The Role of the Russian Nobility in the Fall of Nicholas II

[lexi4]

Wow! This is really a good thread.
I do think that by the end of his reign, Nicholas was so isolated that no member of nobility could have changed his course. His only counselor was his wife and she relied on Rasputin.
I also wonder if the working conditions and living conditions the nobility afforded the peasants contributed. That was one thing it seems the could have done something about. Most of the living conditions for the peasants were deplorable. For example, I recently read that when Ella married Serge he didn't have one midwife or doctor available for the serfs living on his property. The infant mortality rate was about 98 percent and about 68 percent of the women died during childbirth. I have no idea how many thousands of serfs worke for him. As we all know, Ella persuaded him to hire one midwife. So many women and children needlessly died because of his actions. That is something Serge could have done something about long before Ella arrived on the scene. And even then, he did the bare minimum. It would be interesting to know what would have happened had the nobility paid as much attention to the lives of those that worked for them as they did the whisperings about the Empress.

[Constantinople]

If  you want to get a good taste of the times prior to the Revolution, read Solzhenytzen's November 1917.  It has very detailed portraits of various factions involvled in the revolution. The fact that the military machinery that was put in place by Nicholas ll lost through death, capture or wounding 5 million Russians in the first world was meant that he could not be allowed to continue and this was agreed by anyone who could think independently during this time.

[Constantinople]

I was always curious about Felix Youssupov and the fact that he managed to get out  of the country so easily.  My curiosity is whether he actually played a part in funding revolutionaries as he was treated with kid gloves after the revolution

[PAVLOV]

Most revolutions happen for the same reasons. The causes of the French and Russian revolutions are exactly the same. Same problems, different times.   Marie Antionette and Alexandra and Louis and Nicholas. Hardly any difference. The social conditions were the same.The Bourbon family had traitors and so did the Romanovs ( Our friend Cyril and his wife )
History repeats itself all the time, century after century. I dont think one can blame the Russian nobility members of the Romanov family for the revolution, entirely. They were trying to remove Nicholas and his even more incompetent wife to save their bacon, and it backfired on them.

   

[ashdean]

Yes, if they had listened, but they didn't and it was too late. They should have. But I still don't believe they did anything malicious or intentionally to hurt the country or anyone else, it was just their own stupid mistakes and ineptitude. (and I can relate in my own life)

In Lost Splendor, Felix told a story that their dentist, who had also been the IF's dentist, returned from a trip to Tobolsk after treating the IF in captivity and, according to Felix, relayed the message to Zenaida from Nicholas "tell Princess Yussoupov she was right, if I had listened, things would have been different." (Zenaida, along with Ella, tried to warn Alix about Rasputin but were dismissed and disowned for their opinions.)

Personally I do not give much credit to that story....Felix had a habit of putting fact and fiction in a cocktail shaker to make himself (or his family) seem more important.