What Could Nicholas II Have Done to Preserve the Imperial Throne?

if the White Russians considered Nicholas better dead than alive, why did they push hard into Ekaterinberg to save the Imperial Family?

I do not think the IF was the goal, Const.  It was more about defeating the Reds. A strategic move.

Also it was not the White Army as such that took Ekaterinberg, it was the Czech Legion, who were, as I understand it, largely fighting for their own reasons.

Ann

Those who supported him would have demanded  a government similar to what the Britsh have and Nicholas II and his family could have taken  residences  at  their palace and live happily ever after, while the new politicians in town worked on the new laws, etc. etc. etc.?

Makes sense to me.  it would have been obvious at that point that the old system no longer worked and if the monarchy was to survive, big changes would have to be made.  I could see them following the British way.

I can't see Russia following the British way in 1917, for one thing because Silja is right, the Russian monarchy and the Romanov dynasty were equally and thoroughly discredited in Russia by this time, amongst virtually all social classes. This is why the monarchy --and the dynasty -- collapsed so suddenly and decisively in February/March 1917. There was almost no one left to support it. By this date even a lot of monarchists and conservatives had turned their backs on Nicholas and Alexandra.

I recall one of my professors back in college telling the class how his own father had grown up in Russia at the beginning of the 20th century.  He was in high school in 1917 and a portrait of Nicholas II hung on the wall in the classroom.  When the abdication was announced by the teacher, the students spontaneously tore the portrait off the wall and destroyed it. 

My own grandmother, who was of the same generation (born in 1902) and was raised in the Russian church maintained throughout her life (she died in 1992) that Nicholas II was a cuckhold and that Alexei was fathered by Rasputin.  Of course we know that isn't true, but it's was many common people thought at the time.

The sad thing is that Nicholas and Alexandra and their children were more valuable to the Whites dead -- as murdered victims of the "evil" Bolsheviks --  than they ever were alive. Alive, they were an acute embarrassment, but dead, they were martyrs of holy Orthodox Russia murdered by wicked atheist revolutionaries ("hyenas laughing over the ruins of a great civilization," to mangle Churchill's famous description of Lenin and his cronies).

It's probably just academic but do you think the Whites were actually conscious of this at the time?  Or did the Romanov's value as martyrs only become evident after the fact?

Also, not to disagree, Elisabeth, but in the end, how much value did the dead royal family provide to the Whites?  Do you think it helped increase their power or delayed their eventual defeat?  If not, then that also goes even further to show how little anyone thought of them.

One has to wonder what would have happened if the Whites had gotten there before the executions could take place. 

I Think you are correct, Ann. The  Czechs wanted to go back to their own country. Ekaternburg was just on the way home. The Romanovs meant nothing to them. After all, they started out as prisoners of war fighting against them. The Whites followed after them.

I am not sure that the Romanovs meant nothing to them.  First of all, they would have sworn allegiance to the Tsar before the revolution and secondly, they saw in the Tsar the first promises of a Czech homeland.  Thirdly, they controlled the trans Siberian railway and this had a terminus in Vladivostock, which would have given them safe passage to Western Europe by steam ship, so there was no need to use Ekateriinburg as a route to Vladivostock.  Their main goal was to return home and to build a nation there but the reasons why they overtook Ekaterinburg had something to do with freeing the Romanovs.

Yeah, Nicky promised the Czechs that he'd helped them get independent from the Hapsburg Empire.  The Czechs hated the Hapsburgs.

Well the Czechs also hated the Slovaks and Hungarians.

Those who supported him would have demanded  a government similar to what the Britsh have and Nicholas II and his family could have taken  residences  at  their palace and live happily ever after, while the new politicians in town worked on the new laws, etc. etc. etc.?

Makes sense to me.  it would have been obvious at that point that the old system no longer worked and if the monarchy was to survive, big changes would have to be made.  I could see them following the British way.

I can't see Russia following the British way in 1917, for one thing because Silja is right, the Russian monarchy and the Romanov dynasty were equally and thoroughly discredited in Russia by this time, amongst virtually all social classes. This is why the monarchy --and the dynasty -- collapsed so suddenly and decisively in February/March 1917. There was almost no one left to support it. By this date even a lot of monarchists and conservatives had turned their backs on Nicholas and Alexandra.

