did the children have the right to leave russia after the revolution?

[Elisabeth]

Thanks for your post, Alixz, I think it helps everybody to put things in context. The fact of the matter is, most Russians (not urban, not noble or middle class, but peasant, 80 percent of the total population) in 1917 did not see Nicholas and Alexandra and their children the way we, total outsiders from both the historical and the national standpoints, see them -- as a cozy Victorian/Edwardian-style family with beautiful daughters in white lace dresses and a frail but charming invalid son in a sailor suit. Most Russians actually didn't "see" the imperial family at all, except in the occasional postcard or some other item of official propaganda. To my mind Kalafrana was absolutely right to point out that fact. At this time Russian peasants typically lived without indoor plumbing and electricity, and there was nothing even vaguely approaching an entity like the modern mass media, infiltrating every corner of one's home with images of the national "leaders" we are all supposed to emulate and admire.

Maybe if there had been, Russian peasants would have been much like today's idiots as envisioned by the American mass media, sopping up every last detail of Kim Kardashian's (or Grand Duchess Olga or Tatiana's?) celebrity wedding. In the midst of a worldwide economic crisis, with Greece on the brink of defaulting on its debt, and Italy, Spain, and Portugal in line to follow... It's hard to argue that Russian peasants were stupid or blind in 1917 when we have ample evidence that the mass media thinks we as ordinary Americans are even more stupid and blind almost an entire century later, in 2011 (well, they keep blathering on about Herman Cain, who will never be president one way or another, even while they limit their coverage of the latest economic nastiness now brewing in the heart of Western Europe itself).

[Alixz]

During the 2008 Presidential election I read that more Americans thought it was important to vote for the next American Idol than to vote for president.  So maybe we are as stupid as they think we are?

We truly should get back to the topic of this thread.   :-)

[Elisabeth]

I'll summarize my (latest) point, then: in February/March 1917, probably long before, Nicholas and Alexandra, unbeknownst to themselves, were cast adrift in a sea of public indifference, at best, and outright hostility, at worst. It's my opinion that they made a political miscalculation in not getting their children out of the country as soon as possible. Perhaps if NII had not suffered some kind of nervous collapse at Mogilev (probably before) he could have made his family's emigration to a neutral country a condition of his abdication. At any rate, I've always thought it strange that Nicholas doesn't seem to have demanded any kind of terms at all, he doesn't seem to have negotiated with the rebels for a safe passage for his family and himself out of the country... He just, as it were, completely abdicated.

[Petr]

I'll summarize my (latest) point, then: in February/March 1917, probably long before, Nicholas and Alexandra, unbeknownst to themselves, were cast  At any rate, I've always thought it strange that Nicholas doesn't seem to have demanded any kind of terms at all, he doesn't seem to have negotiated with the rebels for a safe passage for his family and himself out of the country... He just, as it were, completely abdicated.

One can only surmise what was going through his mind in that railroad car. I've always thought that in many ways he was always too reactive, easily influenced and unlike his father not forceful enough (perhaps having a larger than life (and overbearing) father and a self-absorbed mother tends to diminish one's self-confidence). Conversely, the lack of apparent ego is what possibly made him a good husband (no royal mistresses). To the contrary, however, there are other recent examples of Kings who lacked self-confidence but rose to the occasion when necessary (I'm thinking of George VI) so this amateur psychological analysis may not work. Further, as I've often said these are all 19th Century personalities when notions of personal honor and duty meant something. Thus, it could be that NII felt duty bound not to quit his country while in the midst of a war (he did request for the IF to be allowed to go to the Crimea and had they been allowed to do so (as at one point could have been possible) the IF could have possibly survived like MF and some of the Grand Dukes. Kerensky has to shoulder the blame for that (then again George V should also not be absolved of some of the blame having, in the interests of self-preservation, bowed down to Lloyd George and caving in to the lefty unions). Finally, at the point of abdication he assumed Michael would assume the throne which, of course, could have made his and his family's position more secure. Then, also, there was the problem of his son (one can only imagine how that affected his thinking). There is a school of thought that had he abdicated in favor of his son the Crown would have retained the loyalty of the Army (or at least the officer corps and the NCOs). Once he abdicated he lost any leverage he might have had to negotiate terms (witness Qaddafi's last days). You could say he was a "lame duck" (crippled more likely).

