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

[Naslednik Norvezhskiy]

I agree you can't equate Tsarist Russia with Communist Russia, simply because the former was a largely agrarian economy that never could achieve the totalitarian aspect industrialized, Stalinist Russia did. Stalin could persecute people on quite another scale than the Tsars because he had the ressources to do it. (Think of an armoured tank versus a soldier on a horse, just as an example of the technological divide. Or surveillance gadgets versus a human Okhrana agent. Contrary to what you instinctively might believe, it takes a lot of work and ressources to kill millions of people carefully selected by rather arbitrary criteria. Just ask the Nazis.)

Besides, the Soviet Union offered the general population an existence where their basic needs were catered to (food, work, housing, health care, education etc.) if they just conformed by supporting the system and didn't show any opposition to the status quo. If you demanded more freedom than your "right" to occassionally get totally drunk on vodka, you were mercilessly persecuted. That's why it, like Nazi Germany, is called a totalitarian regime. Tsarist Russia pretty much let people fend for themselves and didn't do very much to protect the weak against material exploitation by the strong.

Simplified:
Under the Tsars, you were pretty free to do many things and argue even more things. But you might easily die of hunger, malnutrition or other conditions we think of as inhuman and animal-like before you got that far.
Under the Communists, you would be put to death if you did or argued certain things. Otherwise, you could lead the relatively carefree existence of a dumb and mute draught animal who obeyed his master in all things.

NB Tsarist Russia would not have been any worse than any other laissez-faire regime IF people had not been more exploited by those who owned the means of production than elsewhere. And Communist Russia (and Nazi Germany) would not have been so much more worse than many other welfare states IF so many people had not been killed because they did not conform to certain norms.

The forces that gave ordinary Russians a lifestyle more similar to OTMA's than that of serfs (that is, if you think of "freedom from want" and don't distinguish between real diamonds and glass beads, which both serve the same purpose) were also used to kill millions of people for more or less arbitrary reasons.

[AGRBear]

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.

You've been reading to many history books written by people who were believing all the rubbish that the communist world was churning out about Nicholas II.   I have given you sources that show Nicholas II was concerned about his soldiers.  He demanded that the officers and their men learn how to read and write.  He raised their pay.  And,  a private no longer had to serve the full 20 years and never see his family, again,  he could serve 3 to 5 years and then be on reserve.  Nicholas II made sure that his soldiers were supplied with modern equipment.  I believe one of his favorites was his tank.   He loved airplanes and he started pilot schools and supplied airplanes.  Since his interest had been....  To make a long story short,  his soldiers were as well prepared as the Germans, accept for "Big Bertha",  a huge cannon that shook the ground when it was fired.  I believe contracts were made with foreign companies for trucks and cars like the one that carried the bodies of the Roman family toward the Four Brother's Mine in 1918....  Just one visit to the front lines and he demanded doctors and nurses to move closer to the front lines....

Why do you continue to think it was Nicholas II's strategies that cause the Russians to retreat in 1917?  The only reason he took over his uncle's job was because his uncle was failing on the front and to prevent the old boy from being embarrassed,  he took Command.  A few of his other generals, one of which was giving Nicholas II advice,  were plotting to pull Nicholas II off the throne.  That was great timing!   I've given my thoughts on the reasons why supplies were cut by the Workers, lead by the revolutionaries....  Have you looked at maps showing the Russian positions before and after Nicholas II took command when supplies were still flowing to the front?

You have told us that the expenses for their yacht was more than was spent on education.   Boats are darn expensive.  I know, we have boat.  So,  let's discuss this.  Let's say the yearly expense was.... ah... I don't know what it was, so,  let me just  throw out a number.  Let's say to keep her [the boat] clean, running properly and fully ready with staff and sailors was about   $100,000 in 1914.  This meant many people were involved who would not otherwise had a full time or part time job.  This was a time when a person and a small family here in the US could live on less than $30 a month.  I'm sure it was a lot less in Russia.  This meant those who had money could buy food, clothes, etc. from others who could earn a comfortable living... Like a snow ball rolling down hill,  the money touched many lives.  Plus, there was the "honor" of working on the Tsar's boat.  Like the money, the connection to these workers  spilled over the rest of the family...   [Putting people to honest work is better than welfare....]   Did the Romanovs do enough for the poor?  No.  Could they have done more?  Yes.  

Does anyone know how many people were actually on the payroll of the Royal Family which would have included more than a yacht, it would have included their residences, which needed furniture makers, textile goods, glass and candlestick makers, then there was the need of jewelers,  tailors, seamstresses... stable men,  blacksmiths,  wheelsmiths,  sleigh makers, guards,  gardeners,  shop keepers,  etc. etc. etc....... ?

Serfdom went out under Alexander II.  

Russia digressed back farther than serfdom when slavery returned under Stalin.

AGRBear  

[Naslednik Norvezhskiy]

He demanded that the officers and their men learn how to read and write.

You mean there were officers who did not know how to read and write!?  

He raised their pay.

 
And where did that money come from? Like all bureaucrats, NII himself didn't produce any revenue. One word: Taxation, direct or indirect. Some revenue-producing, taxpaying souls somewhere had to eat more cabbage and less meat so that unproductive soldiers could eat more meat.

The only reason he took over his uncle's job was because his uncle was failing on the front and to prevent the old boy from being embarrassed,  he took Command.

This seems so typical NII: Admirable in itself, but very short-sighted: "The means justify the end".