I recall one of my professors back in college telling the class how his own father had grown up in Russia at the beginning of the 20th century.  He was in high school in 1917 and a portrait of Nicholas II hung on the wall in the classroom.  When the abdication was announced by the teacher, the students spontaneously tore the portrait off the wall and destroyed it. 

My own grandmother, who was of the same generation (born in 1902) and was raised in the Russian church maintained throughout her life (she died in 1992) that Nicholas II was a cuckhold and that Alexei was fathered by Rasputin.  Of course we know that isn't true, but it's was many common people thought at the time.

The sad thing is that Nicholas and Alexandra and their children were more valuable to the Whites dead -- as murdered victims of the "evil" Bolsheviks --  than they ever were alive. Alive, they were an acute embarrassment, but dead, they were martyrs of holy Orthodox Russia murdered by wicked atheist revolutionaries ("hyenas laughing over the ruins of a great civilization," to mangle Churchill's famous description of Lenin and his cronies).

It's probably just academic but do you think the Whites were actually conscious of this at the time?  Or did the Romanov's value as martyrs only become evident after the fact?

Also, not to disagree, Elisabeth, but in the end, how much value did the dead royal family provide to the Whites?  Do you think it helped increase their power or delayed their eventual defeat?  If not, then that also goes even further to show how little anyone thought of them.

Hey, RichC, it's good to see you back here! I actually think the Romanovs only provided the Whites with staying power, not with winning power. That is, the Romanovs, all the Romanovs but especially NII and Alexandra, were a losing team by the revolutionary year of 1917, and every passing year after that only served to underscore this historical fact. (Even the pathetic attempts of certain 21st-century Romanovs to increase the currency of their dynasty are testimony to this historical fact - the Romanovs have been historically irrelevant since the revolutions of 1917.)

What thoroughly discredited but murdered Romanovs like NII and his immediate family supposedly provided for the Whites was "proof" that the Bolsheviks were evil nihilists, atheists bent on destroying Russia and everything it had previously stood for. A more liberal opposition in exile might have made an actual, convincing case for this (indeed, there was plenty of evidence, evidence abounded, to support the notion that the Bolsheviks were basically a bunch of ideologically inclined gangsters, or criminally inclined ideologues). Instead the retrograde, reactionary White government-in-exile (and many of its minions in the White emigration in Central and Western Europe) saw the entire Bolshevik coup as part of a Jewish, Zionist-led criminal conspiracy to take over the world. Which is where, understandably, most of the Western world left them stewing, and where Hitler and the new fascists (not only in Germany and Italy but also in places like Hungary, Romania, and Croatia) took them up on their proposition. Which is why to this day the White cause remains largely discredited. Like the Bolsheviks they so much hated, the Whites have a lot of innocent blood on their hands.

Hey, RichC, it's good to see you back here! I actually think the Romanovs only provided the Whites with staying power, not with winning power. That is, the Romanovs, all the Romanovs but especially NII and Alexandra, were a losing team by the revolutionary year of 1917, and every passing year after that only served to underscore this historical fact. (Even the pathetic attempts of certain 21st-century Romanovs to increase the currency of their dynasty are testimony to this historical fact - the Romanovs have been historically irrelevant since the revolutions of 1917.)

What thoroughly discredited but murdered Romanovs like NII and his immediate family supposedly provided for the Whites was "proof" that the Bolsheviks were evil nihilists, atheists bent on destroying Russia and everything it had previously stood for. A more liberal opposition in exile might have made an actual, convincing case for this (indeed, there was plenty of evidence, evidence abounded, to support the notion that the Bolsheviks were basically a bunch of ideologically inclined gangsters, or criminally inclined ideologues). Instead the retrograde, reactionary White government-in-exile (and many of its minions in the White emigration in Central and Western Europe) saw the entire Bolshevik coup as part of a Jewish, Zionist-led criminal conspiracy to take over the world. Which is where, understandably, most of the Western world left them stewing, and where Hitler and the new fascists (not only in Germany and Italy but also in places like Hungary, Romania, and Croatia) took them up on their proposition. Which is why to this day the White cause remains largely discredited. Like the Bolsheviks they so much hated, the Whites have a lot of innocent blood on their hands.