I must concur that there is a tendency to judge NII and AF in rather stark black and white terms without putting their lives in context and while applying modern prejudices. I often wonder to what degree should political figures be allowed the benefits of a modicum of charity when judging them (which, as I have also said, does not excuse them when they commit egregious acts). I guess it becomes a balancing act (thus Kennedy and Clinton get a pass despite their "extracurricular" activities while in office).

Petr

                           

[Alixz]

After all Michael did to be sure that he got what he wanted from life i.e. marrying Natasha and removing himself from the line of succession, I wonder why Nicholas would have automatically thought that Michael would take up the reins of the government without question.
Autocratic thinking dies hard in some and not in others.
I had never thought that Nicholas could have made safe conduct for his family a condition of the abdication.  What an intriguing thought. But I do also believe that he never thought they would need to do more than leave St Petersburg and "retire" to the Crimea. But why he would think that when one remembers the overthrow of monarchs in other countries including Charles II of England and, of course, Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette (Alexandra's "role model") ??
I see a very good point in Elizabeth's remark that Nicholas completely abdicated.  I think it was something he wanted for most of his adult life and perhaps with a different wife who would not have been so determined to preserve, not only her husband's place and her own but also her son's, he might have "abdicated" much earlier.
Maybe not.  Again he had his duty to God and Country, something we, in the 21st century, are a little short on in our leaders.  Maybe duty to one's God no longer matters in politics, but duty to country has been replaced by duty to one's self and one's own ambitions.
I do believe that Nicholas did what he thought was best for Russia.  He had lost control of his government, his army and his family.  He must have been drowning in confusion and doubt.

[TimM]

Charles II of England

You mean Charles I, Alixz.  Charlies II was the king that assumed the throne when they brought the monarchy back after Cromwell's Realm fell apart.

[Rodney_G.]

I'll summarize my (latest) point, then: in February/March 1917, probably long before, Nicholas and Alexandra, unbeknownst to themselves, were cast adrift in a sea of public indifference, at best, and outright hostility, at worst. It's my opinion that they made a political miscalculation in not getting their children out of the country as soon as possible. Perhaps if NII had not suffered some kind of nervous collapse at Mogilev (probably before) he could have made his family's emigration to a neutral country a condition of his abdication. At any rate, I've always thought it strange that Nicholas doesn't seem to have demanded any kind of terms at all, he doesn't seem to have negotiated with the rebels for a safe passage for his family and himself out of the country... He just, as it were, completely abdicated.

I must admit the idea of Nicholas negotiating over his abdication and safe departure never really occurred to me. Mostly because it was  so out of character, and practically and politically  a non-starter. In many respects he never governed from a position of strength of character or confidence, even at the best of times. When confronted at Pskov by Russky (his chief -of-staff?) and the opinions of his Front commanders, he knew it was all over. After protecting his son's condition, he seems content to have let Michael assume the burden of rule.
But as for negotiating a safe departure from danger , or from Russia, he wasn't in any position to demand anything really. On March 1 he was Emperor but his government had fallen in Petrograd and he was a bystander, not in control of anything. Think this : what if he had said ,hell no !to a demand for his abdication. What then ?  It seems likely he would have been forcibly compelled eventually. But in a game of chicken with his top commanders and the Provisional government, he wasn't going to win.
Also, to negotiate a departure deal, he needed a negotiating partner, that is, a party that could fulfill its part of the deal. It was soon apparent that the Prov. Gov. couldn't uphold its  implied commitment to get the  ex-Imperial family ( wholely or in the form of just the children) out of the country. Fate, in the form of a measles outbreak at Tsarskoe Selo , contributed.

