Your point about sins of omission, Louis_Charles, is well taken. My main point is that Alexandra's responsibility pales in comparison to Nicholas' responsibility, at least in my opinion.
But I want to add that as far as power-sharing goes, I agree that Alexandra consciously rejected this style of governing Russia until she died. She never changed her mind about that. She realized that Russia wasn't England or Germany, and what worked there, would not necessarily work in Russia. It's too bad that Bush and his cronies were unable to apply the same logic to Iraq.
I agree that they were both in over their heads, and that neither was a particularly good judge of character.
it's off topic but i have to say it: maybe american democracy doesn't work in iraq because iraqis don't want americans telling them what to do. just an opinion.
as for this topic, this is a conversation i've had on another forum and i will again state the points i made there:
alexandra did influence her husband. she may not have been the sole brain behind his decision but you cannot deny that she did. if not in another way then by encouraging his need for isolation that was satisfying her own need for isolation. (and i am talking here about the way the imperial family isolated itself before the first world war...) this isolation alienated nicky not just from the russians but from his own family who were starting to fall apart and not be as united as they used to.
alexandra was intelligent. maybe she was not very well educated but she did have a pretty good intelectual intelligence. however, i must agree with the person that said that she didn't have much social intelligence. she did not know how to judge people, she did not know who people were right to trust and who weren't... and i'm not just talking about rasputin, although he is a good argument for that. i'm talking about how she misjudged the russian people. you can say she was misinformed but that she was because she was listening to the wrong people. we know that ella warned her about what was happening but instead of listening she cooled off her relations with her sister! if anyone was to be completely honest and disinterested around her that would have been ella but alix ignored her. she indeed chose to listen to the wrong people. because they were telling her what she wanted to hear.
the way she chose to ignore all the bad things she heard (and i'm sure she must have heard a lot cause there were a lot to be heard) about rasputin for the sole reason that she believed he could cure her son. she allowed a perverted human being in the presence of her teenage daughters (i believe he was allowed to see them in their bedrooms, even when they were wearing nightgowns!). let's say that nicholas was not influenced by alexandra in choosing rasputin's friends as ministers (although i sincerely doubt it). let's just accept that rasputin's influence on alexandra manifested only in the family. isn't that enough? imagine yourself in one of the girls' shoes. you may not be aware of it, but a perverted man is allowed to be intimate with you because your mother believes he can cure your little brother. even if he can, your mother sacrificed your happiness and well being for your little brother's. imagine there are four girls in that position. i think it's unforgivable to close your eyes to someone like that and allow him into your family like that. for no matter what reason.
the russian revolution could not have been avoided. however, the slaughter could have. look at the list of monarchs who were deposed by revolution and then looked at those of them who were killed in the process: charles 1st of england was initially not even going to be deposed. the revolutionaries just wanted him to rethink some attitudes. he insisted on doing things his way, he became hated and was executed. louis and marie antoinette were killed because they had the image of dancing while then poor man starved. no matter what the truth was, that was the image. that was the reason they were killed. that was the reason nicholas and alexandra were killed: they were personally hated. and i think that hatred was fed by alexandra's irrationality and incapacity of seeing how what she did affected the people around her. i think that the russian revolution would have happened anyway and nicholas and alexandra could have been sent out of the country and left to die. look at other monarchs of the time: charles of austria was deposed, william of germany was deposed. but they were not killed. they tried to come back, both of them, and yet they were not killed. later on, in romania, two kings were deposed, carol and michael. michael is still alive today, his father died a dozen years after he had been deposed. alexander of battenberg lost the throne of bulgaria and yet he lived for years after that. king constantine of greece was twice deposed.
why, out of this long list, were nicholas and alexandra killed? my answer: because they were hated. they, as people. and that was a result of their own mistakes, not of the political conjuncture...