You have told us that the expenses for their yacht was more than was spent on education.   Boats are darn expensive.  I know, we have boat.  So,  let's discuss this.  Let's say the yearly expense was.... ah... I don't know what it was, so,  let me just  throw out a number.  Let's say to keep her [the boat] clean, running properly and fully ready with staff and sailors was about   $100,000 in 1914.  This meant many people were involved who would not otherwise had a full time or part time job.

NII was not a private billionaire who helped out unemployed people during a depression. This was state money spent on ferrying the IF around their vacation spots. Of course, extremely important for the well-being of the Autocrat (on whose mental faculties the state in theory depended), for diplomacy and for the prestige of the Russian Navy, but don't you think these state employees could have been employed in more productive capacities, that benefitted more "clients" than just the IF? For example in teaching, since we are comparing with education. (But theoretically they could also have knitted warm woollen socks for the poor or sanitized slums, to use examples à la Alexandra and Emperor Joseph II.)

[Naslednik Norvezhskiy]

While the state-payed crew of the Shtandart were running a hypothetical Non-Fee Paying Institute of Useful Learning, a boarding school of imperial standards!, NAOTMAA could have taken a normal passenger train (second class) to the family cabin at Langinkoski in Finland and spent their simple, wholesome holidays there, recuperating from their arduous duties with only a live-in maid. Lol, I'm beginning to sound like TimM! The tragedy is of course that NAOTMAA actually might have preferred that, if they were not so bound by tradition.

[Constantinople]

For a lot of people communism was far worse than imperial Russia and for a lot of people, Imperial Russia was far worse than communism.  If you can't read or write, there is not much hope of improving yourself.  If there is a class system and you are stuck at the bottom of it, there is not much good you can see in that system.  If you had a lot of wealth and it was expropriated, Then you don't see too much good in that system. Stating that one system was worse than the other depends on perspective.  Personally I prefer Imperial Russia over the overwshelming banality of communism but I never had to experience the worst aspects of either.  Both were autocratic police states and both were open to excesses.

[Sergei Witte]

For a lot of people communism was far worse than imperial Russia and for a lot of people, Imperial Russia was far worse than communism.  If you can't read or write, there is not much hope of improving yourself.  If there is a class system and you are stuck at the bottom of it, there is not much good you can see in that system.  If you had a lot of wealth and it was expropriated, Then you don't see too much good in that system. Stating that one system was worse than the other depends on perspective.  Personally I prefer Imperial Russia over the overwshelming banality of communism but I never had to experience the worst aspects of either.  Both were autocratic police states and both were open to excesses.

I agree with you on this, Constantinople.

I would like to add that, while Imperial Russia was an autocratic police state, the Soviet Union was Totalitarian as well, which meant the state wanted to control the minds of its population. So in the sense of lack of freedom, the Soviet Union was worse.

[Constantinople]

Yes I agree with you that in most senses the Soviet Union was worse unless you look at the lack of literacy in imperial Russia, the lack of adequate housing, the general lack of medical care to most people and the lack of upward mobility for those in the lowest strata of society.  If you were a landless peasant in Imperial Russia, communism probably was an improvement.

[Petr]

The problem is that the "excesses" of one far out weighed the "excesses" of the other. To refer to communism as "banal" is to overlook shear evil unless by banality you mean the Hannah Arendt description of Nazism. 

[Constantinople]

The banality of evil usually reflects the banality ot the perpetrators.

[Petr]

If you were a landless peasant in Imperial Russia, communism probably was an improvement.

Unless you were declared a Kulak or one of the 10 million Ukrainians who perished in the Holodomor.

[TimM]

As I said, there WAS a class system in the Soviet Union, the people on top, the people on the bottem.  There was no in between.

[LisaDavidson]

Perhaps I'm missing something here, but this topic is not "life in the USSR" versus "life in Imperial Russia".

The topic is, what could Nicholas II have done to preserve the Imperial Throne?

Kindly return to topic, and feel free to start a separate topic as outlined in my first sentence.

[Constantinople]

I don't think you can define kulaks or kurlaks as landless peasants.

[AGRBear]

Somewhere I posted the complete definition of "kulack" but I can't find it.  Must be under one of the lock down threads.   So, let me see if I recall the meaning of the word originally.   It had to do with landowners being labeled as "being tight fisted" and the revolutionary propaganda turned the meaning toward all  landowners,  the enemies of the people,  because all of them had used his fists on his workers...  To be accurate,  there are many stories about very real and horrible  abuses some landowners did to their workers.   That was the tie to landowners.  However, once the Bolsheviks had control,  they could label ANYONE a "kulack" and ship him/her, them off to a concentration/labor/slave camps.   Therefore, the "kulack" was anyone who had something the Bolshevik's wanted.

AGRBear

[Constantinople]

First of all, the Russian army was woefully unprepared for the First World War and if you look into the reasons, many of them had to do with Nicolas' regime and policies.  To send unarmed men against trenches armed with state of the art machine guns seems ludicrous and to continue that through 3 years seems like the essence of not learning from your mistakes.  To state that all measures were being undertaken to teach soldiers to read and write seems counter intuitive.  They should have had those skills before they entered the army.  And why weren't the soldiers equipped? because of the fallout of Bloody Sunday and a number of pogroms, the Jewish lobbies and mass media had a field day with Nicholas and democratically elected governments refused to extend credit for arms that were needed.  Even when the arms arrived in Archangel and Vladivostock, they were not shipped to the fronts because of logistical incompetence.

As for the Kulacks, their parameters were probably open to interpretation by the Tsarist government, the Bolsheviks and the Kulaks themselves.

Of course I read history books but the concept of too many never occurred to me.  What do you do? Borrow Tim's time travel machiine?