There's no denying Nicholas' fatalism and passivity, but I can't condemn him or Alexandra for the awful fate that befell his children later. Sadly,  and ironically, the IF's unity and devotion to each other led them all to share the tragic end that only Nicholas may have deserved.

[Georgiy]

While somewhat off topic, there has been debate about how ordinary people reacted to the Tsar and his family's fate. I have read several contempory accounts that show that ordinary Russians were shocked by the news. One good example is from House by the Dvina: "In August, filtered through from Siberia, came the news of the slaughter of the Royal Family by the sadistic thugs of the Bolshevik Party. Horror and revulsion touched every decent thinking citizen in the town. To execute the weak Tsar and his neurotic wife in this barbaric fashion was bad enough, but to butcher the four young girls and the helpless boy was the work of mindness criminals.  In Churches, people went down on their knees and openly wept as they prayed for the souls of the Tsar and his family."
Even the fact that people were on their knees is telling as to the strong feelings people had, as in Orthodoxy, most prayer is said standing.

[TimM]

Think this : what if he had said ,hell no !to a demand for his abdication. What then ?

He really had no choice, because he had lost the support of the military by then.   Kaiser Wilhem II initially resisted abdicating, until he realized the military would not back him up.  Nicky was in the same position.

[Elisabeth]

I must admit the idea of Nicholas negotiating over his abdication and safe departure never really occurred to me. Mostly because it was  so out of character, and practically and politically  a non-starter. In many respects he never governed from a position of strength of character or confidence, even at the best of times. When confronted at Pskov by Russky (his chief -of-staff?) and the opinions of his Front commanders, he knew it was all over. After protecting his son's condition, he seems content to have let Michael assume the burden of rule.

I think General Ruzsky and Nicholas's other leading generals might very well have been taken aback by the speed and utter abjectness of the tsar's abdication, since after all NII had been defending his autocratic rights for over two decades, against a mounting storm of public criticism, at least from the urban elites (including the middle class). Remember, initially Nicholas made no conditions whatsoever, he merely abdicated in favor of his son Aleksei (March 1, 1917). It was only on the following morning, after consulting with his court physician, Fedorov, that he decided to make it a condition of his abdication that his son the tsarevich be passed over in the succession in favor of his brother, Mikhail Aleksandrovich. So Nicholas actually did make a condition on the terms of his abdication, moreover, it was technically a completely illegal condition, because under existing Russian law he had no right whatsoever to abdicate on behalf of Aleksei Nikolaevich.

But as for negotiating a safe departure from danger , or from Russia, he wasn't in any position to demand anything really. On March 1 he was Emperor but his government had fallen in Petrograd and he was a bystander, not in control of anything. Think this : what if he had said ,hell no !to a demand for his abdication. What then ?  It seems likely he would have been forcibly compelled eventually. But in a game of chicken with his top commanders and the Provisional government, he wasn't going to win.
Also, to negotiate a departure deal, he needed a negotiating partner, that is, a party that could fulfill its part of the deal. It was soon apparent that the Prov. Gov. couldn't uphold its  implied commitment to get the  ex-Imperial family ( wholely or in the form of just the children) out of the country. Fate, in the form of a measles outbreak at Tsarskoe Selo , contributed.

