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

[Petr]

As a matter of fact I think this entire thread, "What Could Nicholas II Have Done to Preserve the Imperial Throne" is an interesting counterfactual at best, at worst just another fantasy scenario built around those glamorous dead Romanovs.

Elizabeth I respectfully disagree at least to the extent that the discussion has triggered some interesting comments and historical references from you, Bear and Griffh, for example, and Tim's passion always makes the Board more interesting. Disputatious posts are the spice of life and keep the arteries from hardening. Seriously, "what if" discussions in historical analysis as in science often advances our knowledge by making heretofore unthought of connections.  Actually, I think the Romanovs were more tragic than glamorous, not only for themselves personally, but for the Russian people as a whole, but then again as I keep saying, they were only human.     

[TimM]

Yeah, they were.  The sad irony was that murdering them just wasn't necessary.  They had been out of power for over a year at that point, and no one wanted them back in.  Of course, murderers and thugs like Lenin and Co. didn't consider that.

[LisaDavidson]

I've been asked to take a look at this thread and perhaps to address some of the issues being raised.

First, I am disappointed that a disagreement between members has become personalized. TimM, you need to write me by PM so that we can figure your part in this out together.  I am already in contact with Elisabeth. My point is, we don't need for our members to agree with one another, but disagreements can and should remain civil and certainly not personal.

Second, this Forum grew out of the original Alexander Palace Time Machine and our intention was that the Forum would be a place where many points of view could be discussed. So, provided the rules are followed, we welcome points of view from the Romanovs as martyrs to the Romanovs as target practice. We have no ideological litmus tests. (Although my personal opinion remains that the IF was murdered, I don't expect others to agree with me.).

Third, the topic is "What Could Nicholas II Have Done to Preserve the Imperial Throne" and this is in the History section of the Forum. I would ask members to confine their posts to the topic and to keep the section in mind. For those who think this topic belongs elsewhere, I respectfully disagree. It has been around since 2004, which I believe was the year we started the Forum.

If you have any questions about this post, kindly respond to me privately.

Lisa Davidson

[Naslednik Norvezhskiy]

I do think my last post addressed a pressing issue in this forum, but since apparently nobody else here has the courage to address it, then perhaps what I wrote should be deleted by the moderator.

No, I, at least, don't think so. I think your psychological explanation of why some people obsess about the Romanovs and other tragic royals was very enlightening. You know, we have to keep in mind that everybody isn't as intellectually inclined to deal with their thoughts and emotions in an analytical way, like we who read Marx, Freud, Adorno, Dostoyevsky, Hannah Arendt etc. to understand our own neurosis or deal with all the evil in the world and think we have dealt with it when we have developed a theory and given it a fancy name. Others do it more intuïtively and obsess about NAOTMAA or Anne Frank, the symbols of two genocides / human tragedies hard to grasp in all their enormity.

I never quite understood how saints were made in the Middle Ages untill I witnessed the hysterical worship of the late Diana of Wales. Only then did I understand why NAOTMAA and Ella's distant ancestor Saint Elisabeth, Landgravine of Thuringia could become a venerated saint, a worshipped demi-godess who performed miracles, not su much because of what she did or didn't do herself (unlike saints like Max Kolbe), but because of what people projected unto her and what she represented to them.

For a "cold intellectual" like me, I think it's awfully fascinating to study, but like you Elisabeth I think it's important to try to draw a clear line line between the legitimate fan worship and historical analysis.

Er, isn't that the whole point of this board, to come and talk about Nicky and his family (plus other Romanov relatives).  I can't speak for others, but I myself have always felt what was done to Nicky and his family was a crime of murder, nothing more, nothing less.  They were murdered by brutal monsters, representing a monster ideal that went on to slaughter countless millions more, before it was finally chucked into the bin of history, where it could rot next to that other horrible 20th Century idea, Nazism (sadly both ideas live on today in some form or another, of course).

As you can understand from my above statement, I understand where you're coming from, but I think you need to remember that for most people it's not like it was representatives for a monster system murdering representatives of an innocent system. Both Tsarism and Bolshevikhism were systems that had little regard for human life. How could the Bolshevikhs live with the IF's family's blood on their hands? How could the Autocrat, who believed he had been given a mandate by God, live with himself, innocently playing with his carefree children, knowing that other children died from malnutrition and exhaustion in slums and factories in his empire? And send other people's children into wars just in order to protect the throne for his own semi-invalid son? Is "they will get their reward in Heaven" a much better reason for evil than "they were enemies of the people"?

