Could the tsar have survived?

[Gurkhal]

This is from the perspective of someone who is not very well versed in Russian history, but could the tsar have survived the storm that came in 1917, and if not, when were the final steps taken on the path of the fall of the regime?

If needed I can elaborate and precise my question.

Personally I'm pretty much against the concept of things being inevitable, but its something that I'm a bit curious about and so seek the wisdom of more learned minds.

 

[Finnish Dragon]

Let´s assume that Russia would have been unable to avoid WWI because that would be a necessary assumption to do when evaluating the mistakes that Nicholas II made.

1. Nicholas II did assume the supreme leadership of the armies of the Russian Empire. After that all military defeats that Russia suffered could have been put on his shoulders. He also spent a lot of time in military headquarters pretty near the front and didn´t know what was going on in Petrograd.

2. Russia needed to end WWI as fast as possible in order to avoid revolutions and to keep the czar on the throne. The Russian people were war-weary and they needed food in the cities which had serious shortages of food. When people suffer from hunger they are more likely to start riots and even revolutions.

3. Russian soldiers were needed to maintain order in the cities and reserve forces were needed to plant crops. Russia mobilized millions of young men as reserve forces, many of them (if not most) were farmers from the countryside. They were needed plant crops and deliver them to the cities.

4. The War against Japan in 1904-1905 showed that a military defeat in war could have very serious consequences. After that war Russia was at the brink of the revolution. Since WWI was going pretty poorly from Russian point of view there was a serious risk of revolution and this was a possibility Nicholas II ignored. He believed in God and divine right to rule instead of the needs and the wishes of his people.

 

[Vincentst]

I've uploaded to cartoons which are about point 4 of @Finnish Dragon. Since the czar had absolute power, he was also seen as absolutely responsible for the defeat. So not WW1, but Russo-Japanese war. Keep also in mind that Russia was ridiculed in the west. They lost to an "inferior" aka not-white race.

Also, since he was the "autocrator" and as such the "face" of the ancien regime, he "had" to be killed by the radical revolutionaries. If they killed him and his family, the counter-revolution would lose their figurehead.

 

[Eusebio]

After 1905, the general feeling of people inside and outside Russia was that the Tsarist monarchy was doomed. The irony is that WWI in fact gave the regime a brief respite from the massive wave of labour unrest following the Lena Goldfield massacre in 1912, July of 1914 saw 150,000 workers take part in a general strike in St Petersburg. The war was simply the nail in the coffin for a monarchy which had lost popular (and much elite) support well before and was running on fumes.

 

[chepaeff]

He was pretty much betrayed by his generals and Duma opposition. Hard to survive that.

 

[pithorr]

He was pretty much betrayed by his generals and Duma opposition. Hard to survive that.

Wait, it only meant that he was not in charge anymore. Far from the execution...

 

[chepaeff]

Wait, it only meant that he was not in charge anymore. Far from the execution...

Hard to survive when you are not in change and depend on other peoples (hostile at that) will.

 

[pithorr]

Hard to survive when you are not in change and depend on other peoples (hostile at that) will.

Couldn't he just leave Russia after the abdication, but before the Bolshevik coup?

 

[chepaeff]

Couldn't he just leave Russia after the abdication, but before the Bolshevik coup?

Nope he couldn't. He was guarded after all. Plus Provisional Gov refused to let him go to GB (or GB refused to accept him? Its not clear).

 

[Henry IX]

1. Exile Rasputin - he was one of the major causes of the loss of support from the aristocracy and hence the possibility of a 'parliament of unity' controlled by allies of the Tsar.
2. Keep the Tsarina out of power and politics - she was widely loathed by the nation and had a lack of ability in choosing advisors and cabinet members that made Tsar look good.
3. Bring supporters of the autocracy who were opposed to the policy of the government into the government - by widening the group of people involved it would have strengthened the support for the regime as well as possibly increasing the quality of governance.
4. DON"T MOUNT ANY OFFENSIVES IN 1917. If there had been less reasons for the soldier's councils to gain support they could have been repressed more effectively.
5. Don't take command of the military.
6. Start negotiations for a separate peace - you don't need to actually make peace, you just need to extract extra concessions from the French. Plus the A-H Empire was close to collapse at this point, you never know what you could extract.
7. Fix the railways. There was enough food in Russia, but it was not being distributed effectively due to the poor state of the railways and sheer corruption and incompetence of the administration.
8. Get a Duma elected with a limited franchise and give it some powers - it is better to have people in the tent pissing out...

All of this was achievable after 1915 had the Tsar been a little better at his job and less convinced of his own divine right.

 

[pithorr]

Or... just listen to Rasputin not to take part in the Great War incoming

 

[Yakman]

4. The War against Japan in 1904-1905 showed that a military defeat in war could have very serious consequences. After that war Russia was at the brink of the revolution. Since WWI was going pretty poorly from Russian point of view there was a serious risk of revolution and this was a possibility Nicholas II ignored. He believed in God and divine right to rule instead of the needs and the wishes of his people.

Russia underwent a massive revolution in 1905. there was no 'brink' - the country almost collapsed.

As far as the OP goes, the Czardom was doomed by the time jan 1 1917 came around. he was not going to survive, in any capacity as Tsar, unless he had a crystal ball and handed power to Kerensky and gave the people a progressive constitution with himself in the role of a british monarch. but that's almost impossible to imagine.

pretty certain he would have wanted that crystal ball though. alas.