But as I've pointed out, Nicholas did make a condition to his abdication (moreover, an illegal one). But that was it. Instead of negotiating with his captors (after all, he could have made things much more difficult for them), Nicholas took it completely on faith that the new government of Russia, which let's note had not even been formed yet on March 1/2 1917, would permit himself and his immediate family, including the heir, safe passage from revolutionary Russia to Great Britain or some other accommodating Western European country. This is so politically naive. Nicholas, with his oft-proclaimed mistrust of democratic forces, much less revolutionary ones, should have realized this. It's a testimony to his terrible psychological state that he didn't. Because he could easily at this point have made the issue of "safe passage" a condition of his abdication. Indeed, if he had done so, and the PG had been unable or unwilling to fulfill this obligation, then NII would have had absolutely legal grounds to oppose the PG and any government that succeeded it, in the interests of saving his family, or for that matter, regaining his throne (which was clearly Alexandra's objective, judging from her letters, right up until the family's  last days in Ekaterinburg).

There's no denying Nicholas' fatalism and passivity, but I can't condemn him or Alexandra for the awful fate that befell his children later. Sadly,  and ironically, the IF's unity and devotion to each other led them all to share the tragic end that only Nicholas may have deserved.

Why does everybody keep implying that I'm condemning N&A for "the awful fate that befell [their] children"? Ultimately the Bolsheviks bear all the blame for that, as murderers always do bear the blame for killing innocent people. I am merely pointing out that N&A as politicians -- and let's be real, they always wanted to be viewed as serious politicians -- made an entire series of miscalculations that contributed to their children's vulnerability. N&A were not politically astute, to put it mildly.

Obviously I don't agree that we should somehow blame private citizens like Anne Frank's parents for their decisions in keeping their family safe during an unprecedented event like the Holocaust. I brought that up earlier in the discussion.

However, I am pointing out here that Nicholas II and Alexandra Fedorovna were in a completely different situation than the Frank parents. First because the Russian Revolution of February/March 1917 was not a historically unprecedented event -- everybody who was educated in Russia knew that the French Revolution was the precedent and the warning for their own revolution. Secondly, Nicholas and Alexandra were first and foremost politicians, or at least so they imagined themselves, and in fact as emperor and empress of Russia they had wielded very real, indeed immense political power from 1894 until 1917, that is, for over two decades. For over 20 years they had possessed the actual power to affect the course of historical events. Moreover, they continued to believe, even an entire year after NII's abdication, that they were vital to the course of political events in post-revolutionary Russia (c.f., their delusional notion that the Bolsheviks needed NII to sign the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk). So why were they so incredibly naive in February/March 1917? Why didn't NII negotiate for the safe passage out of Russia of his family? Why didn't Alexandra, surrounded by her sick children, take it seriously when one of her oldest servitors at Tsarskoe Selo told her that when the house is burning down, the first people to be taken out are the invalids? Other people could clearly see the writing on the wall, why didn't they, with all their engrained, exaggerated fears of the evils of democracy and intellectuals, liberals and left-wingers and progressives, and so on and so forth?

[Rodney_G.]

A few points, Elisabeth, and I hope you don't mind my not quoting your entire post at length here.
The condition(demanded?) by Nicholas that his brother Michael succeeed him may have been illegal but no one was raising that illegality as a barrier to N's abdication. Certainly not General Ruszky or the other top generals who were consulted. They were all for whatever would get Nicholas to acquiesce. But , importantly,  Nicholas de Basily, effectively the head of the legal department dealing with  Imperial succession raised no objections then and drew up the abdication instrument that Nicholas signed. Significantly, the condition of having Michael assume the throne was really an afterthought, and one determined by a trusted doctor's realistic assessment of Alexei's life expectancy.
Ruzsky and the other top generals may have been taken aback by the speed and abjectness of N's abdication , but they were nevertheless glad of it. They didn't want a fight with their emperor since a loss would have meant removal from their commands ( or worse.) If you're pressing your Emperor to abdicate, and he doesn't, you're in trouble.

Also, Elisabeth, I never said, or implied, that you condemned Nicholas and/or Alexandra for "the awful fate that befell their childtren." In fact I know that you don't . I was just affirming that I didn't either, as might have been ( wrongly) thought , in view of my mention of Nicholas' passivity and fatalism leading to his swift abdication.