[Naslednik Norvezhskiy]

You know, we have to keep in mind that everybody isn't as intellectually inclined to deal with their thoughts and emotions in an analytical way

Baltic moment! The word I needed was "to intellectualize".

[TimM]

 

it's not like it was representatives for a monster system murdering representatives of an innocent system

Yes, but that still does not justify those brutal murders.  As I said, if Nicky was guilty of a crime, you try him for said crime.  As for the others, certainly OTMA was not guilty of any actions authorized by their father. 

[Naslednik Norvezhskiy]

As for the others, certainly OTMA was not guilty of any actions authorized by their father.

That is true and although they were just a drop in the ocean of deaths during Tsarism (due to exploitation) and Bolshevikhism (due to assassination and genocide) it remains true, I agree with you on that.

[Elisabeth]

I think your psychological explanation of why some people obsess about the Romanovs and other tragic royals was very enlightening. You know, we have to keep in mind that everybody isn't as intellectually inclined to deal with their thoughts and emotions in an analytical way, like we who read Marx, Freud, Adorno, Dostoyevsky, Hannah Arendt etc. to understand our own neurosis or deal with all the evil in the world and think we have dealt with it when we have developed a theory and given it a fancy name. Others do it more intuïtively and obsess about NAOTMAA or Anne Frank, the symbols of two genocides / human tragedies hard to grasp in all their enormity.

I never quite understood how saints were made in the Middle Ages untill I witnessed the hysterical worship of the late Diana of Wales. Only then did I understand why NAOTMAA and Ella's distant ancestor Saint Elisabeth, Landgravine of Thuringia could become a venerated saint, a worshipped demi-godess who performed miracles, not su much because of what she did or didn't do herself (unlike saints like Max Kolbe), but because of what people projected unto her and what she represented to them.

For a "cold intellectual" like me, I think it's awfully fascinating to study, but like you Elisabeth I think it's important to try to draw a clear line line between the legitimate fan worship and historical analysis.

Dear Fyodor Petrovich (and I always do want to address you, unconsciously, as Fyodor Mikhailovich! it's funny!), thank you for your thoughtful remarks about my previous post. I admit, I was feeling rather discouraged about it because it seemed that no one was trying to understand what I was attempting to express. But I do think it's important to understand why so many well-behaved, well-intentioned, fundamentally nice, good citizens of democratic countries like the US and Great Britain obsess on dead royalty the way they do. Lots of people -- I know lots of scholars of Russian history -- believe it is pure voyeurism, plain and simple. And while I'm sure that voyeurism exists in some small percentage of the population who dwell over details of the murder of the IF in all the gory details, I think most kids who obsess on these same murders are trying to work out personal problems in the only way they know how. It's not "voyeurism," with all its bad connotations.

If anything, it's the exact opposite of voyeurism.

I have an acquaintance with an adolescent daughter, 14 years old. This teenager draws pictures of very large-eyed, sad young girls almost obsessively. If these pictures weren't so skillfully drawn, they would be quite disturbing. As it is, you can kind of convince yourself that okay, she's a budding artist who's just into a particular theme (as opposed to, obsessed with a particular theme of overall misery). But since I know her personal history, I also know there's more to the story.

I guess all I would wish is that people would not be so condemnatory of kids with, what shall we say, unhealthy obsessions with the IF. They're doing the best they can and maybe all they need is a supportive adult shoulder to cry on. At any rate, I think any mental and emotional exercise that takes one out of one's self and into another person's shoes, especially a suffering person's shoes, is fundamentally a good thing. I agree it can be taken to unpleasant lengths and even assume all the characteristics of mass hysteria. But on the individual level, on the level of the child or young adult, there's always hope that the unhealthy obsession will grow into a healthy one, one preoccupied in a constructive way with Russian history, or social welfare, or crime prevention, or whatever. You never know, with kids. They're surprisingly resilient and resourceful people.

[Petr]

As you can understand from my above statement, I understand where you're coming from, but I think you need to remember that for most people it's not like it was representatives for a monster system murdering representatives of an innocent system. Both Tsarism and Bolshevikhism were systems that had little regard for human life. How could the Bolshevikhs live with the IF's family's blood on their hands? How could the Autocrat, who believed he had been given a mandate by God, live with himself, innocently playing with his carefree children, knowing that other children died from malnutrition and exhaustion in slums and factories in his empire? And send other people's children into wars just in order to protect the throne for his own semi-invalid son? Is "they will get their reward in Heaven" a much better reason for evil than "they were enemies of the people"?

