
2. For photographs and a description of the statue see B. Ometev and J. Stuart, S t
Petersburg: Portrait o f an Imperial C ity (London, 1990), pp. 42-3.
3. I. Vorres, The Last Grand Duchess (London, 1964), p. 29; D.N. Lyubimov,
‘Russkaya smuta nachala devyatisokykh godov, 1902-1906. Po vospominaniyam,
lichniyam zapiskam i dokumentam’, Columbia University Bakhmetev Archive
(New York: henceforth CUBA), Lyubimov Collection, pp. 89-93; and S. Harcave
(ed.), The Memoirs o f Count W itte (New York, 1990), pp. 157 and 174.
4. Manuscript Section of the Lenin Library (Moscow: henceforth RO), Fond 126,
K12, p. 1, entry for 7 November 1894.
5. Vorres, Last Grand Duchess, p. 39.
6. S. Bradford, George V I (London, 1991), p. 20. See also V.N. Lamzdorf, Dnevnik,
1 8 9 4 -1 8 9 6 (Moscow, 1991), pp. 55-6.
7. Vorres, Last Grand Duchess, p. 52.
8. V.N. Lamzdorf, Dnevnik, 1886-1890 (Moscow, 1926), pp. 7,140 and 230-1; and
Central State Historical Archive (Saint Petersburg: henceforth TsGIA), Fond 899,
Opisl.Ed. Khr. 32, pp. 40-1.
9. V.N. Lamzdorf, Dnevnik, 1891-1892 (Moscow, 1934), p. 98.
10. Lamzdorf, Dnevnik, 1891-1892, for example, p. 251; and P.A. Zayonchkovsky
(ed.), Dnevnik P .A . Valueva 1861-1876 (Moscow, 1961), Vol. 1, p. 262, and Vol. 2,
p. 151.
11. Central State Archive of the October Revolution (Moscow: henceforth TsGAOR),
Fond 1,463, Opis 1, Ed. Khr. 1,115, p. 240; and Witte, Memoirs, pp. 156 and
170-8.
12. Anon., Russian Court Memoirs (2nd ed., Cambridge, 1992), pp. 17-18; and Princess
Catherine Radziwill, The Intimate Life o f the Last Tsarina (London, 1929), p. 68.
13. J. Pope-Hennessy, Queen Mary, 1867-1953 (London, 1959), pp. 327-8; and
Bradford, George V I, pp. 20-1.
14. Bradford, George V I, p. 185; Pope-Hennessy, Queen M ary, pp. 256-7; and K. Rose,
King George V (London, 1983), pp. 19 and 26.
15. Vorres, Last Grand Duchess, pp. 53, 85-6 and 92-3; Grand Duke Alexander
Mikhailovich, Once a Grand Duke (London, 1932), pp. 146-7; Baroness Sophia
Buxhoeveden, The Life and Tmgedy o f Alexandra Feodorovna, Empress o f Russia
(London, 1928), p. 110; and G.A. Lensen (ed.). Revelations o f a Russian Diplomat:
The Memoirs o f Dimitri /. Abrikossow (Seattle, 1964), p. 233.
16. Rose, George V , p. 10.
17. I. Surguchev, Detstvo imperatom Nikolaya vtorogo (Paris, 1952), pp. 45, 78 and 151;
Witte, Memoirs, p. 125; and D. Duff, Hessian Tapestry (London, 1967), p. 250,
quoting Princess Victoria of Hesse.
18. See, in particular, M. Zonis, Majestic Failure: The Fall o f the Shah (Chicago, 1991),
Ch. 2; and A. Taheri, The Unknown Life o f the Shah (London, 1991), p. 225 for the
quotation. Alexander Mikhailovich, Once a Grand Duke, p. 201.
19. Zonis, Majestic Failure, p. 30; and Surguchev, Detstvo, p. 68.
20. D. Mack Smith, Italy and Its Monarchy (London, 1989), p. 71.
21. Mack Smith, Italy, p. 147.
22. Surguchev, Detstvo, pp. 78, 79, 88-9,108-9 and 132.
23. Surguchev, Detstvo, p. 82; and Vorres, Last Grand Duchess, pp. 26 and 32.
266 N otes

24. Surguchev, Detstvo, pp. 138-41; and Vorres, Last Grand Duchess, p. 48.
25. G. Botkin, The R eal Romanovs (London, 1932), p. 32.
26. A.M. Vemer, The Crisis o f Russian Autocracy: Nicholas II and the 1905 Revolution
(Princeton, 1990), pp. 20-1; and J.C. Trewin, Tutor to the Tsarevich (London,
1975), pp. 83-6.
27. Surguchev, Detstvo , p. 81; P. Popov (P. Knyazhnin), Shest’ let v Imperatorskom
Alehsandrovshom Litsee (1870-75) (St Petersburg, 1911), pp. 29-31; E.J. Bing (ed.).
The Letters o f Tsar Nicholas and Empress Marie (London, 1937), p. 85 (27 June 1894);
Vorres, Last Grand Duchess, p. 34; A. Izvolsky, The Memoirs o f Alexander Iswolslty
(London, n.d.), p. 248; and V.N. Voeykov, 5 tsarem i hez tsarya (Helsingfors,
1936), p. 337.
28. P.L. Bark, 'Glava iz vospominaniy*, Vozrozhdenie , Vol. 43,1955, Paris, pp. 5-27:
the quotation is from p. 7.
29. Much the best English-language study of Pobedonostsev is by R.F. Byrnes,
Pobedonostsev (Indiana, 1968).
30. B.V. Ananich, ‘The Economic Policy of the Tsarist Government and Enterprise in
Russia from the End of the Nineteenth through the Beginning of the Twentieth
Century', in G. Guroff and F.V. Carstensen (eds.). Entrepreneurship in Imperial
Russia and the Soviet Union (Princeton, 1983), pp. 125-39: the quotation is from
p. 136. The Letters o f the Tsar to the Tsaritsa (London, 1929), p. 266, letter of 20
September 1916.
31. On the aristocratic Guards officer in general, see D.C.B. Lieven, The Aristocracy in
Europe, 1815-1914 (London, 1992), p. 189.
32. For a record of the journey in English, see R. Goodlet's translation of Prince
E. Ukhtomsky, Travels in the East o f Nicholas II Emperor o f Russia when Cesarewitch
(2 vols., London, 1896). Alexander Mikhailovich, Once a Grand D uke , pp. 188-9.
33. Ukhtomsky, Travels, Vol. 2, pp. 101, 143 and 419; and Bing (ed.). Letters,
pp. 46-7.
34. Vemer, Crisis, pp. 28-9; and Alexander Mikhailovich, Once a Grand Duke, p. 190.
35. Vorres, Last Grand Duchess, p. 67.
36. Witte, Memoirs, p. 126; V.I. Mamantov, N a gosudarevoy sluzhbe (Tallinn, 1926),
pp. 168-70; and Bark, ‘Glava’, p. 7.
37. Marion Countess Dönhoff, Before the Storm (New York, 1990), pp. 39-40:1 try to
expand on this theme in Lieven, Aristocracy, especially in Chs. 7, 8 and 10; and
Izvolsky, Memoirs, p. 247.
38. P. Gilliard (Zhil'yar), Trinadtsat’ let pri russhom dvore (Paris, n.d.), pp. 69-70.
39. On the childhood and education of George V and Wilhelm II, see, for example,
respectively Rose, George V , Ch. 1, and L. Cedi, Wilhelm II, Prince and Emperor,
1 8 59-1900 (Chapel Hill, 1989), Ch. 2. On Emperor Hirohito, see, for example, T.
Crump, The Death o f an Emperor (Oxford, 1989), pp. 75-7.
40. For Wilhelm II see, for example, Cedi, Wilhelm, Chs. 2 and 3. On Edward VII, see
P. Magnus, King Edward V II (London, 1964), Chs. 1 and 2.
41. Lamzdorf, Dnevnik, 189 4-96, p. 85; and A. Alam, The Shah and I: The Confidential
Diary o f Iran’s Royal Court, 1969-1977 (London, 1991), p. 478. Admittedly, Crown
Prince Reza was only 16 when the Shah made this comment. Nicholas II was 26
when his father died. Still, the Shah's point is relevant.
42. As the paragraph indicates, I have my doubts about parts of Vemer’s argument in
Chapter 1 of his Crisis o f Russian Autocracy.
 N otes 267

Chapter 3: Tsar and Family Man

1. Dnetmik Imperatora Nikolaya II (Paris, 1980; reprint of 1923 Berlin edition),

pp. 12-48, conveys a sense of the heir’s daily life before his marriage and accession.
2. Quoted in Verner, Crisis, p. 30.
3. Dnetmik , p. 49.
4. Dnetmik , p. 50.
5. Spiteful voices said that Alix had enjoyed being ’Queen’ of Hesse and loathed being
displaced by her brother’s bride. Radzivill, Intimate Life , p. 6.
6. Duff, Hessian Tapestry, pp. 165 and 172; and Buxhoeveden, Life , pp. 29 and 80-1.
7. Duff, Hessian Tapestry, pp. 165-6; Buxhoeveden, Life, pp. 45 and 91-2; and
L. Dehn, The R eal Tsaritsa (London, 1922), p. 67. On Alix’s mother, see G. Noel,
Princess Alice (London, 1974).
8. Duff, Hessian Tapestry, pp. 103,148 and 173-4; and Buxhoeveden, Life , for exam­
ple, pp. 79-81.
9. Duff, Hessian Tapestry, pp. 168-9; Buxhoeveden, Life, p. 87; and S.S. Fabritsky, I z
proshlogo (Berlin, 1926), p. 118.
10. Buxhoeveden, Life, pp. 7-14; and Dehn, R eal Tsaritsa, pp. 59-60,94,103,185 and
197.
11. Buxhoeveden, Life, pp. 1-15.
12. G. Noel, Ena: Spain's English Queen, pp. 54-8 and 135-49; and L. Connors, The
Emperor's Adviser. Saionji Kinmochi and Pre-War Japanese Politics (London, 1987),
pp. 77-86.
13. Dnetmik, pp. 58 ff.
14. RO, Fond 126, K ll, p. 307; Lamzdorf, Dnetmik, 1894-6, pp. 24-5 and 44; and
Dnetmik, pp. 75-84.
15. Dnetmik, pp. 89-99.
16. Radzivill, Intimate Life, p. 92; and Lamzdorf, Dnetmik, 1894-6, pp. 85, 123, 376
and 404.
17. Verner, Crisis, pp. 39-43; and Dnetmik, p. 83.
18. Radzivill, Intimate L ife, p. 70; Rose, George V , p. 77; and Pope-Hennessy, Queen
M ary, pp. 422-3.
19. A. Bogdanovich, Triposlednikh samoderzhavtsa (Moscow, 1990), p. 79.
20. Lieven, Aristocracy in Europe, tries to illustrate some of these points by comparisons
between Russian, German and English aristocracy. Radzivill, Intimate Life, for
example p. 48; see, also, Count P. Vasili, La Société de St. Petersburg (Paris,
1886); and Carl Graf Moy, A ls Diplomat am Zarenhof (Munich, 1971).
21. Prince S. Volkonsky, M y Reminiscences (2 vols., London, 1922), Vol. 2, pp. 83-4
and 104.
22. Noel, Ena, p. 104; Radzivill, Intimate Life, p. Ill; and Gibbes, Tutor, p. 54
23. Lamzdorf, Dnetmik, 1 8 9 4 -6 , pp. 339-40, 344 and 357-8; and Radzivill, Intimate
L ife, pp. 80-2.
24. Mamantov, N a gosudarevoy sluzhbe, p p . 136-7.
25. Lamzdorf, Dnetmik, 1 8 9 4 -6 , p . 376; and RO, Fond 126, K ll, p. 314i; K12, p. 46i;
and K13, p. 57i.
26. Abrikossow, Revelations, pp. 231-6; and Bing (ed.), Letters, pp. 283-5. For the
entourages of Wilhelm II and Prince Regent Luitpold see I. Hull, The Entourage o f
Kaiser Wilhelm IT, 1888-1918 (Cambridge, 1982); J.C.G. Röhl, Kaiser, H o f und
Sta a t Wilhelm U und die deutsche Politik (Munich, 1987); and K. Möckl, ’Hof und
268 Notes