I think it's also important to stress that the times were incredibly volatile and events occurred in a context of misinformation and terrible communication. In the last week of the monarchy dramatic events were happening at incredible speed. Almost literally, all hell was breaking loose. That Nicholas , or indeed anyone , could be expected to foresee, much less control the future course of events , is , and was,  too much to expect. The example of the French Revolution notwithstanding, Nicholas wasn't negotiating with Jacobins. He was dealing with his most trusted military advisors, his own chief-of-staff (he was still overall Commander-in-chief at the time) and with no knowledge , or foreknowledge, of actual Bolshevik ( as opposed to merely left-liberal) future strength and what that might portend. I think it's reasonable to assume (and it's saying little enough)  that Nicholas might not have abdicated at all if he had known that his brother would not ascend the throne and that Russia would be governed by a Duma-led Provisional Government.

 I think we're largely agreed , Elisabeth, that Nicholas was psychologically shot, and was doing his best , in his own naive way, to make the most of  a desperate, untenable position. He didn't trust his political opposition, even in its most moderate form, (and he knew first-hand that it might well be radical and murderous).

[Petr]

I think it's also important to stress that the times were incredibly volatile and events occurred in a context of misinformation and terrible communication. In the last week of the monarchy dramatic events were happening at incredible speed. Almost literally, all hell was breaking loose. That Nicholas , or indeed anyone , could be expected to foresee, much less control the future course of events , is , and was,  too much to expect. The example of the French Revolution notwithstanding, Nicholas wasn't negotiating with Jacobins. He was dealing with his most trusted military advisors, his own chief-of-staff (he was still overall Commander-in-chief at the time) and with no knowledge , or foreknowledge, of actual Bolshevik ( as opposed to merely left-liberal) future strength and what that might portend. I think it's reasonable to assume (and it's saying little enough)  that Nicholas might not have abdicated at all if he had known that his brother would not ascend the throne and that Russia would be governed by a Duma-led Provisional Government.

 I think we're largely agreed , Elisabeth, that Nicholas was psychologically shot, and was doing his best , in his own naive way, to make the most of  a desperate, untenable position. He didn't trust his political opposition, even in its most moderate form, (and he knew first-hand that it might well be radical and murderous).

Well put! As I indicated earlier the comparison to LXVI and MA while superficially appealing falls apart because the circumstances were so different. The key was the Army and retaining its loyalty and therein lies perhaps NII's greatest mistake, his assumption of direct control of the Army (with the same results Carter faced when he tried to micro-manage the Iranian rescue). Of course, had the Army been victorious the results might well have been different (likewise if the rescue had succeeded). To the contrary, Reagan's hands off policy in the Iran Contra mess which preserved a modicum of "plausible deniability".

Petr   

[Elisabeth]

Sorry to come down so hard on you, Rodney, in my previous post -- I shouldn't have implied that you were accusing me of blaming N&A for their children's deaths -- but some of the members here have insisted so repeatedly -- and I have admittedly become over-sensitive on the subject as a result.

That said, I don't agree with your argument that "The example of the French Revolution notwithstanding, Nicholas wasn't negotiating with Jacobins. He was dealing with his most trusted military advisors, his own chief-of-staff (he was still overall Commander-in-chief at the time) and with no knowledge , or foreknowledge, of actual Bolshevik ( as opposed to merely left-liberal) future strength and what that might portend." Firstly, Nicholas wrote in his diary the night of his abdication, "All around me I see treason, cowardice, and deceit." Those are very strong words, and they refer to those very same generals, his top military staff, whom you claim he "trusted."

For that matter, I would argue that the precarious situation of N&A, in terms of actual physical safety, is completely similar to that of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette -- particularly and most strongly in the case of Alexandra and Marie Antoinette. You need only look at the alarming level of popular hatred and vitriol directed against them during the last years of their husbands' respective reigns. This hatred was not factually based, it was, dare I say it, practically a form of mass hysteria. The two royal women were such hated figures, in fact, that they could easily have been lynched by the mobs that assailed their palaces -- in Marie Antoinette's case, she almost was, twice (!), before ultimately falling victim to the guillotine.