 

[Gurkhal]

Thanks guys for all the replies! It was enlightening to hear on the subject and I feel a bit more educated.

 

[Kgw]

In 1917? Leaving the country. Exile to Sweden, Denmark or Japan ASAP.
But Nicholas II'd have never done that, so...

 

[DoomBunny]

Or... just listen to Rasputin not to take part in the Great War incoming

The main Russian thinking was actually the precise opposite of this in the run up to the war.

In hindsight, yes, it looks as though Russia could have survived by avoiding the confrontation with Austria-Hungary and Germany (though one must also remember that this would both sacrifice Serbia, embolden the Central Powers yet again, and not solve the issue of these two powers both pursuing territorial aggrandizement).

However, the Russian perspective tended to be that Russia simply could not survive if she did not go to war. One has to consider the previous decade; Russia had been engaged in a humiliating war against Japan, been humiliated again when Austria-Hungary annexed Bosnia, and then for a third time she had been made to look a fool during the Balkan Wars. A strong line of thought amongst Russian decision makers was that if Russia backed down again, it would mean the end of the empire, if not physically, then at least in a spiritual sense; Russian prestige would be irrecoverably ruined, her status as a Great Power would be lost, and the Russian narrative of the infallible Tsar, resistance to the modern age, and endless military power, would be shattered both at home and abroad. Hence Russia's stance during the July Crisis was both non-aggressive and firm; Russia did not seek a war, but at the same time if a war was coming then Russia was determined that it would take the blow on the chin in a manly fashion (ideally before promptly ripping the arms off the upstart Austrians and devouring their intestines in some form of delicious potato stew).

Russia underwent a massive revolution in 1905. there was no 'brink' - the country almost collapsed.

As far as the OP goes, the Czardom was doomed by the time jan 1 1917 came around. he was not going to survive, in any capacity as Tsar, unless he had a crystal ball and handed power to Kerensky and gave the people a progressive constitution with himself in the role of a british monarch. but that's almost impossible to imagine.

pretty certain he would have wanted that crystal ball though. alas.

Even if he did have a crystal ball, it's not particularly Tsar like to willingly hand over power.

 

[Grosshaus]

After 1905, the general feeling of people inside and outside Russia was that the Tsarist monarchy was doomed. The irony is that WWI in fact gave the regime a brief respite from the massive wave of labour unrest following the Lena Goldfield massacre in 1912, July of 1914 saw 150,000 workers take part in a general strike in St Petersburg. The war was simply the nail in the coffin for a monarchy which had lost popular (and much elite) support well before and was running on fumes.

Politically there certainly was general feeling within Russia that the Czarist regime needs to go during the decade after 1905. But economically things were meanwhile improving quite well. New factories were built in the cities and infrastructure built around the country with both foreign and domestic funds. Had there been say a decade more of such progress, it would have been harder to get such masses of people to join a revolution.

 

[DoomBunny]

Politically there certainly was general feeling within Russia that the Czarist regime needs to go during the decade after 1905. But economically things were meanwhile improving quite well. New factories were built in the cities and infrastructure built around the country with both foreign and domestic funds. Had there been say a decade more of such progress, it would have been harder to get such masses of people to join a revolution.

A nice little graph; I'm fairly sure it shows railroad construction.

 

[Yakman]

Politically there certainly was general feeling within Russia that the Czarist regime needs to go during the decade after 1905. But economically things were meanwhile improving quite well. New factories were built in the cities and infrastructure built around the country with both foreign and domestic funds. Had there been say a decade more of such progress, it would have been harder to get such masses of people to join a revolution.

?

you do know how classic 19th-20th century revolutions happened, right?

cities got big, factories got built, and BOOM there's your urban working class. they get angry and they take to the streets.

if anything it was the economic success of the Tsar's war efforts which created the storms that destroyed it. Factories were built in the cities and massive infrastructure projects were built. Russia of 1914 couldn't have launched the Brusilov Offensive of 1916. It was two years of intense, rapid industrialization which enabled that effort. Hundreds of thousands of people moved from the farms to the factories. Those same people would side with the provisionals and then the Bolsheviks

So... under your scenario, the exact same thing happens.

After 1905, it was tick, tock, tick, tock...

 

[Eusebio]

Politically there certainly was general feeling within Russia that the Czarist regime needs to go during the decade after 1905. But economically things were meanwhile improving quite well. New factories were built in the cities and infrastructure built around the country with both foreign and domestic funds. Had there been say a decade more of such progress, it would have been harder to get such masses of people to join a revolution.

Economic progress only worsened the stability of the Tsarist regime and increased the call for reform among liberals or revolution from socialists.

 

[The-Doc]

I don't think anything short of an earlier abdication, or at least a de-facto one, could save the Russian monarchy. It was simply impossible for an absolute monarch that rules through favorites and patronage to persist through the 20th century. The places where this kind of government held on longest were those that had been furthest behind the curve of developments: China, Russia, Austria, Turkey, Spain etc.

Monarchies had always been turbulent, but the struggles were usually confined to a certain circle, or localized disturbances that could be quelled.

I'm not quick to jump to explanations of determinism, but I think that after the 18th century when all the developments in communication and travel began to effectively link people together no central and culpable authority could survive.

The ones that did were the ones that could spread out accountability and allowed for internal shifts in power and patronage, ie. the representative forms of government.