Hofgesellschaft in Bayern in der Prinzregentenzeit*, in K.F. Werner (ed.), A kten des

18 deutsch-französischen Historiokerkolloquiums Darmstadt von 2 7 -3 0 September 1982
(Bonn, 1985). See also, for example, Magnus, Edward, pp. 68-76.
27. Bing (ed.), Leiters, p. 84; and G. Botkin, The R eal Romanovs (London, 1932), p. 31.
28. Grand Duke Gavriil Konstantinovich, V Mramomom Dvortse (New York, 1955),
p. 60.
29. Bing (ed.), Leiters, p. 103.
30. Dehn, R eal Tsaritsa, p. 70; and Buxhoeveden, L ife , p. 51.
31. Fabritsky, I z Proshlogo, pp. 87-8.
32. On hunting see, for example, A. Spiridovitch, Les Dernières Années de la Cour à
Tsarskoie Selo (2 vols., Paris, 1928), Vol. 1, pp. 224-9. Fabritsky, I z proshlogo,
p. 116; and Gavriil, V Mramomom , pp. 36-41, which describes one such festival.
33. For a description of these balls and entertainments see, for example, V.N. Voeykov,
S tsarem i bez tsarya (Helsingfors, 1936), pp. 36-40. Radzivill, Intimate L ife , p. 124;
Russian Court Memoirs, pp. 12-13; and G. Dobson, H.M. Grove and H. Stewart,
Russia (London, 1915), pp. 103-6.
34. Spiridovitch, Dernières Années, Vol. 1, pp. 61-5.
35. Spiridovitch, Dernières Années, Vol. 1, pp. 357-9 and 374-5; Vol. 2, pp. 138-9;
Mamantov, N a gosudarevoy, pp. 132 ff.; and RO, Fond 126, K13, p. 260.
36. Spiridovitch, Dernières Années, Vol. 1, pp. 187-93, and Fabritsky, I z proshlogo,
pp. 57-68 and 70-81.
37. Baron R.R. Rosen, Forty Years o f Diplomacy (2 vols., London, 1922), Vol. 2, p. 26;
A.A. Mosolov, A t the Court o f the Last Tsar (London, 1935), p. 11; and E.
Elchaninov, The Tsar and His People (London, n.d.), pp. 1-2. The quotation's
significance is underlined by the fact that Nicholas II himself approved, read and
authorized Elchaninov's work. See a letter from the Grand Duke Paul of 29 May
1913 in V.P. Semennikov (ed.), Nikolay II i velikie knyazya (Leningrad-Moscow,
1925), p. 58.
38. Gavriil, V Mramomom, pp. 31-5.
39. Vorres, Last Grand Duchess, pp. 78-9; and Krasnyy Arkhiv, Vol. 76, 1936,
pp. 31-48, which contains documents on the tragedy, including part of the report of
the Special Judicial Investigator, Keyser.
40. Radzivill, Intimate Life, pp. 95-7; and Witte, Memoirs, pp. 240-1.
41. RO, Fond 126, K12, p. 55 ii; Witte, Memoirs, pp. 239-42; Vorres, Last Grand
Duchess, p. 78; and Alexander, Once a Grand Duke, pp. 158-9 and 191-4.

Chapter 4: Ruling Russia» 1894-1904

1. Cecil, Wilhelm II, especially pp. 63-8; and Röhl, Germany without Bismarck, passim .
2. Tz dnevnika A.A. Polovtsova', Krasnyy A rkhiv, Vol. 67, 1934, p. 174. On
Nicholas's elusiveness see, for example, Mossolov, A t the Court, p. 28; and
Mamantov, N a gosudarevoy, pp. 58,131 and 158.
3. Spiridovitch, Dernières Années, Vol. 1, pp. 178 and 286; and Fabritsky, I z
proshlogo, p. 53.
4. The best source on office-holding is E. Amburger, Geschichte der Behörden•
organisation Russlands von Peter dem Grossen bis 1917 (Leyden, 1966).
5. Dnevnik, p p . 105-6; and S. Yu. Witte, Samoderzhavie i zem stvo, first published in
Stuttgart in 1903 with an introduction by P.B. Struve.
6. Fabritsky, lzproshlogo, p. 105.
7. *Iz dnevnika A.A. Polovtsova*, Kràsnyy A rkhiv, Vol. 67,1934, p. 170.
8. Ibid., p. 171.
9. Witte’s autobiography, edited and translated by Sidney Harcave, is the best source
on the man and his career. D.C.B. Lieven, Russia's Rulers under the O ld Regim e,
(London, 1989), is a study of Witte’s peers, in other words Russia’s senior officials
in the last decades of the empire. Anyone wanting a detailed statistical breakdown of
social origins, education, career patterns and so on might look at Lieven, The
Russian Civil Service under Nicholas II: Some Variations on the Bureaucratic
Theme ', Jahrbücherfü r Geschichte Osteuropas, Vol. 29, No. 3,1981, pp. 366-403.
10. Bogdanovich, Tri poslednikh, p. 102; and A.N. Kuropatkin, Dnevnik (Nizhniy
Novgorod, 1923), pp. 29-30.
11. V.I. Gurko, Features and Figures o f the Past (Stanford, 1939), p. 67; and ‘Iz dnevnika
A.A. Polovtsova*, Krasnyy Arkhiv, Vol. 67,1934, p. 172.
12. The expression, ministry of ’national development’ is used by Olga Crisp on p. 24
of Studies in the Russian Economy before 1914 (London, 1976). Coming from her, the
phrase has particular resonance because she is not at all inclined to exaggerate the
state’s role in economic affairs. The English-speaking reader can best appreciate
Witte’s programme by reading ’A Secret Memorandum of Sergei Witte on the
Industrialization of Imperial Russia’, Journal o f Modem History, Vol. 26, 1954,
pp. 64-73. Theodore von Laue, the memorandum’s translator and the author of
Sergei W itte and the Industrialization o f Russia, is the doyen of Western studies of
Witte and his policies.
13. Two relatively recent comments on Witte’s policies are a highly critical piece by H.
Barkai, The Macro-Economics of Tsarist Russia in the Industrialization Era:
Monetary Developments, the Balance of Payments and the Gold Standard*,Journal
o f Economic History, Vol. 33, No. 2, 1973, pp. 339-71; and the survey article by
P.R. Gregory, ’Russian Industrialization and Economic Growth: Results and Per­
spectives of Western Research’, Jarhbücher f i r Geschichte Osteuropas, Vol. 25,
No. 2,1977, pp. 200-18.
14. George Yaney is the leading Western apostle of the view that inter-ministerial
conflict, and above all the battle between the ministries of finance and internal
affairs, provides the key to Russian domestic politics in the late imperial era. See,
above all, Ch. 8 of Yaney, The Systematization o f Russian Government (Urbana,
1973). Kuropatkin, Dnevnik, p. 73, has a nice self-description of Pleske.
15. For a scholarly but very readable portrait of the provincial governors, see R.J.
Robbins, The Tsar's Viceroys (Ithaca, 1987). There is now a large literature on
provincial government even in English. One book which brings out the limits of
the Ministry of Internal Affairs’ power at this level is N.B. Weissman, Reform in
Tsarist Russia (New Brunswick, 1981). I tried to provide a survey of the organiza­
tion, functions and operations of the security police in, The Security Police, Civil
Rights, and the Fate of the Russian Empire*, in O. Crisp and L. Edmondson (eds.).
Civil Rights in Imperial Russia (Oxford, 1989), pp. 235-62.
16. J. Schneiderman, Sergei Zubatov and Revolutionary Marxism (Ithaca, 1970), pp. 40-1,
quotes Panteleev. An old, but still very interesting work on the debate on industrial
development in radical circles is A.P. Mendel, Dilemmas o f Progress in Tsarist Russia:
Legal Marxism and Legal Populism (Cambridge, 1961).
17. The quotes are from Bogdanovich, Triposlednikh, pp. 302 and 423. Gurko, Features,
pp. 190-2.
270 N otes

18. The quote is from Tz doevnika A.A. Polovtsova’, Krasnyy A rkhiv , Vol. 46, 1931,
p. 109.
19. Tz dnevnika A.A. Polovtsova’, Krasttyy Arkhiv, Vol. 3,1923, p. 96; TsGIA, Fond
1,642, Opis 1, Ed. Khr. 220, pp. 71-2, Letter of 13 April 1902; and RO, Fond 126,
K13, p. 173i.
20. Tz dnevnika A.A. Polovtsova’, Krusnyy Arkhiv, Vol. 46,1931, p. 128.
21. S.E. Kryzhanovsky, Vospominaniya (Berlin, n.d.), p. 201.
22. TsGIA, Fond 1,044, Opis 1, Ed. Khr. 224, pp. 7 and 10.
23. Tz dnevnika A.A. Polovtsova’, Krusnyy A rkhiv , Vol. 3, 1923, p. 114; and TsGIA,
Fond 1,044, Opis 1, Ed. Khr. 269, pp. 1 and 29: a letter from Kokovtsov to Saburov
dated 17 April 1903. On Nicholas and attempts at limitation of armaments, see
D.C. Morrill, ’Nicholas II and the Call for the First Hague Conference’,Journal o f
Modem History , Vol. 46,1974, pp. 296-313.
24. TsGIA, Fond 1,642, Opis 1, Ed. Khr. 172, p. 53.
25. Tz dnevnika A.A. Polovtsova', Krusnyy A rkhiv , Vol. 3,1923, p. 98.
26. Tz dnevnika A.A. Polovtsova', Krusnyy A rkhiv , Vol. 67, 1934, pp. 184-5, and
Vol. 3,1923, p. 103; and Gurko, Features, Ch. XI.
27. RO, Fond 126, K13, p. 218.
28. RO, Fond 126, K13, p. 36; and Bing (ed.), Letters, pp. 162-8.
29. A very good modern study of Russian university life is S.D. Kassow, Students,
Professors, and the State in Tsarist Russia (Berkeley, 1989). A much older but still very
valuable book was written by Thomas Darlington and published by the British
Board of Education as Special Reports on Educational Subjects. V o l 23: Education in
Russia (London, 1909).
30. The quote is from Schwartz’s, 'Moi vospominaniya o gosudare’, in RO, Fond 338,
Opis 1, Delo 3.4, p. 2. Schwartz’s voluminous correspondence and memoranda in
Fond 338 and TsGIA, Fond 1,672, are full of useful comments by a conservative
professor about officials of the ministry, teachers, students and the problems of
Russian education. A short article by C. Ruane and B. Eklof, 'Cultural Pioneers and
Professionals: The Teacher in Society’, in Clowes et a l (eds.), Between Tsar and
People, pp. 199-214, well repays reading. So does S.J. Seregny, Russian Teachers and
Peasant Revolution: The Politics o f Education in 1905 (Bloomington, 1989). See RO,
Fond 126, K13, p. 243 for Saenger’s views of Nicholas.
31. RO, Fond 126, K13,p. 313.
32. RO, Fond 126, K13, pp. 51 and 100.
33. The literature on the socialist parties is colossal. One of the best books on the early
years of the Social Democrats remains J.H.L. Keep, The Rise o f Social Democracy in
Russia (Oxford, 1963). On the Socialist Revolutionaries there is no adequate work
in English. One must turn to M. Hildermeier, D ie Sozialrevolutionäre Partei
Russlands: Agrarsozialismus und Modernisierung im Zarenreich (1900-1914) (Cologne,
1978).
34. S. Galai, The Liberation Movement in Russia, 1900-1905 (Cambridge, 1973), is the
best history of liberalism in the run-up to the 1905 revolution.
35. Lamzdorf, Dnevnik, 18 8 6-90, p. 36.
36. The key documents surrounding the signing of the treaty of alliance are reproduced
in the appendices of G.F. Kennan, The Fateful Alliance (Manchester, 1984). This
volume, together with Kennan’s earlier The Decline o f Bismarck's European Order
(Princeton, 1970), provides a detailed and finely written account of the origins of the
 Franco-Russian alliance by twentieth-century America’s most distinguished expert
on Russia.
37. Lamzdorf, Dnevnik, 1 8 9 4 -9 6 , p. 265.
38. There is no English-language general survey of Russian foreign policy in the reign of
Nicholas II. On Russia’s role in the Balkans, however, there is Barbara Jelavich,
Russia's Balkan Entanglements, 1 8 0 6 -Ï914 (Cambridge, 1991). F.R. Bridge, From
Sadowa to Sarajevo: The Foreign Policy o f Austria-Hungary, 1866-1914 (London,
1972), provides a useful view of Russian policy from a Viennese perspective.
39. A. Iswolsky, A u Service de la Russie. Alexandre Iswolsky. Correspondance Diplomatique
(2 vols., Paris, 1937 and 1939), Vol. 1, pp. 41-2; and Oldenburg, Last Tsar, Vol. 1,
p. 131.
40. Kuropatkin’s statement in 1900 is cited by David M. McDonald, Autocracy, Bureau­
cracy and Change in the Formation o f Russia's Foreign Policy, 1895-1914 (Columbia
University Ph.D., 1988), p. 87. McDonald’s book, entitled United Government and
Foreign Policy in Russia, 1900-1914 (Cambridge, Mass., 1992), has a very interesting
discussion of the making of Russian foreign policy in this era. Kuropatkin, Dnevnik,
pp. 19, 22 and 29. For plans to seize the Turkish Straits see 'Proekkt zakhvata
Bosfora v 1896 g’, Krasnyy A rkhiv, Vol. 47-8, 1931, pp. 50-70. Oldenburg, Last
Tsar , Vol. 1, Ch. 5, discusses Nicholas’s views on Asia. Useful background to this
issue is M. Hauner, W hat Is A sia to Us? (London, 1992).
41. There is a large literature on the origins of the Russo-Japanese War. An excellent
and very fair recent work is by Ian Nish, The Origins o f the Russo-Japanese W ar
(London, 1985).
42. Quoted in McDonald, Autocracy, p. 137.
43. Tz dnevnika A.A. Polovtsova’, Krasnyy A rkhiv , Vol. 3.1923, p. 99.
44. Kuropatkin, Dnevnik, p. 114; and McDonald, Autocracy, p. 217.