Furthermore, Nicholas certainly was aware of the Bolshevik political program, as well as the program of the Socialist Revolutionaries (SRs, arguably the most popular political party in Russia at the time, since they had broad peasant support -- and this party was a nest of terrorists). Certainly his Okhrana were aware of these parties' political programs and would have made him aware of them, too, if he needed an education in the matter, which I don't think he did. Face it, throughout his reign NII seems to have regarded anyone who was left of center as a potential regicide. This is understandable psychologically if not politically defensible in a constitutional monarch, because as I and others here have already pointed out in this thread, Nicholas grew up under the shadow of revolutionary assassination. He watched his grandfather die in agony from a revolutionary's bomb and his own father Alexander III was the target of a (failed) assassination plot led by Lenin's own older brother, Aleksandr Ulianov. In addition there was the assassination of his uncle Grand Duke Sergei Aleksandrovich in 1905, the assassination of Stolypin in 1911, as well as numerous other assassinations of political figures, both high and low, that plagued the first years of the twentieth century. Again, I would ask all of you to revisit the question of the rising tide of political violence in Russia. To my mind it was the obvious political trend of the future (so really, why for so long did Lenin and Stalin come as such a big surprise to students of Soviet history?). Any political figure, especially a tsar on the verge of abdicating, had to take political violence into account if he wanted himself and his loved ones to survive a revolution.

[Alixz]

The only thing that might excuse Nicholas is that oft discussed "will of God".  As Elisabeth has said, Nicholas abdicated completely.  I took that to mean not just from the throne but from the life he was brought up in.

He almost dissolved into a pliant non active person.  He expected that God would take care of him and his family and he sat back a waited for that to happen.

It does make one reconsider the train of thought that allows one to go so far in abdicating responsibility for one's actions and then putting one's faith in a God.  Nicholas could have been the creator of the 12 step program.  

First step is admitting that one can not control (one's addiction or compulsion).  

Second Step is recognizing a higher power that can give strength.

Here is the complete 12 step program as taken from the AA Page:

Service Material from the General Service Office
THE TWELVE STEPS OF ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS
1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become unmanageable.

2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.

4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.

5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.

6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.

7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.

8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.

9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.

10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.

11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God, as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.

12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these Steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

Copyright
A.A. World Services, Inc.
Rev.5/9/02


http://www.aa.org/en_pdfs/smf-121_en.pdf

Many of these 12 steps sound a lot like Nicholas and Alexandra and their outlook on life and the "will of God".

[Elisabeth]

Alixz, I do think Nicholas was so abject in his abdication that it raises serious questions about his psychological state. However, I don't think he was a Twelve-Step kind of person, nor was Alexandra -- for one thing, some of the steps were obviously impossible for them to take, given their individual personalities, psychologies, and upbringing:

8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.

9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.

10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.

How often were Nicholas and Alexandra wrong and how often did they admit to it? The answers are FREQUENTLY and NEVER. Whether it's because they were brought up royal or else severely lacking in political astuteness or both (I think both myself), they were almost always wrong about every major political action they took, as events invariably bore out, and yet they don't seem to have ever taken a personal inventory, much less a political one, and admitted to their often lethal mistakes. In their own minds, N&A rarely, perhaps never, did wrong, only other people (usually political figures who wanted to limit N's autocratic powers) were wrong and needed to apologize. They kept this view until the day they died. I think they were all but impervious to logical argument.

It's telling to me that the only regret about his reign that Nicholas ever expressed was after the provisional government was overthrown by the Bolsheviks. Nicholas expressed regret that he had abdicated. Okay, at this point words fail me because this is at one and the same time so utterly typical of the poor man and so utterly politically nonsensical.