General Denikin was given credit for having killed Jews. So were several other Generals  who were leading the Whites.  How much is true,  I don't know.  How much of it has been blown out of proportion by the Bolsheviks/communists for propaganda purposes,  I don't know.  It is true,  when you read books by Wilton and others, people [mostly Christians who were fighting the Bolsheviks] believed the revolutionaries were being lead by the Jews.  I know that my German-Russian communities did.  Reading the old timers articles,  they, more often than not,  named the Jewish Bolshevik leaders and/ or groups.  Unfortunately, not everyone they name were Jewish, however, they didn't know it at that time.  They thought Lenin and Stalin were 100% Jewish.  The Whites often used  misinformation  to stir up the blood of the Christians against the godless Bolsheviks, who became better at this game than the Whites ever did.  

I don't believe the Whites were discredited within our,  German-Russian exiled communities, however, under Lenin, Stalin and those who followed these two men,  the Russian history books have discredited the Whites.   And, those, who complained inside the Russian borders generally found they were given new residents in Siberia or worst.  The voices of discontent faded....  Up and until the fall of the Berlin wall,  the majority of  Russians believed Lenin and Stalin were great heros.  A great deal of this misinformation spilled over into Europe and the western world including the USA.

Here is an old article found in the New York Times  which is an example of  what the world was being told about  General Denikin's  actions in 1920.

http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?_r=1&res=9A02EFDA1131E03ABC4E51DFB466838B639EDE&oref=slogin

How many Jews, Russian Orthodox, Catholics,  Protestants, Muslums....   actually perished in the hands of Whites or Reds will  never be known.  Many evil deeds were done on both sides.  

AGRBear

If you ask me, the Russian Revolution was the worst thing to happen to that poor country, it cast them into a long dark night that even now, almost a century later, they're still struggling to emerge from.  They have made some progress in the last twenty-five years or so, but still have a long way to go.

Well, it took France a long time to become a democratic country after their revolution (they went through a couple of Empires along the way).  Russia seems to be following that same path.

If you ask me, the Russian Revolution was the worst thing to happen to that poor country, it cast them into a long dark night that even now, almost a century later, they're still struggling to emerge from.  They have made some progress in the last twenty-five years or so, but still have a long way to go.

Well, it took France a long time to become a democratic country after their revolution (they went through a couple of Empires along the way).  Russia seems to be following that same path.

I completely agree with your sentiments, TimM. Anything would have been better than the October Revolution that brought Lenin and Trotsky and Stalin and their cohorts to power. The Bolsheviks were a murderous bunch, of that there can be no doubt.

The problem with Russian history is the problem of Murphy's Law -- everything always goes wrong, the worst that could happen always does. Which is why even today -- while Putin and Medvedev are busy producing endless "progress reports" -- upper- and middle-class Russians continue to invest heavily in property abroad. Why? I bet you've already guessed. Because their ancestors in 1914 repatriated all their foreign assets to Russia, despite all the warning signals... Big, big, oh huge mistake!

Do you know that in the current economic climate of recession and depression, which Eastern Europe and the Balkans are especially suffering from, the Bulgarian housing market only stays afloat because of Russian investors? Weeeeell, after all, Bulgaria is at least a member of the European Union, and many older Bulgarians speak Russian (therefore it's easier to do business with them), also let's just say they're not such crooks as elsewhere. Plus, investing in the Black Sea region is not a bad bet, as long as one avoids the over-built, claustrophobia-inducing Sunny Beach area. But Bulgaria (thanks to Hitler) encompasses a very large extent of the Black Sea coastline. Balchik (location of Queen Marie of Romania's summer complex) is very upmarket, as is, much further south, Sinemorets, where all the mega-rich Russians build. In between are moderately priced places where middle-class Russians with a little savings invest.

But as a response to your remark, I think that France was always far better off than Russia, historically, economically, socially, and governmentally speaking. Even when 14th-century France was suffering from the Great Famine, then the Black Death (which apparently swept away a full third, and in places a full half, of its total population), it remained the richest and most populous country in Europe. Such could not be said of Russia, for much, indeed all, of its history.



 

Because their ancestors in 1914 repatriated all their foreign assets to Russia, despite all the warning signals... Big, big, oh huge mistake!

D'oh!

Still, at least some of them have learned from their past mistakes.

I seriously doubt that in 1914 anyone could anticipate the duration or intensity of the war that was to come or the subsequent revolution.  Almost noone had heard of Lenin, let alone Stalin, so repatriating assets to support Russia's war needs was not seen as a stupid move, moreover, patriotism at the most basic level.