Chapter 5: Autocratic Government

1. Lamzdorf, Dnevnik, 1 8 9 4 -9 6 , p. 401; and RO, Fond 338, Opis 1, Delo 3.4, p. 2.
2. RO, ibid. See, for example, Peter Bark’s comments in *Glava’, Vozrozhdenie, 1955,
pp. 11 and 24-5.
3. Kuropatkin, Dnevnik, p. 55.
4. RO, Fond 126, K 13, pp. 142 and 242; and ‘Iz dnevnika A.A. Polovtsova’, Krasnyy
A rkhiv, Vol. 3,1923, p. 87.
5. RO, Fond 126, K 13, pp. 100 and 252; and *lz dnevnika A. A. Polovtsova’, Krasnyy
A rkh iv, V o l 3,1923, p. 131.
6. Buxhoeveden, Life, pp. 108-10; and RO, Fond 126, K 13, p. 303.
7. Bark, ‘Glava’, Vozrozhdenie, 1955, p. 5.
8. Fabritsky, I z proshhgo, p. 73; Bogdanovich, Tri poslednikh, pp. 217-18; A. N.
Naumov, I z utselevshikh vospominaniy (2 vols.. New York, 1955), Vol. 2, p. 217;
and Dehn, R eal Tsaritsa, p. 86.
9. P.A. Zayonchkovsky (ed.), Dnevnik Gosudarstvennogo Sekretarya A~A. Polovtsova (2
vols., Moscow, 1966), Vol. 1, p. 213; and Vol. 2, pp. 109 and 246.
10. RO, Fond 126, K 11, pp. 39,47, 99,214, 233, 249, 295,313 and 317.
11. Kuropatkin, Dnevnik, p. 53.
12. Izvolsky, Memoirs, p. 127.
272 Notes

13. TsGIA, Fond 1,650, Ojris 1, Ed. Khr. 243, p. 28; and TsGIA, Fond 899, Opis 1,
Ed. Khr. 50, p. 12.
14. TsGIA, Fond 1,650, Opis 1, Ed. Khr. 227, p. 90; and Ed. Khr. 234, pp. 62 and 73.
15. Prince B.A. Vasil’chikov, Vospcmimniya, MSS; see in particular Ch. 7, pp. 55-60;
S. Yu. Witte, Vospominaniya, (3 vols., Moscow, 1960), Vol. 3, p. 366; and Gurko,
Features, p. 500n.
16. Bark, 'Glava', Vozrozhdenie , 1955, pp. 22-3.
17. Mamantov, N a Gosudarevoy, pp. 12-13,35-7 and 165-76.
18. Fabritsky, I z proshlogo, p. 89.
19. On the Third Section see P.S. Squire, The Third Department; The Political Police in the
Russia o f Nicholas I (Cambridge, 1968), and S. Monas, The Third Section: Police and
Society in Russia under Nicholas I (Cambridge, Mass., 1961).
20. Rohl, Germany , pp. 273 ff.
21. On Stalin's private secretariat the basic essential reading is N.E. Rosenfeldt, Know­
ledge and Power The Role o f Stalin's Secret Chancellery in the Soviet System o f Govern­
ment (Copenhagen, 1978).
22. Mamantov, N a gosudarevoy, p. 145.
23. Bing (ed.). Letters, p. 212.
24. The letter from Nicholas to Trepov is dated 16/29 October 1905 and is quoted in
Vemer, Crisis, p. 238.
25. Verner, Crisis, p. 255.
26. Witte, Memoirs, pp. 514-15 and 518.
27. F. Millar, The Emperor in the Roman World (Ithaca, 1992), p. 6; and C.M.
MacLachlan, Spain's Empire in the N ew World (Berkeley, 1991), p. 47.
28. B. Pares (ed.). Letters o f the Tsaritsa to the Tsar (London, 1923), p. 455; and RO,
Fond 126, K 13, p. 335.
29. Holstein is quoted by Cecil, Wilhelm II, p. 233. For William's own statement see
K.A. Lerman, The Chancellor as Courtier Bernhard von Bulow and the Governance o f
Germany, Î9 0 0 -Î 9 0 9 (Cambridge, 1990), p. 63. Apart from these two works and
Rohl, Germany without Bismarck, I found I. Hull, The Entourage o f Kaiser William II,
1 8 8 8 -Î9 1 8 (Cambridge, 1982), and J.C.G. Rohl and N. Sombart (eds.), Kaiser
Wilhelm II: N ew Interpretations (Cambridge, 1982), of great interest when attempt­
ing to make comparisons between German and Russian monarchy. The debate
about how much power the Kaiser actually wielded is by now an old one. A good
introduction to this debate is an article by G. Eley, 'The View from the Throne: The
Personal Rule of Kaiser Wilhelm II', Historical Journal, Vol. 28, No. 2, 1985,
pp. 469-86.
30. The quote is from D.A. Titus, Palace and Politics in PrewarJapan (Columbia, 1973),
p. 24. Apart from this excellent book, Connors, Emperor's Adviser, Crump, Death o f
an Emperor, and B.A. Shillony, Politics and Culture in Wartime Japan (Oxford, 1981),
helped to shape my understanding of the monarchy’s role in post-restoration Japan.
On the earlier era I read H. Webb, The Japanese Imperial Institution in the Tokugawa
Period (Columbia, 1968). M.B. Jansen, 'Monarchy and Modernisation in Japan’,
Journal o f Asian Studies, August 1977, pp. 611-22, is a good short introduction to
this topic and to the immense controversy it has aroused in post-war Japan and
elsewhere.
31. Naumov, I z utselevskikh, Vol. 2, pp. 216-17.
32. RO, Fond 126, K 13, pp. 367-9.
33. Bark, 'Glava', Vozrozhdenie, 1955, p. 11; and Vorres, Last Grand Duchess, p. 62.
 N otes 273

34. K. Takeda, The Dual Image o f the Japanese Emperor (London, 1988), is an interest­
ing study of the Allied wartime debate on the ¿te of the Japanese monarchy.
35. Alam, The Shah and I, p. 190.
36. Ibid., p. 213.

Chapter 6: The Yean o f Revolution, 1904-1907

1. Dnevnik, p. 161.
2. TsGIA, Fond 1,650, Opis 1, Ed. Khr. 234, p. 70, letter to Princess Anna Obolensky
dated 16 July 1904; and TsGIA, Fond 1,642, Opis 1, Ed. Khr. 220, p. 59, letter to
Kulomzin’s wife dated 5 April 1902.
3. The most recent study of the Kishinev pogrom is by S. Lambroza, The pogroms of
1903-1906*, in John Klier and Shlomo Lambroza (eds.). Pogroms: A ntijew ish Vio­
lence in Modem Russian History (Cambridge, 1992), pp. 195-247. This is an excellent
collection of essays. Two older works on this issue repay reading: H. Rogger,Jewish
Policies and R ight-W ing Politics in Imperial Russia (Oxford, 1986), and H-D. Löwe,
Antisemitismus und reaktionäre Utopie (Hamburg, 1978).
4. See, for instance, the diary entries for 29 May and 26 July 1903 in RO, Fond 126,
K 13, pp. 235 and 252.
5. Kireev’s diary is a useful source on Plehve’s views. So too are the unpublished
memoirs of D.N. Lyubimov, ‘Russkaya smuta nachala devyatisotykh godov,
1902-1906*, especially his record of a conversation between Plehve and Witte on
pp. 48ff.
6. The letter, dated 31 August/13 September 1904, No. 2,703, was in the private
collection of Mrs Nathalie Brooke, the ambassador’s granddaughter. The whole
collection is now in the Bakhmetev Archive of Columbia University.
7. ’Dnevnik E.A. Svyatopolk-Mirskoy’, Istoricheskie Zapiski , Vol. 77, 1965,
pp. 236-92: here pp. 241-2.
8. Tz dnevmka Konstantina Romanova* Krasnyy A rkhiv , Vol. 43, 1930, p. 96;
Brooke, letter dated 3/16 December 1904; and ’Dnevnik . . . Svyatopolk-
Mirskoy*, p. 258.
9. Witte, Memoirs, p. 399; and TsGIA, Fond 1,650, Opis 1, Ed. Khr. 227, p. 88.
10. ’Dnevnik . . . Svyatopolk-Mirskoy*, pp. 242, 248, 249, 251, 260-2, 266, 269, 271
and 277.
11. Buxhoeveden, L ife , p. 108.
12. Grazhdanin, No. 73,12 September 1904, pp. 17-20.
13. ’Dnevnik . . . Svyatopolk-Mirskoy*, pp. 248, 257 and 261; Brooke, letter dated
3/16 December 1904 from Paul Benckendorfif; and Gurko, Features, pp. 294-6.
14. M.K. Palat, ‘Police Socialism’, p. 125.
15. Lyubimov, Smuta , CUBA, p. 96. The fullest description of Bloody Sunday and the
events which led to it is in W. Sablinsky, The Road to Bloody Sunday: Father Gapon
and the S t Petersburg Massacre o f 1905 (Princeton, 1976).
16. Dnevnik, 9 January 1905.
17. A. Ya. Avrekh, P .A . Stolypin i sud'by reform v Rossii (Moscow, 1991), p. 12; and
Takeda, The Dual Image o f theJapanese Emperor, pp. 84-5.
18. The quotes are from Vemer, Crisis, pp. 172 and 177.
19. ’Dnevnik . . . Svyatopolk-Mirskoy*, p. 247; and Brooke, letter dated 7/20 June
1905, No. 1, 926.
274 N otes