Dear Фёдор Петрович, I'm not sure that equating Tsarism and Bolshevism is appropriate as "systems that had little regard for human life." Without excusing any social injustices that may have existed in pre-revolutionary Russia I would like to point out that Tsarism did not have as its principle tenant class warfare which excused the extermination of whole groups of people. Furthermore, I don't believe the Nicholas II sent "other people's children into wars just in order to protect the throne for his own semi-invalid son" anymore than George V entered the war to ensure that Edward VIII would inherit the Throne. Russia had treaty obligations (one may have different notions as whether it should have ever entered the Entente, but the fact was it did in large measure to contain threatened German imperialism as a measure to ensure peace). I also personally do not believe that the Tsar was so heartless that he didn't feel for "other children [who] died from malnutrition and exhaustion in slums and factories in his empire" anymore than than William McKinley,Teddy Roosevelt, Edward VII/George V/ and M. Poincare were heartless. There is plenty of evidence regarding the charitable work of the IF. Although an autocracy Russia was also a capitalist state where the means of production were in private hands like in the rest of Europe and accordingly there were limits as to what the Crown could do. Again one must always put things in context when dealing with the past.  There is nothing to say that given time Russia wouldn't have also improved working conditions sufficiently as to ameliorate pre-revolutionary labor conditions as happened in the West. But I can assure you that it would have been better than Stalin labeling 12 year olds "enemies of the people" to be "repressed" because of who their parents were (cf., The Whisperers, by Figes).

By way of comparison this from Wikipedia as to US child labor laws:
"The National Child Labor Committee, an organization dedicated to the abolition of all child labor, was formed in 1904. It managed to pass one law, which was struck down by the Supreme Court two years later for violating a child's right to contract his work. In 1924, Congress attempted to pass a constitutional amendment that would authorize a national child labor law. This measure was blocked, and the bill was eventually dropped. It took the Great Depression to end child labor nationwide; adults had become so desperate for jobs that they would work for the same wage as children. In 1938, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Fair Labor Standards Act, which, among other things, placed limits on many forms of child labor."


         

[Constantinople]

Being staunchly anti communist, I would have to say that if Nicholas had been more concerned about workers' rights and the lives of his soldiers, who were massacreed due to incompetence, idiocy in the leadership of the army and poor strategies, then there may not have been a revolution.  Most of the charity work was token at best.  To cite one comparison, the cost of the Imperial Yacht Shtandart was equivalent to the annual budget for education for all of Russia.  Nice charity.

[Petr]

Well we have had this discussion before. My only point is that when judging Russia's past one must put Russia at the turn of the century in context with what was happening in the rest of the world at that time (I sound like a broken record but apparently I have to constantly remind people of this point). That is not to excuse social injustice that existed in Russia as it did in many other places of the world at that time (and as it continues to exist today). Could conditions have been better, of course. Would a constitutional monarchy have been better, I would probably agree (but that is not to say that were any functioning parliament to have existed at that time it would have been any better in dealing with social issues than the the British Parliament and US Congress (then and today), for example).  But I firmly believe to equate pre-revolutionary Russia with post-revolutionary Russia under the communist yoke as being two peas in a pod is simply incorrect (which was after all the point of my post). No Tsar in the history of Russia  killed as many of his own people as Stalin did in the fifteen to twenty years before WWII, without counting the fear and misery he imposed (I venture to say that if you added up all the victims of all the Tsars they wouldn't equate to what he did). 

Picking out examples of extravagance is a bit of a cheap shot (I'm sure the Kaiser's yacht was not inexpensive to run) but then again the Vanderbilts, Astors, Morgan, Harriman, Rockefeller, et. al. (not counting the British Aristocracy) weren't exactly pikers when it came to spending money (cf., Marjorie Merriwether Post's Flying Cloud).  By the way, it was only recently that the British Government decommissioned  the Queen's yacht H.M.S. Britannia (which, I believe, is considerably larger than the Shtandart). I guess you would want Larry Ellison and Paul Allen to sell their yachts and send the proceeds to the Department of Education.  However, unlike Ellison's or Allen's yachts the Shtandart (like the Britannia) was also used for diplomatic purposes (for example, the pre-war visit of the French President who was entertained on the yacht).  Entertaining the crowned heads of Europe (which, after all, arguably served Russia's diplomatic purposes and was an Imperial obligation) did not mean taking them to the equivalent of a Seven Eleven.