20. From a dispatch to Berlin written by Bismarck on 10 November 1861: SeeL. Raschau
(ed.). D ie politischen Berichte des Fürsten Bismarck aus Petersburg und Paris (Berlin,
1920), Vol. 2, pp. 129-30.1 am grateful to Professor W. E. Mosse for guiding me
to this report.
21. Ibid., p. 131; and Sir J. Hanbury-Williams, The Emperor Nicholas II A s I K new H im
(London, 1922), pp. 75-6.
22. Brooke, letter dated 7/20 June 1905, No. 1,926.
23. Brooke, letters dated 16/29 December 1903, 25 December 1903/7 January 1904,
and 12/25 March 1905.
24. The English-speaking reader has a choice between two good recent books on the
war: J.N. Westwood, Russia against Japan (London, 1986), and R. Connaughton,
The W ar o f the Rising Sun and the Tumbling Bear (London, 1988).
25. Public Record Office (London: henceforth PRO), FO 371,1467, No. 8,229, Knox
to Buchanan, 22 February 1912, p. 489; and Kuropatkin, Dnevnik , p. 129.
26. A recent English-language study of the peace negotiations is R.A. Esthus, Double
Eagle and Rising Sun (London, 1988).
27. An English translation of the manifesto can be found in G. Vernadsky (ed.), A Source
Book fo r Russian History from Early Times to 1917 (New Haven, 1972), Vol. 3,
p. 705.
28. Quoted by Kassow, Students, p. 269.
29. H. Reichman, Raihvaymen and Revolution: Russia 1905 (Berkeley, 1987), p. 200.
30. Bing (ed.). Letters, pp. 186-7.
31. Brooke, letter dated 26 September/8 October 1905, Bing (ed.). Letters, p. 184.
32. Bing (ed.). Letters, pp. 187-8.
33. Brooke, letter dated 18/31 October 1905; and RO, Fond 126, K 14, p. 155.
34. Lyubimov, Smuta, CUBA, pp. 296-7; and Gurko, Features, pp. 439-41 and 449.
On Durnovo, see Lieven, Russia’s Rulers, Ch. 6.
35. Brooke, letter dated 20 December 1905/2 January 1906; and Bing (ed.), Letters,
pp. 197 and 200-1.
36. Byloe, No. 4, October 1917, p. 204.
37. Witte, Memoirs, pp. 531 and 549; and Sovet Ministrov Rossiyskoy Imperii 1905-1906.
Dokumenty i materialy (Leningrad, 1990), pp. 144-51.
38. On this issue see Avrekh, Stolypin, pp. 14-15, and the debate in the United Nobility,
Trudy pervogo s ’yezda upol’nomochennykh dvoryanskikh obshchestv 2 9 gubemiy (St
Petersburg (SPB), 1906).
39. Bing (ed.), Letters, pp. 191,194-5 and 212.
40. Brooke, letter dated 27 November/10 December 1905. The quotations are from
S.V. Tyutyukhin, Y ul’skiypoliticheskiy krizis 1906g v Rossii (Moscow, 1991), pp. 23
and 24. On Witte and Nicholas in 1905 see, for example, H.D. Mehlinger and
J.M. Thompson, Count W itte and the Tsarist Government in the 1905 Revolution
(Bloomington, 1971).
41. ‘Russko-Germanskiy dogovor 1905 goda*, Krasnyy A rkhiv , Vol. 5,1924, pp. 5-49:
the quotations are from pp. 6 and 33. For Wilhelm's comment see T.A. Kohut,
Wilhelm H an d the Germans (Oxford, 1991), p. 146.
42. Krasnyy Archiv, Vol. 5, 1924, p. 35. The second quotation is from A.V. Ignatev,
Vneshnyaya politika Rossii v 1905-1907gg (Moscow, 1986), p. 50.
43. Izvolsky, A u Service de la Russie, Vol. 1, p. 337.
44. Tz dnevnika Konstantins Romanova*, Krasnyy A rkh iv , Vol. 45,1931, pp. 118-19.
45. Dehn, R eal Tsaritsa, pp. 134-5.
 C hapter 7: C onstitutional Monarch? 1907-1914

1 . mDnevnik, 30 July 1904; and Stenograficheskiy otchot Gosudarstvennogo Soveta, Session

6, col. 5%: the words are those of P.N. Durnovo.
2. Pares, Letters, 11 June 1915, p. 88.
3. The story of Aleksei’s illness and his mother's suffering is a fa m ilia r one and has, for
instance, been recounted movingly by Robert Massie, Nicholas and Alexandra
(London, 1968). Noel, Ena , is a much less fa m ilia r tale and an indirect commentary
on Alexandra’s devotion, see, for example, pp. 197-8; and Vorres, Last Grand
Duchess, p. 125.
4. Brooke, letter dated 28 May/11 June 1904; Pares, Letters, 16June 1915, p. 98; and
Oldenburg, Last Tsar, Vol. 2, p. 50.
5. RO, Fond 126, K 13, p. 309; K 14, pp. 271, 279 and 324; K15, pp. 43,69 and 85.
6. Fabritsky, I z proshlogo, p. 54. There is an interesting short piece on Russian popular
religion by M. Lewin in Eklof and Frank (eds.), The World o f the Russian Peasant,
pp. 155-68.
7. Vorres, Last Grand Duchess, p. 143.
8. Ibid., pp. 142-3.
9. Pares, Letters, p. 98.
10. There is an enormous literature on these themes. R. Pipes, ‘Narodnichestvo: A
Semantic Enquiry*, Slavic Review , Vol. 3, 1964, pp. 441-58, discusses the term
'populism* in the Russian context. R. Wortman, The Crisis o f Russian Populism
(Cambridge, 1967), and A. Gleason, Young Russia: The Genesis o f Russian Radicalism
in the 1860s (Chicago, 1983), are good introductions to aspects of radical populism in
the reign of Alexander II. A. Walicki, A History o f Russian Thought, and a series of
'Slavophile biographies’ by P.K. Christoff are the place to start as regards conserva­
tive populism. See also K.V. Mochulsky, Dostoevsky: His Life and Work (Princeton,
1967).
11. Vorres, Last Grand Duchess, p. 89.
12. French Military Archive (Vincennes), Service Historique, 7 N 1,535, Att­
achés militaires: Russie, 1906-1911: Report of Colonel Matton, 3/16 July
1909, No. 47, p. 5.
13. Dumovo's comment is from Stenograficheskiy otchot gosudarstvennogo Soveta, Session
6,17 December 1910, col. 595. Rasputin’s is from J.T. Fuhrmann, Rasputin, A Life
(New York, 1990), p. 103. Rodzyanko’s is in M.V. Rodzianko, L e Règne de
Raspoutine (Paris, 1928), p. 88. On the Tsarist myth the two standard works in
English are M. Chemiavsky, Tsar and People (New Haven, 1960), and D. Field,
Rebels in the Nam e o f the Tsar (Boston, 1976). The latter in particular is quirky, well
documented and interesting. The impact of the tsarist political tradition on Soviet
politics is a big and complicated question. Two ways into the discussion of this
theme are N. Tumarkin, Lenin Lives! The Lenin Cult in Soviet Russia (Cambridge,
Mass., 1983), and R. Tucker, The Soviet Political Mind: Stalinism and Post-Stalin
Change (New York, 1971).
14. More rubbish has probably been written about Rasputin than about any other figure
in Russian history. A relatively sensible recent book on the subject isJ.T. Fuhrmann,
Rasputin: A Life (New York, 1990). The doctoral thesis of Mark Kulikowski,
Rasputin and the Fall o f the Romanovs (State University of New York, 1982), is useful.
The standard English-language history of Orthodoxy at this time is N. Zernov, The
Russian Religious Renaissance o f the Twentieth Century (London, 1963). There is no
276 Notes

full-length biography of Guchkov. L. Menashe, 4 “A Liberal with Spurs."

Alexander Guchkov, A Russian Bourgeois in Politics', Russian R eview , Vol. 26,
1967, pp. 38-53, is a good short portrait. C. Ferenczi, ‘Freedom of the Press Under
the Old Regime, 1905-1914', in O. Crisp and L. Edmondson (eds.). C ivil Rights
in Imperial Russia (Oxford, 1989), pp. 191-214, is a succinct guide to the growth
of a largely free press. Isabel Hull, ‘Kaiser Wilhelm II and the ‘‘Liebenberg Cir­
cle" ', in Rohl and Sombart (eds.), Kaiser Wilhelm II, is the best shorthand guide
in English to Harden and the Eulenberg affair. Anyone with Russian who wishes
to go more deeply into the Rasputin affair should look at the protocols of interro­
gations of imperial senior officials by a committee of enquiry of the Provisional
Government: Padenie tsarshogo rezhima, (7 vols., Moscow and Leningrad, 1924-7).
Some care needs to be shown in taking all this material at face value. In certain cases
prisoners showed an understandable tendency to ingratiate themselves with the new
regime.
15. For anyone who wishes to understand the detail of the new constitution there is one
bible: M. Szeftel, The Russian Constitution o fA pril 23,1906: Political Institutions o f the
Duma Monarchy (Brussels, 1976). In the West historians have generally been divided
into optimists and pessimists as regards the viability of the constitutional system.
G.A. Hosking, The Russian Constitutional Experiment: Government and Duma,
1907-1914 (Cambridge, 1973), on the whole belongs to the former camp and con­
centrates, as its title suggests, on relations between the executive and the legisla­
ture. In the more optimistic camp, the best recent work is M. Hagen, D ie Entfaltung
politischer Öffentlichkeit in Russland 1906-1914 (Wiesbaden, 1982), who looks at
the development of civil society in Russia at this time. Both books well repay study.
The leading Soviet historians on the political history of the constitutional era, none
of whose works are translated into Western languages, are the late A. Ya. Avrekh
and E.D. Chermensky, together with V.S. Dyakin and Yu. B. Solov’yov.
16. V.N. Kokovtsov, Out o f M y Past (Stanford, 1935), pp. 159 and 164; and Bing (ed.).
Letters, pp. 216 and 220.
17. RO, Fond 126, K 14, pp. 210-11 and 333.
18. D.C.B. Lieven, The Aristocracy in Europe, is an attempt to compare aristocratic
strategies to defend landowning interests in Russia, Germany and England.
L.H. Haimson (ed.). The Politics o f Rural Russia, 1905-1914 (Bloomington, 1979),
is above all a study of the rural nobility in the constitutional era. His chapters on the
United Nobility, the zemstvo and the Octobrists are of particular value in the
context of this discussion.
19. RO, Fond 126, K 15, p. 39.
20. Nicholas's note to Stolypin on the Jewish question is in Krusnyy A rkhiv, Vol. 5,
No. 13, 1925, 10 December 1906. See also, for example, Bing (ed.), Letters,
pp. 190-1, for his attitude to pogroms/Chapter 2 of Rogger, Jewish Policies, is a
good survey of the views of high officialdom on this matter. On the navy see Fuller,
Strategy, pp. 408-12, and D.C.B. Lieven, Russia and the Origins o f the First World
W ar (London, 1983), pp. 101-18. Specifically on the Council for Sute Defence
there is an article by M. Perrins, ‘The Council for State Defence, 1905-1909: A
Study in Russian Bureaucratic Politics’, Slavonic and East European Review , Vol. 58,
No. 3, 1980, pp. 370-99. A Russian speaker should read K.F. Shatsillo, Russkiy
imperializm i razvitie flota (Moscow, 1968). Another major source of irritation to
Schwartz was the Emperor's intervention on the issue of girls who were enrolled in
courses of higher education. Nicholas was right on this issue but Schwartz, con-
 N otes 111

vinced that his authority had been undermined, wrote in his memoirs that he
derided to resign immediately: see RO, Fond 338, Opis 1, Delo 3.2, ‘Zametki.
Moya perepiska s Stolypinym*, pp. 7-10.
21. Vorres, Last Grand Duchess, p. 126; and Krasnyy Arhhiv, Vol. 5, No. 51, 25 April
1909.
22. Stenograficheshiy otchot Gosudarstvennogo Soveta, Session 4, col. 1,350. RO, Fond
126, K15, p. 32. The two essential works on the army and civil and military rela­
tions for the English-speaking reader are N. Stone, The Eastern Front, 1914-1917
(London, 1975), and D.R. Jones, ‘Imperial Russia’s Forces at War’, in A.R.
Millett and W. Murray (eds.), Military Effectiveness: V ol 1, The First World W ar
(Boston, 1988), pp. 249-328.
23. RO, Fond 126, K 14, pp. 92, 142, 156, 226 and 253; and Moy, Diplomat,
pp.111-12.
24. Lieven, Russia's Rulers, pp. 207-30 and 296-308, discusses Dumovo’s views and
personality. Durnovo’s ‘Memorandum to Nicholas II’ of February 1914, translated
into English and published in T. Riha (ed.), Readings in Russian Civilisation
(Chicago, 1964), pp. 465-78, is essential reading for anyone interested in this
period.
25. RO, Fond 126, K 14, pp. 157 and 342; Vasil’chikov, MS, Vospominaniya, Ch. 7,
p. 82; and Kryzhanovksy, Vospominaniya, p. 75.
26. Lieven, Russia's Rulers, pp. 224-5.
27. The major study in English of the Kadets in the era of revolution is by W.G.
Rosenberg, Liberals in the Russian Revolution: The Constitutional Democratic Party,
Î 9 Î 7 - Î 9 2 Î (Princeton, 1974).
28. Quoted in Hosking, Russian Constitutional Experiment, p. 137; and V.N. Kokovtsov,
I z moego Proshlogo (2 vols., Paris, 1933), Vol. 1, p. 455.
29. Kokovtsov, I z moego Proshlogo, Vol. 2, pp. 7-8.
30. Grazhdanin, No. 10, 13 March 1911, p. 12; and No. 8, 23 February 1913, p. 12;
and Padenie tsarshogo rezhima. Stenograficheskie otchoty doprosov i pohazanii (7 vols.,
Leningrad, 1925), Vol. 3, pp. 85-6.
31. There is no balanced survey of the Stolypin reforms in English which makes use of
the interesting research done in recent years on peasant society and agriculture. The
reader will get a sense ofboth the complexity of the issues and the disagreements that
exist between scholars by reading J. Pallot, ‘Modernization from Above: The
Stolypin Land Reform’, in J. Pallot and D.J.B. Shaw (eds.), Landscape and Settlement
in Romanov Russia, 1 6 13-1917 (Oxford, 1990), pp. 165-94; and D.A.J. Macey,
'The Peasant Commune and the Stolypin Reforms: Peasant Attitudes, 1906-14’, in
R. Bartlett (ed.). Land Commune and Peasant Community in Russia (London, 1990),
pp. 219-36.
32. Gurko, Features, p. 195; V.S. Dyakin, Burzhuaziya, dvoryanstvo i tsarizm v 1911-
1914gg (Leningrad, 1988), p. 112; and Brooke, letter dated 5/18 January 1914,
No. 480.
33. L. Tikhomirov, K reforme obnoviennoy Rossii (Moscow, 1912), p. 282; and Padenie
tsarshogo rezhima, Vol. 5, p. 196.
34. Anyone interested in pursuing this question should read Chapter 10 of R.B.
McKean, S t Petersburg between the Revolutions (New Haven, 1990).
35. Quoted in V.V. Shelokhaev, Ideologiya i politicheskaya organizatsiya Rossiyskoy liber-
al'noy burzhuazii. 1907-1914 (Moscow, 1991), p. 63. A useful little example of the
frustrations of the Russian middle classes is provided by M.F. Hamm, ‘Kharkov’s
278 Notes

Progressive Duma, 1910-1914: A Study in Russian Municipal Reform’, Slavic

R eview , Vol. XL, 1981.
36. • The best way to get some sense of this issue is to read 4Was there a Russian
Fascism?’ (Ch. 8) and ‘The Formation of the Russian Right' (Ch. 7) in Rogger,
Jewish Policies. Then look at M. Blinkhoro (ed.). Fascists and Conservatives (London,
1990).
37. The student of modem Russian history anxious to learn about Spain could begin
with A. Shubert, A Social History o f Modem Spain (London, 1990), and R. Carr,
Spain, i 808-1 9 7 5 (Oxford, 1989). Some of my arguments are owed to chapters in
F. Lannon and P. Preston (eds.). Elites and Power in Twentieth-Century Spain (Oxford,
1990) , in particiilar Chs. 3,5,6,11 and 13. R. Carr andJ.P. Fusi, Spain: Dictatorship
to Democracy (London, 1979), and J.P. Fusi, Franco (London, 1987), were also
valuable. On the Church see F. Lannon, Privilege; Persecution and Prophecy: The
Catholic Church in Spain, 1873-1975 (Oxford, 1987). On the army the essays in
R. B. Martinez and T.M. Barker (eds.), Arm ed Forces and Society in Spain Past and
Present (New York, 1988)), are of varying quality. See also P. Preston, The Politics o f
Revenge, Fascism and the Military in 20th Century Spain (London, 1990). Two con­
trasting essays on landowners in northern and southern Spain by M. Blinkhom and
T. Rees are also worth reading: see R. Gibson and M. Blinkhom (eds.), Landowner-
ship and Power in Modem Europe (London, 1991), Chs. 11 and 12.
38. I discuss these issues in Lieven, Russia and the Origins o f the First World W ar. An
interesting comment on attitudes to war comes in the diary of Baroness Spitzenberg,
an intelligent and sensitive lady dose to the court of Wilhelm II. Inter alia, she
stresses the need to look on war in a manly way, as Luther had done. R. Vierhaus
(ed.). Das Tagehuch der Baronin Spitzenberg (Gottingen, 1960), p. 376.
39. PRO, FO 371, 514, 3,643, 29 January 1908, No. 104, p. 12.
40. PRO, FO 371, 512, 30,901, 4 September 1908, p. 4.
41. I discussed this in my Russia and the Origins, particularly in Ch. 4. C. Ferenczi,
Aussenpolitik und Öffentlichkeit in Russland 1906-12 (Husum, 1982), and ‘National­
ismus und Neoslawismus in Russland vor dem Ersten Weltkrieg’, Forschungen zu r
Osteuropäischen Geschichte (Band 34, Berlin, 1984), are the most detailed studies of
this issue. German literature on the connection between domestic and foreign policy
in Russia must, however, be read with some caution. German historians are inclined
to impose rather rigid and unproven ‘sdentific’ theories about this relationship
drawn from Germany’s own experience before 1914. They do not necessarily fit
Russian circumstances. In addition, the combination of obsession with ‘sdentific’
theories and the ferodous warfare between German historical camps can lead to
intolerance and dogmatism. On the making of Russian fordgn policy before 1914
there is a good recent work by D.M. McDonald, United Government and Foreign
Policy in Russia, 1900-1914 (Cambridge, Mass., 1992).
42. PRO, FO 371, 517, 23,176,12 June 1908.
43. Bing (ed.), Letters, p. 236.
44. Bing (ed.) Letters, pp. 240-1. The literature on international relations in the run-up
to 1914 is vast. The introduction to D. Stevenson, The First World W ar and Inter­
national Politics (Oxford, 1988), is a good survey of the issues involved. See alsoJ. Joli,
The Origins o f the First World W ar (London, 1984).
45. Chapter 5 of Jelavich, Russia's Balkan Entanglements, fills in some of the details.
S. R. Williamson, Austria-Hungary and the Origiins o f the First World W ar (London,
1991) , is an interesting study of these issues as seen from the Austrian angle. Anyone
 N otes 279

interested in a sample of Russian official thinking in the winter of 1913-14 would be

well advised to read a report by Prince G.N. Trubetskoy in Un Livre N o ir Diplomatie
d'Avant-Guerre d'après les Documents des Archives Russe (2 vols., Paris, n.d.), Vol. 2,
pp. 373ff.
46. PRO, FO 371, 1,466, 8,486, 12 October 1912, p. 504; and 2,092, No. 15,087,
31 March 1914, pp. 215-16.
47. A.S. Avetyan, Russko-Germansky Diplomatkheskie Otnosheniya 1910-1914
(Moscow, 1985), p. 159.
48. PRO, FO 371, 2,092,15,312, 3 April 1914, pp. 292-6.
49. Brooke, letter dated 5/18 February 1914; and Materialy po istorii franko-russhihh
otnosheniyza 1910 -1 9 1 4gg (Moscow, 1922), pp. 289-91.
50. Spiridovitch, Dernières Années, Vol. 2, p. 451; and Brooke, letter dated 29
May/11 June 1914.
51. Mezhdunarodnye otnosheniya v epokhu imperializma [MO] (3rd series, Moscow,
1931-40), Vol. V, No. 32, pp. 59-61, Shebeko to Sazonov, 30/17 June 1914.
52. Bark’s memoirs are published in Vozrozhdenie and a rather fuller manuscript (in
English) is held by the Bakhmetev Archive of Colombia University (CUBA). The
quotes come from Ch. 7, pp. 1-6, and from the Daily Record of the Foreign
Ministry: MO, 3rd series, Vol. V, No. 45, 24/11 July 1914, p. 45.
53. MO, 3rd series. Vol. V, No. 276, letter to Wilhelm U, p. 251; and Documents
Diplomatiques Françaises, 3rd series, Vol. 9, No. 189.
54. Bark, CUBA, Ch. 7, pp. 7-23.
55. P. Gilliard, Trinadtsat' let, p. 83; and Knasnyy A rkhiv , Vol. 64, No. 3, 1934,
pp.130-9.
56. MO, 3rd series, Vol. V, No. 284, pp. 256-8.
57. Gilliard, Trinadtsat' let, pp. 85-6.

Chapter 8: The War, 1914-1917

1. TsGIA, Fond 1,650, Opis 1, Ed. Khr. 238, p. 48; and Gilliard, Trinadtsat' let,
pp. 92-3.
2. Brooke, letter dated 12/25 August 1914.
3. Riha, Readings, pp. 465-78.
4. M. Cherniavsky (ed.). Prologue to Revolution (Englewood Cliffs, 1967), p. 22; and
Pares, Letters, p. 86. On the army’s morale during the war, in addition to Stone and
Jones, see A. Wildman, The End o f the Russian Imperial A rm y (Princeton, 1980). On
peasant education and nationalism the best places to start are B. Eklof, Russian
Peasant Schools: Officialdom, Village Culture, and Popular Pedagogy, 1861-1914
(Berkeley, 1987), and J. Brooks, When Russia Learned to Read (Princeton, 1985),
Ch. VI. Two recently published books in English on the Soviet home front are
J. Barber and M. Harrison, The Soviet Home Front, 1941-1945 (London, 1991), and
W. Moskoff, The Bread o f Affliction (Cambridge, 1990). See also S.J. Linz (ed.), The
Impact o f W orld W ar U on the Soviet Union (Ottowa, 1985). On the German occupa­
tion see A. Dallin, German Rule in Russia, 1941-1945 (New York, 1957).
5. Pares, Letters, p. 304; and RO, Fond 70, Opis 3, Delo 7, p. 12, Letter to V.I.
Guerrier dated 6 September 1915.
6. Brooke, letter dated 13/26 October 1914; Buxhoeveden, Life, pp. 190-6; Pares,
Letters, p. 9; and Nicholas II, The Letters o f the Tsar to the Tsaritsa, 1914-1917
(London, 1929), p. 17.
280 Notes