[Constantinople]

Well for one thing Germany was spending a lot more on education than Russia was and had a much higher literacy rate.  Germany also had a parliament of sorts to ratify the expenditures.  As for the individuals you mentioned, none of them were using the wealth of the nation to pay for their extravagances and they weren't diverting the country's money into these extravagances.  And by the way the reason we are having this discussion is the same reason we had it before, namely someone mentioning how generous the Tsar was with charity.  That charity was a fraction of what a government should have been doing for its people.

[Petr]

And by the way the reason we are having this discussion is the same reason we had it before, namely someone mentioning how generous the Tsar was with charity.  That charity was a fraction of what a government should have been doing for its people.

No the reason is the one outlined in my post. You can't equate pre-revolutionary Russia with post-revolutionary Russia.  The latter was much worse than the former. 

[TimM]

And send other people's children into wars just in order to protect the throne for his own semi-invalid son

Well, George W. Bush and Dick Cheney had no qualms about sending other people's children into war for no good reason (hello Iraq).

You can't equate pre-revolutionary Russia with post-revolutionary Russia.  The latter was much worse than the former

That's for sure, the Communists murdered more people in seventy-five years than the Romanovs did in three hundred.  Stalin's regime alone probably murdered more people.

[Sergei Witte]

Dear Fyodor Petrovich (and I always do want to address you, unconsciously, as Fyodor Mikhailovich! it's funny!), thank you for your thoughtful remarks about my previous post. I admit, I was feeling rather discouraged about it because it seemed that no one was trying to understand what I was attempting to express. But I do think it's important to understand why so many well-behaved, well-intentioned, fundamentally nice, good citizens of democratic countries like the US and Great Britain obsess on dead royalty the way they do. Lots of people -- I know lots of scholars of Russian history -- believe it is pure voyeurism, plain and simple. And while I'm sure that voyeurism exists in some small percentage of the population who dwell over details of the murder of the IF in all the gory details, I think most kids who obsess on these same murders are trying to work out personal problems in the only way they know how. It's not "voyeurism," with all its bad connotations.

If anything, it's the exact opposite of voyeurism.

I have an acquaintance with an adolescent daughter, 14 years old. This teenager draws pictures of very large-eyed, sad young girls almost obsessively. If these pictures weren't so skillfully drawn, they would be quite disturbing. As it is, you can kind of convince yourself that okay, she's a budding artist who's just into a particular theme (as opposed to, obsessed with a particular theme of overall misery). But since I know her personal history, I also know there's more to the story.

I guess all I would wish is that people would not be so condemnatory of kids with, what shall we say, unhealthy obsessions with the IF. They're doing the best they can and maybe all they need is a supportive adult shoulder to cry on. At any rate, I think any mental and emotional exercise that takes one out of one's self and into another person's shoes, especially a suffering person's shoes, is fundamentally a good thing. I agree it can be taken to unpleasant lengths and even assume all the characteristics of mass hysteria. But on the individual level, on the level of the child or young adult, there's always hope that the unhealthy obsession will grow into a healthy one, one preoccupied in a constructive way with Russian history, or social welfare, or crime prevention, or whatever. You never know, with kids. They're surprisingly resilient and resourceful people.

Very interesting thoughts!

I agree many people are far too sentimental over the Romanovs. Of course their murder is mostly to blame for that. And the fact that we have some insight in their actual thoughts through the diaries. Or, are they really their most intimate thoughts? How did Nicholas cope with the immense burden of being Tsar autocrat for instance. Nothing is mentioned in his diary he only speaks about walking, playing with the kids, dining etc. But I am sure he must have had those thoughts, maybe on a subconscious level.

Here I am making thoughts on how Nicholas must have felt. There is the problem: We tend to make the Royals our acquaintances. We make them our friends. If we were to live in Tsarist Russia we might as well be revolutionaries, with our goal to eliminate the aristocracy.  

Maybe I am a sentimentalist too.


BTW: I am a Boyar now!! I am gonna tell this to my kids tomorrow, they had fun with me for being a "newbie"