7. Cherniavsky, Prologue, p. 37. Those interested in further discussion of the

Myasoedov affair should read G. Katkov, Russia 1917: The February Revolution
(London, 1967), Ch. 6.
8. Brooke, letter dated 10/23 July 1915.
9. Bark, ‘Vospominaniya*, Vozrozhdenie, No. 169, January 1966, pp. 80-1.
10. E.D. Chermensky, I V Gosudarstveñnaya Duma i sverzhenie tsarizma v Rossii
(Moscow, 1976), p. 99. The fullest account in English of domestic politics during
the war is T. Hasegawa, The February Revolution: Petrograd 1917 (Seattle, 1981).
Another quite recent work is R. Pearson, The Russian Moderates and the Crisis o f
Tsarism (London, 1977).
11. Cherniavsky, Prologue, pp. 159 and 214-15.
12. Ibid., pp. 161, 217 and 219.
13. V.P. Semennikov (ed.), Nikolay II i Velikie Knyaz'ya (Moscow, 1925), pp. 68-9.
This letter was actually written in April 1916. Even so it sums up many of the
attacks made on the Grand Duke.
14. Anyone interested in pursuing this idea should read an article by H. Rogger, ‘The
Skobelev Phenomenon’, Oxford Slavonic Papers, Vol. IX, 1976, pp. 46-77.
15. A good discussion of Nicholas’s assumption of the supreme command is to be found
in D.R. Jones, ‘Nicholas II and the Supreme Command. An Investigation of
Motives’, Study Group on the Russian Revolution, Sbomik, Vol. II, 1985,
pp. 47-83.
16. CUBA, Bark Collection, letter to A.N. Yakhontov, 9 September 1922, p. 9; and
Cherniavsky, Prologue, p. 79.
17. Nicholas II, Letters, p. 90.
18. Ibid., pp. 85-6.
19. Ibid., pp. 57-8; and Pares, Letters, p. 86.
20. Pares, Letters, p. 114.
21. Voeykov, S tsarem, p. 255.
22. Cherniavsky, Prologue, pp. 164 and 226.
23. Nicholas II, Letters, pp. 137 and 219.
24. Ibid., p. 157.
25. Tsentrarkhiv, Burzhuaziya nakanune fevraVskoy revolyutsii. 1917 god v dokumentakh i
materialakh (Moscow, 1927), pp. 127-35 and 136-9.
26. For an introduction to this issue see L.T. Lih, Bread and Authority in Russia,
1914-1921 (Berkeley, 1990). I am also grateful to Professor K. Matsuzato of
Hokkaido University, who sent me two interesting articles in manuscript on the
food supply issue from which I learned a great deal.
27. Nicholas II, Letters, p. 266.
28. Fabritsky, I z proshlogo, pp. 140 and 149; and Botkin, R eal Romanovs, p. 125.
29. Nicholas II, Letters, p. 207; and Naumov, I z utselevshikh, Vol. 2, pp. 514-15.
30. Bark, ‘Vospominaniya’, Vozrozhdenie, No. 175, July 1966, pp. 71-2.
31. Brooke, letters dated 30 August 1915, No. 2,136 and 6/19 March 1916, No. 1,089.
32. V.S. Dyakin, Russkaya burzhuaziya i tsarizm v gody pervoy mirovoy voyny 1914-1917
(Leningrad, 1967), p. 77; and Bark, ‘Vospominaniya’, Vozrozhdenie, No. 174, June
1966, p. 96. V.I. Gurko (see Features, pp. 185-8) and S.E. Kryzhanovsky
(Vospominaniya, pp. 193-6) served with Stunner for many years in the Ministry of
Internal Affairs and knew him well. Kryzhanovsky was one of the tough experi­
enced officials whose appointment to head the ministry would have enraged public
opinion.
 Notes 281

33. Pares, Letters, pp. 170 and 175; Brooke, letters dated 11/24 October 1915,
No. 2,527,14/27 January 1916, No. 232, and 25 February/9 March 1916.
34. Dyakin, Russkaya, p. 228; and Nicholas II, Letters, p. 233.
35. Bark, ’Vospominaniya', Vozrozhdenie, No. 179, November 1966, pp. 102-3.
36. Nicholas II, Letters, p. 297; and Pares, Letters, p. 442.
37. Nicholas II, Letters, pp. 70-2; and Brooke, letters dated 15/28 November 1915,
No. 2,840, and 6/19 March 1916, No. 1,089. On 13/26 September 1915
Benckendorff commented to his brother that, with Nicholas at Headquarters and
ministers no longer coming to Tsarskoe, he was reduced to town gossip for much of
his information. Even so, in permanant residence at the Alexander Palace in
Tsarskoe Selo, he was very well placed to judge Alexandra’s influence.
38. Bark, ’Vospominaniya’, Vozrozhdenie , No. 175, July 1966, p. 78.
39. Pares, Letters, p. 93.
40. Brooke, letters dated 15/28 November 1915, No. 2,840, 26 August/8 September
1915, and 28 March/10 April 1916, No. 1,443; and Pares, Letters, pp. 433 and 445.
41. Bark, ’Vospominaniya’, Vozrozhdenie , No. 180, December 1966, pp. 73-4.
42. Semennikov (ed.), Nikolay II, pp. 118-20 and 123.
43. Mosolov, Pri dvore, p. 99.
44. Hasegawa, February Revolution, p. 48; and V.S. Vasyukov, Vneshnyaya politika Rossii
nakanune FevraVskoy revolyutsii. 1916-fevraV 1917g (Moscow, 1989), p.283. The
question of food supply is a very complicated one and continues to cause disagree­
ments among historians. Anyone interested in an alternative view to Hasegawa and
Lih could usefully read T. Fallows, ’Politics and the War Effort in Russia: The
Union of the Zemstvos and the Organization of the Food Supply, 1914-1916’,
Slavic Review , Vol. 37, No. 1,1978.
45. Voeykov, S tsarem, p. 207.
46. P.E. Shchegolev (ed.), Otrechenie Nikolaya II (Leningrad, 1927), p. 147.
47. Voeykov, S tsarem, p. 229. For a fuller description of the revolution see either
Hasegawa, The February Revolution, or R. Pipes, The Russian Revolution, 1899-1919
(London, 1990), Ch. 8.

Chapter 9: After the Revolution, 1917-1918

1. Vernadsky (ed.). Source Book, Vol. 3, p. 884, has a full translation of the appeal.
2. Dehn, R eal Tsaritsa, pp. 189-91.
3. Gilliard, Trinadtsat* let, pp. 203 and 209.
4. Dehn, R eal Tsaritsa, p. 244; and Buxhoeveden, Life, p. 320.
5. Dehn, R eal Tsaritsa, pp. 244-6.
6. Rose, George V , pp. 208-18.
7. Count P. Benckendorff, Last Days at Tsarskoe Selo: Being the Personal Notes and
Memories o f Count Paul Benckendorff (London, 1927), p. 103.
8. Botkin, R eal Romanovs, p. 157.
9. Botkin, R eal Romanovs, p. 158; and Gilliard, Trinadtsat*let, pp. 223-4.
10. A good recent history of the civil war is E. Mawdsley, The Russian C ivil W ar
(Boston, 1987).
11. Literatumaya Rossiya, Vol. 39, 28 September 1990, pp. 19-20, contains biographies
of the key Bolshevik leaders in the Urals in 1918. See also E. Radzinsky, The Last
282 Notes

Tsar (New York, 1992), for, rather confusingly presented, information on these
men.
12. Literatumaya Rossiya , Vol. 39, 28 September 1990, p. 19; and M.B. Okott, The
Kazakhs (Stanford, 1987), pp. 185 and 212-19.
13. Pipes, Russian Revolution, p. 758. The whole of Chapter 17 of Pipes’s book is an
excellent and very thorough study of the Romanovs’ imprisonment and murder.
14. The extract from Trotsky’s diary is in L. Trotsky, Dnevniki i pis'ma (New York,
1990), pp. 100-1. T. Emmons (ed.). Time o f Troubles: The Diary o f Yu. V . Got*e
(Princeton, 1988), p. 179. Nos. 38,39,41 and 42 of Literatumaya Rossiya , 21 and 28
September, and 12 and 19 October 1990, are devoted to the murder of the
Romanovs. Apart from Radzinsky’s book, now translated into English, these
articles are the most detailed contemporary Russian source on the murders. They are
also the easiest to follow. The most professional Soviet authority on the murders is
G. Ryabov, whose articles in Rodina , Nos. 4 and 5, 1989, pp. 85-95 and 79-92,
were foil of new information when they first appeared. I discussed the murders with
Mr Ryabov, to whom I owe a debt of gratitude.
15. Literatumaya Rossiya, Vol. 39, 28 September 1990, p. 18.
16. An article in the Sunday Times of 10 May 1992 gives a description of the excavation.
As I handed in my manuscript the bodies excavated near Ekaterinburg were being
flown to Britain for identification.
17. Pipes, Russian Revolution, p. 788.

Chapter 10: Then and Now

1. See, for instance, Literatumaya gazeta, 3 June 1992, p. 11.

2. In recent years there has been a great deal of Western scholarship on the Russian
revolution, most of it sympathetic to the ’forces of the left’. Edward Acton,
Rethinking the Russian Revolution (London, 1990), surveys this literature. A recent
collection of articles by authorities in the field is E. Rogovin Frankel, J. Frankel and
B. Knei-Paz (eds.). Revolution in Russia (Cambridge, 1992). Much of the work on
the revolution has been written by first-rate scholars and is of a high standard. It
will, however, be surprising if we do not witness a contrary trend in the next few
years, much of it written by Russian historians using previously closed archival
deposits. R. Pipes, Russian Revolution, and E. Mawdsley, Russùtn C ivil W ar, are, to
differing degrees, exceptions to the basic trend of Western literature in the 1970s
and 1980s.
3. A short introduction in English to this issue is an article by Oxana Antic, ’Canoni­
zation of Last Tsar under Consideration', R F E /R L Research Report, Vol. 1, No. 28,
10 July 1992, pp. 90-2. Another source is V. Shlapentokh, Soviet Intellectuals and
Political Power (London, 1990), pp. 206-9. A sense of the bitterness aroused by the
issue of canonization can be felt from, for example, Moscow N ew s , No. 27,5-12 July
1992, p. 2.
4. G. Guroff and F. Carstensen (eds.), Entrepreneurship in Imperial Russia and die Soviet
Union (Princeton, 1983), contains some thought-provoking essays and looks at this
theme from many different angles.
5. Bill Fuller comments that ’Nicholas’s practice of trying to bully and intimidate his
neighbours with his military might offen backfired, much as similar Soviet efforts
did under Brezhnev in the 1970s and early 1980s*: Strategy and Power, p. 250.
 N otes 283

6. W.B. Lincoln, In the Vanguard o f Reform: Russia's Enlightened Bureaucrats, 1825-

1861 (De Kalb, 1982).
7. Amidst the vast literature on the Gorbachev era A. Dallin and G.A. Lapidus (eds.).
The Soviet System in Crisis (Boulder, 1991), has the great merit of presenting a large
number of varied views with a brevity that nevertheless allows the reader to grasp
the essence of their arguments. M. Perrie, Alexander U (London, 1990), is a very
good short introduction to the Tsar*s reign.
8. It is impossible to provide end-notes to back these comments. The bibliography
would be vast, not least because my mainjob for the last seven years has been to teach
and study the Gorbachev era. Some due as to how my own ideas on this era
developed can be found in Lieven, Gorbachev and the Nationalities: Conflict Studies,
No. 216 (London, 1988), and The Soviet Crisis: Conflict Studies, No. 241 (London,
1991).
9. G. Shavel'sky, Vospominaniya poslednego protopresvitera russkoy armii i flota (2 vols.,
New York, 1954), Vol. 1, p. 52; and Kohut, Wilhelm II, p. 128.
10. H. Dollinger, ‘Das Leitbild der Burgerkonigtums in der europäischen Monarchie
des 19Jahrhunderts*, in K.F. Werner (ed.), Hof, Kultur und Politik im 19Jahrhundert
(Bonn, 1985), pp. 325-64, has some useful comments on possible royal strategies for
survival in the Victorian era. Most of these strategies were impossible in Russia.
S.R. Large, Emperor Hirohito and Showa Japan (London, 1992), was published after I
had completed my manuscript. For anyone wishing to make comparisons between
the Russian and the Japanese monarchy it is of great value.
 Index

Aehrenthal, Baron A., 192-3 69,107,229

Akimov, Michael G. (1847-1914), Alexandra (Alix) (1872-1918),
Minister ofJustice, 1905-6; Russian Empress: childhood,
President of the State Council, 44- 9; relations with parents,
1907-14,127,154 45- 8; and Queen Victoria, 48-9;
Alam, Asadollah, 130 engagement, 44-5,51; marriage,
Alekseev, Admiral E.I. (1843-1909), 52; early married life, 53; and
Viceroy, Far East, 99,100,105, Petersburg society, 54-8,137,
145 162,228; homes, 59-63; and
Alekseev, General Michael V. children, 160-1; haemophilia,
(1857-1918), Chief of Staff to 162- 3,165; in 1914,198,202-3,
Nicholas H, 1915-17,213,220, 208; war-time role, 209,215-16,
226,233 222,223,224,225-8; during
Aleksei Aleksandrovich, Grand Duke February revolution, 234-5; in
(1850-1908), uncle of Nicholas II; captivity, 235-8,241; murder,
Grand Admiral, 70 244
Aleksei Nikolaevich, Tsarevich CHARACTER Religious beliefs,
(1904-18), son of Nicholas II, 47,63,163-4,236-7; populism,
40-1,161-2,165-6,233,235-6, 45,164-7,206; patriotism, 49,
238,244 226-7,237; health, 47-8,164,
Alexander II (1818-81), Russian 198,208,227,244; as mother,
Emperor, 1855-81; grandfather of 47-8,162,165; as nurse, 47-8,
Nicholas II, 6,19,23,26,32, 159,208; Englishness, 49,56;
40,41,42,72,109,142,255-8 shyness, 55,57; on Nicholas,
Alexander III (1845-94), Russian 107,108,162,215; and
Emperor, 1881-94; father of Svyatopolk-Mirsky, 137; and
Nicholas II, 6,22-7,28-31,35, Stolypin, 176,181-2; and
39,40-2,44,49,51,62,71,72, Rasputin, 164-6,227-8; on
92,107,108-9,110,115 autocracy and Duma, 123,142,
Alexander Mikhailovich, Grand 163- 4,181-2,184-5,207,216,
Duke (1866-1933), first cousin of 225-7; influence on Nicholas, 53,
Alexander III; married to 123,142,184-5,215-16,225-6
Nicholas II's sister, Xenia, 66, Alexandra, Queen of England
 Index 285

(1844-1925), aunt of Nicholas II, Nobility; Minister of Agriculture,

25,53 1916,25-6, 111
Alfonso XIII, King of Spain Bolsheviks, 185,239-46,248
(1886-1941), 50 Bosnian crisis (1908-9), 173-5,
Alice, Princess, Grand Duchess of 192-4
Hesse (1843-78), mother of Botkin, Dr Evgeni, Nicholas's
Empress Alexandra, 46-9 doctor, 58,220,241,244
Anastasia Nikolaevna, Grand Botkin, Gleb, 58— 9,238
Duchess (1901-18), daughter of Brezhnev, L.I., 252,254,255,256
Nicholas II, 160-1,244 Brusilov, General Aleksei A., 218,
Aristocracy (Russian), 2-3,4, 229
15-16,20,54-5,56-8,98, 111, Buchanan, Sir G. (1854-1924),
133,153-4,171,173 British ambassador in Petersburg,
Armed forces (Russian), 11,37,60, 1910-18,197
100,104-5,125-6,139-40, Bulow, Prince Bernhard von
144-5,150,174,175-6,189-90, (1849-1929), German Chancellor,
205-6,211,213,218,230, 1900-9,68,94,124-5,157
231-3,234,238,239 Bunge, Nicholas K. (1823-95),
Austria, see Habsburg Empire Minister of Finance, 1881-7;
Avdeev, A., 241,242 Chairman of Committee of
Ministers, 1887-95,36,70
Balkans, 10,93-4,192-202,251-2 Bureaucracy (Russian), 4,20,54,
Bark, Peter L. (1858-1937), Minister 73-5,98,103-5,110-11,121-2,
of Finance, 1914-17,35,39,40, 127-8,225
107,184,199-200,209-10,221, Buxhoeveden, Baroness Sofia, lady-
224 in-waiting to Empress Alexandra,
Beketov, Professor N.N. 48,59,236
(1817-1911), 35,88
Beloborodov, A.G., 240 Catherine II (1729-96), Russian
Benckendorff, Count Alexander Empress, 1762-96,4,72,123
(1846-1917), ambassador in Chdnokov, M.V., 217
London,1903-17,8,158 Clarence, Albert Duke of (1864-92),
Benckendorff, Count Paul (d.1920), 45,50
brother of Alexander; Grand Committee of Ministers, 39,70,76,
Marshal of the Court, 1904-17, 106,116
134-5,136,138,144,148,149, Commune (peasant), 18,83-5,
151,184,185,197-8,220,222, 183-4
223,226,227,236,242 Constantine (Konstantin
Bezobrazov, A.M., 98-9,105 Konstantinovich), Grand Duke
Bismarck, Prince Otto von, 11,12, (1858-1915), first cousin of
68-9,123,142-3,261 Alexander III, 135-6,158-9
Bjorkoe, Treaty of, 156-7 Constantine (Konstantin
Bobrikov, General Nicholas I. Nikolaevich), Grand Duke
(1839-1904), Governor-General of (1827-92), brother of Alexander
Finland, 1898-1904,86-7 11,6
Bobrinsky, Count Aleksei A. Constitutional Democratic Party
(1852-1927), Chairman of United (Kadets), 150,160,186,187,
286 Index

210-11,228,229 Minister of Agriculture,

Cossacks, 5,14,139-40 1894-1905,103,106,141
Council of Ministers, 119-22, Ernest Louis, Grand Duke of Hesse
148-9,154,170,209-12,213-15, (1868-1937), brother of Empress
221-6 Alexandra, 45,227
Crimean War, 5-6,254 Eulenberg, Prince Philipp zu
(1847-1921), 68,124-5,169
Danilovich, General G.G., 34
Decembrists, 5 Fascism, 188,250-1
Decolonization, 251-2 Finland, 86-7,174
Dehn, Lili, 48-9,59,159,235,236, France, 64,92-3,155-8,254
237 Franco-Russian Alliance, 42,64,71,
Demidov, Anna, 244 92-3,155-8,191,194
Dimitri Pavlovich, Grand Duke Frederycksz, General Count
(1891-1942), first cousin of Vladimir B. (1838-1922),
Nicholas II, 228 Minister of the Imperial Court,
Dolgorukov, Prince P., 242 1897-1917,119,230
Dubasov, Admiral F.V. Franco, General F., 189
(1845-1912), 69,145,153 Franz Ferdinand, Archduke, 195,
Duma: First and Second, 158-60; 198
Third and Fourth, 170-1,174-6, Franz Josef, Austrian Emperor
180-1,185-6,204,210-12, (1830-1916), 195,198
214-17,222,223,224-5,228-33
Duraovo, Ivan N. (1830-1903), Gapon, Father, 80,139-40
Minister of Internal Affairs, Garin, Senator N.P., 120-1
1889-95; Chairman of Committee Gavriil Konstantinovich, Prince,
of Ministers, 1895-1903,70 second cousin of Nicholas II, 59,
Dumovo, Peter N. (1844-1915), 65
Minister of Internal Affairs, George (Aleksandrovich), Grand
1905-6; Leader of conservative Duke (1871-99), brother of
faction in State Council, 1907-15, Nicholas II, 32,34-5
140,150,154,167-8,176-8, George (Mikhailovich), Grand Duke
181,196-7,205,228 (1863-1919), first cousin of
Duraovo, Peter P., Governor- Alexander III, 229-30
General of Moscow, 1905,147 George V, King of England
(1865-1936), 20,28-9,40,159,
Edward VII, King of England 227,237-8
(1841-1910), 25,42,58,192 Germany, 9,11,16,17,92-3,94,
Elizabeth (of Hesse) (1864-1918), 155-8,191,192,193-4,196-7,
sister of Empress Alexandra, 44, 199-203,218,239,250-2
53,243 Gibbs, C.S., 34,56
England, 9,11,16,155-8,191, Giers, Nicholas K. (1820-95),
196-7,200,204,205,218,250 Minister of Foreign Affairs,
Entrepreneurs (Russian), 14,18, 1882-95,42,92
173,186,191,224 Gilliard, Pierre, 40-1,202,236
Ermakov, P.Z., 243-5 Golitsyn, Prince Nicholas D.
Ermolov, Aleksei S. (1847-1917), (1850-1925), Prime Minister,
 Iftdex 287
winter 1916-17,222,226 (1834-1909), Minister of
Goloshchekin, F.I., 240-1,242,243,, Communications, 1895-1905,70,
249 103,108
Gorbachev, M.S., 254,256-9 Khodynka catastrophe, 65-7
Goremykin, Ivan L. (1839-1917), Khrushchev, N.S., 253
Minister of Internal Affairs, Khvostov, Aleksei N. (1872-1918),
1895-9; Prime Minister, 1906 and Minister of Internal Affairs,
1914-16,70,71,85,88,184, 1915-16,223
209,212,214-15,222 Kireev, General Alexander A.
Guchkov, Alexander I. (1862-1936), (1833-1910), Slavophile publicist;
Octobrist leader, 169,175,211, courtier, 24,51,57,62,66,67,
224 81,85,89,109,123,127-8,133,
Gurko, Vladimir I. (1862-1927), 149,163-4,166,172,174,176-8
Deputy Minister of Internal Kishinev pogrom, 133
Affairs; member of State Council, Kobylinsky, Colonel E., 238
74,84,112,138-9,150 Kokovstov, Vladimir N.
(1853-1943), Minister of Finance,
Habsburg Empire, 10,93-5,155, 1904-5 and 1906-14; Prime
192-5,199-202,251 Minister, 1911-14,82,170,172,
Haemophilia, 49-50,162,165 180-5
Hague Conference, 82 Krieger-Voynovsky, E.B., 230
Harden, Maximilian, 124-5,169 Krivoshein, Alexander V.
Hardinge, Sir C., 192 (1858-1923), Minister of
Heath, Charles, 34-5 Agriculture, 1908-15,76,183-5,
Hirohito, Emperor ofJapan 191-2, 201, 202, 209, 211-12, 226
(1901-89), 41,127,128-9 Ksheshinskaya, Mathilde (b. 1872),
Holstein, Friedrich von, 123-4 37, 44, 51
Kulomzin, Anatol N. (1838-1921),
Intelligentsia, 19-21,58,186,206 Secretary to the Committee of
International relations, 8-10,11-12, Ministers, 1883-1902; President
71,91-101,155-8,190-203, of State Council, 1915, 81,83,
250-8 132, 207
Ivan IV (‘the Terrible’) (1530-84), Kuropatkin, General Aleksei N.
2,4,168 (1848-1925), Minister of War,
Ivanov, General N .I., 231 1898-1904; GOC Far Eastern
Izvolsky, Alexander (1856-1919), Army, 1904-5, 74, 86-7,95,
Minister of Foreign Affairs, 105,145
1906-10; Ambassador in Paris, Kurier, N.N ., 153
1910-17,40,111,158,175,191,
192-4,198 Lambsdorff, Count Vladimir N.
(1841-1907), Minister of Foreign
Japan, 12,96-100,125-9,144-6, Affairs, 1900-6, 25, 26, 52, 57,
191,250,261 93,102, 111, 155,156, 157
Jews, 18,85,132-3,174,209,249 Lenin, Vladimir I., 21,168, 242,
243, 248, 249
Kazakhs, 240-1 Liberation Movement, 91,150-1
Khilkov, Prince Michael I. Liman von Sanders crisis, 196
288 Index

Lobanov-Rostovsky, Prince Aleksei of Nicholas II, 24-5,28, 58, 85,

B. (1825-96), Minister of 162, 233
Foreign Affairs, 1895-6, 93,103 Mityukov, P.N. (1859-1943),
Louis IV, Grand Duke of Hesse leader of Constitutional
(1837-92), 44, 45-6 Democrats, 228, 237
Louis XVI, King of France, 143 Ministry of Agriculture, 76,183-4
Luitpold, Prince Regent of Bavaria, Ministry of Finance, 74-5, 77,118,
58 183
Lukoyanov, F.N., 240 Ministry of Internal Affairs, 74,
Lyubimov, D .N ., 23,150 76-9,115,183,185-6, 222-6,
230
Makarov, Alexander A. (1857-1919), Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, Shah of
Minister of Internal Affairs, Iran (1919-79), 30-1, 42,
1911- 12,183 129-31
Makarov, P.M., 238 Monarchy: in modernizing society,
Makarov, Admiral S.O., 145 7-8,122, 259; Danish, 25, 27-8;
Maklakov, Nicholas N. (1871-1918), English, 159; Iranian, 129-31;
Minister of Internal Affairs, Italian, 31-2,129,188; Japanese,
1912- 15,183,185-6,209, 222, 125-9,141, 261; Prusso-German,
228-9 122-5,159; Roman, 122;
Mamantov, Vasili I. (b. 1863), Siamese, 188; Spanish, 122,
Director, Petitions Chancellery, 188-90
1913- 17,39,40, 56-7,114, Mosolov, General Alexander, A.,
118-19 119,230
Marie Feodorovna, Russian Empress Mosolov, A.N., 27
(1847-1928), mother of Nicholas Moy, Count Carl, 54
II, 27-8, 32,44, 53, 55, 58, 67, Muravyov, Michael N. (1845-1900),
87,106-7,134,135,147-9,172, Minister of Foreign Affairs,
226 1897-1900, 70, 97
Marie Nikolaevna, Grand Duchess Muravyov, Nicholas V. (1850-1908),
(1899-1918), daughter of Minister ofJustice, 1894-1905, 70
Nicholas II, 160, 241
Marie Pavlovna (‘the Younger’), Nagorny, K., 236
Grand Duchess, first cousin of Napoleon 1,4, 5, 9, 254
Nicholas II, 22 Nationalism (Russian), 9-10,12-13,
Mary, Queen of England 85, 92,166,168,173-4,191-2,
(1867-1953), wife of George V, 213, 248
27 Nationalities question, 12-13, 85-7,
Medvedev, P.S., 244 174, 257, 258
Meiji, Emperor ofJapan (reigned Naumov, Alexander N.
1867-1912), 126-7 (1868-1937), Minister of
Meshchersky, Prince Vladimir P. Agriculture, 1915-16,127, 220-1
(1839-1914), editor of Naval General Staff crisis, 175-6
G razhdan in , 89,138,182-3, Nicholas I (1796-1855), Russian
184-5 Emperor, 1825-55; great­
Michael (Mikhail Aleksandrovich), grandfather of Nicholas II, 5-6,
Grand Duke (1878-1918), brother 24,26,61,62, 72,115,123,
 Iftdex 289
254,255 70-1, 80, 97,99,102-3,104-8,
Nicholas II (1868-1918), Russian 109-11,115-16,118,119-22,
Emperor, 1894-1917: born, 1; 172-81,182-6, 209-10, 213-15,
relations with father, 22, 29-32, 221-6; and W itte, 75-6, 80,
42; relations with mother, 28; 84-5,148-9,154-5; and
education, 32, 34-6, 40-2; Stolypin, 172-81; and
engagement and marriage, 44-5, bureaucracy, 80, 98-9,113-14,
51-2; accession, 51-2; coronation, 118,127-8; and press, 118-19,
64-5; and Khodynka, 65-7; and 260; foreign policy, 94, 98-101,
Russo-Japanese War, 95-101, 145-6,156-7,174,192-208;
146,187; and Bloody Sunday, education, 88-9,174; labour, 80;
139-40; grants constitution in peasant policy, 84-5,152-4,
October 1905,148-9; rejects 183-4
expropriation of private land, Nicholas (Nikolai Nikolaevich),
153-4; and Bjorkoe treaty, 156-7; Grand Duke (‘Nikolasha’)
opens First Duma, 158-9; vetoes (1856-1929), Supreme
Naval General Staff bill in 1909, Commander, 1914-15; first
175; and Western Z em stvo crisis, cousin of Alexander III, 175-6,
180-1; supports changing 209, 212-13
constitution in 1914,186; and Nicholas (Nikolai Mikhailovich),
Bosnian crisis of 1908-9,193-4; Grand Duke (1859-1919), first
view on international relations in cousin of Alexander III, 212
1914,197; and outbreak of First Nikulin, G., 242,243
World War, 199-204; assumes
supreme command, 213-15; and Obolensky, Prince Alexander D.
February revolution, 230-3; in (1846-1917), member of State
captivity at Tsarskoe, 235-7; in Council, 111-12,136
Tobolsk, 238-9; death, 243-5 Octobrist Party, 150-1, 224, 229
CHARACTER Olga, Queen of Wûrttemburg
diary, 28; daily routine, 60; (1822-92), 26
homes, 59-63; health, 129, 215, Olga Aleksandrovna, Grand Duchess
220-1; religious beliefs, 29, 32-3, (1882-1960), sister of Nicholas II,
42-3, 63, 64,163, 236-7; and 24-5, 28, 31, 33,39,66,128,
autocracy, 30, 41, 42-3, 64, 71, 162-3,166-7
99,113,128,136,142-3,186, Olga Nikolaevna, Grand Duchess
216, 232; populism, 33-4,127-8, (1895-1918), daughter of
152-3,165-8,178, 230; and the Nicholas II, 50,161
armed forces, 37, 60,100,107, Ollongren, Colonel Vladimir, 30-3
174-6,183, 209-10, 213, 230-1, Onu, M.K., 38
231-3, 234, 236; self-control, Orlov, General A.A., 69
34-5,108,162, 202, 220, 233; Orthodox Church, 1, 2, 3,11,16,
intelligence, 34, 39-40,106, 261; 64-5,168-9,173,189
slipperiness, suspiciousness, Ottoman Empire, 10,94,194-7,
isolation, 31, 57, 69-70, 97, 251
102-3,106,107,118-19;
immaturity, 28, 39,41, 51, 52, Pahlen, Count Constantine
71; relations with ministers, (1833-1912), Minister ofJustice,
 1867-78, 67 Reza Pahlavi, Shah of Iran, 30,31
Panteleev, General A.I., 78 Rittikh, Alexander A. (1868-1930),
Paul (Pavel Aleksandrovich), Grand Minister of Agriculture, 1917,
Duke (1860-1919), uncle of 230
Nicholas II, 227 Rodzyanko, Michael V.
Peasants, 7,14-18, 81-5, 89-90, (1859-1924), Chairman of Duma,
113,114,140,183-5,186,187, 1911-17,168,218, 224, 232
205, 206 Romanov family: early history, 3-4;
Personal Chancellery, 115-21,124, in Nicholas’s reign, 69,104,107,
130 179, 227
Peter I (1672-1725), Russian Rosen, Baron Roman R.
Emperor, 1682-1725,4, 26,113, (1849-1922), ambassador; member
123,129, 252 of State Coundl, 64,117
Petitions Chancellery, 113-14 Rozhdestvensky, Admiral Z.P.
Pütz, A.I., 231 (1848-1909), 145,156
Plehve, Vyacheslav K. (1846-1904), Rukhlov, Serge N. (1853-1918),
Minister of Internal Affairs, Minister of Communications,
1902-4, 39, 70, 89,132-4,139 1909- 15,102
Pleske, Edvard D. (1852-1904), Russo-Japanese War: origins,
Minister of Finance, 1903-4, 76 95-101; course, 144-6; impact on
Pobedonostsev, Konstantin P. Nicholas's reputation, 102,144,
(1827-1911), Chief Procurator of 187
the Holy Synod, 1880-1905, Ruzsky, General Nicholas V.
35-6,89,105-6 (1854-1918), GOC, Northern
Poincaré, R ., 199 Front, 232
Polivanov, Aleksei A. (1855-1922),
Minister of War, 1915-16, 211 Saenger, Grigori E. (1853-1919),
Polovtsov, Alexander A. Minister of Education, 1902-4,88
(1832-1909), member of State Saionji, Prince K., 127
Coundl, 69, 72, 80-1, 84, 89, Sazonov, Serge D. (1860-1927),
109 Minister of Fordgn Affairs,
Port Arthur, 97 1910- 16,194,199,201, 202-3
Preobrazhensky Guards, 37,149 Schwartz, Alexander N.
Progressive Bloc, 210-12, 216-18, (1848-1915), Minister of
219 Education, 1908-10,89,102,174
Protopopov, Alexander D. Seraphim of Sarov, Saint, 163
(1868-1918), Minister of Internal Serge Aleksandrovich, Grand Duke
Affairs, September 1916-17, (1857-1905), uncle of Nicholas II;
224-6, 230 married Elizabeth of Hesse;
Provisional Government, 231-3,234 Governor-General of Moscow,
Prussia, 16-17,116,122-5,173 1891-1905,44, 50, 51,66,67,
Purishkevich, Vladimir M. 79-80, 88,136
(1870-1920), 228 Shavelsky, Father George, 260
Shcherbatov, Prince Nicholas B.
Rasputin, G. (1872-1916), 125, (1868-1943), Minister of Internal
164-5,168-70,179,185, 223, Affairs, 1915, 222
227-8,232 Shebeko, Nicholas N., 198-9
 Index 291
Sheremetev, Count Serge D ., 69 November 1916-January 1917;
Sipyagin, Dimitri S. (1853-1902), brother of V.F. andD.F. Trepov,
Minister of Internal Affairs, 219,226
1899-1902, 70,82 Trepov, General Dimitri F.
Social Democratic Party, 90; see also (1855-1906), Governor of
Bolsheviks Moscow city, 1896-1905;
Socialist Revolutionary Party, 90, Governor-General of Petersburg,
248 1905; Palace Commandant,
Spain, 188-90 October 1905-6,119-21,141,
Stalin jo sef, 117,168, 207,240, 147
241, 243, 252 Trepov, Vladimir F. (1860-1918),
Stamfordham, Lord, 237, 238 member of State Council, 181
Standart , imperial yacht, 63,199 Trotsky, L.D., 242
State Council, 39,86,116,151-2, Trubetskoy, Prince G.N., 191
171,180-1
Students, 87-9
Stolypin, Peter A. (1862-1911), Ukhtomsky, Prince E., 38
Prime Minister and Minister of United Nobility, 153-4,173,229
Internal Affairs, 1862-1911,125, Uvarov, Count Serge S., 6
170-7,179-82,187,261
Struve, P.B. (1870-1944), 191 Valuev, Count P.A., 26
Sturmer, Boris V. (1848-1917), Vannovsky, General Peter S.
Prime Minister, 1916,134, 222, (1822-1904), Minister of War,
223, 229 1881-98; Minister of Education,
Sukhomlinov, General Vladimir A. 1901-2,52,70,88
(1848-1926), Minister of War, Vasilchikov, Prince Boris A.
1909-15,175-6,183, 209 (1860-1931), Minister of
Sverdlov, Y., 240,242, 249 Agriculture, 1906-8,112
Svyatopolk-Mirsky, Princess E.A., Victor Emmanuel III (1869-1947),
136-7 King of Italy, 1900-46,32
Svyatopolk-Mirsky, Prince Peter D. Victoria, Queen of England
(1857-1914), Minister of Internal (1819-1901), 32,34,45,48-9,50
Affairs, 1904-5,134-9 Victoria, Princess Royal and German
Empress (1840-1901), 32,41,46
Taneev, Alexander S. (1850-1918), Victoria Eugénie, Queen of
Director, Emperor’s Own Spain (1887-1969), 50,55-6,162
Personal Chancellery, 1896-1917, Vladimir Aleksandrovich, Grand
54, 228 Duke (1847-1909), uncle of
Tatiana Nikolaevna, Grand Duchess Nicholas II, 72,109,162
(1897-1918), daughter of Vonlyarlyarsky, V.M., 98
Nicholas II, 161,203 Vyrubova, Anna, 228
Tikhomirov, L.N., 186
Tkachev, Peter N., 21
Tocqueville, Alexis de, 137 Wahl, General Victor V.
Trepov, Alexander F. (1862-1926), (1840-1915), 79,134
Minister of Communications, Wallace, Sir D .W ., 38
1915-17; Prime Minister, Western Z em stvo crisis, 179-81
292 Index

Wilhelm II, German Emperor, King Yakovlev, V.V., 241

of Prussia (1859-1941), 10, 32, Yanushkevich, General Nicholas N.
40,42,45, 50, 58,63,68-9,93, (1868-1919), Chief of the General
123-5,159,195,196,199-200, Staff, 1914; Chief of Staff to the
202,260 Grand Duke Nicholas, 1914-15,
W itte, Serge Yu. (1849-1915), 202,209, 213
Minister of Finance, 1892-1903; Yurovsky, Y., 242-5, 249
Chairman of Committee of Yusupov, Prince F.F., 228
Ministers, 1903-5; Prime
Minister, 1905-6, 23,40, 66, 70, Z em stvos ,
20, 23, 71, 76, 91,151,
71, 73-6, 77,81-5, 96,100,108, 180 219
112,119-21,136,141,148-9, Zubatov, Serge V. (1864-1917),
261 Chief of Moscow region secret
Workers, 7,13-15, 77-80,186, police, 1896-1902, 78-80,119,
187,205,207 139