Cooke - The Inward Collapse of the Romanov Dynasty

There are those who claim that Czar Nicholas was brought down by circumstances beyond his control, that he was not to blame for his demise but a series of unrelated events brought about his downfall. However, I would propose that his loss of position, power, and even life was all on his shoulders. In order to explain why I feel the way I do, I will use three main "headings". These topics are, Military, Economic, and Political.

Politically, as Czar, he was mandated by the Divine to rule, at least that was the claim. Because of this, he had to act quickly during times of dissent to prevent people from questioning him. After Bloody Sunday (the event where he ordered the murder of countless protestors outside the palace), he created the Duma to advise him on how to better treat the people. By giving them the bit of hope, he hoped to placate them. However, after giving them hope he makes a classical political error: he doesn't follow through on his promises. Claiming something is easy enough, doing it is another thing altogether. By failing to do what he has promised after already showing he is willing to slaughter his own people, Nicholas shows himself to be a tyrant. And, as history has shown over and over, tyrants cannot last when people are united against them. He made several other interesting blunders: choosing to harbour Rasputin (who was HIGHLY unpopular with most people and downright creepy), leaving his wife in charge while he went to play at soldier (more on this later). These two were a bad idea because his wife (of German descent) was highly unpopular with the people as was Rasputin. Together, they pulled his reputation down even more. And as a politician, he HAD to maintain his image. This pushed him to more rash actions, such as more aggressive war policies, but it was too little too late.

And now for a look at the economics. Money talks, as does food, and these were two things Russia lacked during the rein of the Czar. Most of the people were upset because they had no food, nor money to buy food with. This problem was NOT adequately addressed by the Czar, in fact he seems to have ignored it (writing to someone about how annoying the Duma was with their constant whining about the peasants). This put him in a poor position, because people are capable of suffering repression and are willing to put up with indignities, but when hungry they are willing to take action. The lack of food caused rioting in the streets, which swept up those angered about the political situation of the country. As you can see, things begin to snowball. First the political problems on the home front, then the economic problems. The final aspect, the military aspect, was the first to start and the last to take full effect.

From a militaristic perspective, the Russo-Japanese war was one of the worst things that could happen. As a cadet in ROTC, I can attest to the importance of Esprit de corp. Esprit de corp is a pride that holds a unit (even one as large as an army) together, and the loss to Japan in the Russo-Japan war was a huge hit to the military pride of Russia. Because of this defeat, the military is already on rocky ground, such an embarrasment would not have reflected well on them OR their leaders, who are now looking for someone to blame. At the start of WWI, the Russians believe they have a chance to redeem themselves. As the war continues however, the army takes loss after loss due to the poorly trained and equipped troops (in the rock-paper-scissor game of war, rock loses to gun), which prompts the Czar himself into action. Attempting to keep his military happy in a rather warped way, Nicholas takes control of the army himself despite having no background in command. He manages to botch things even worse, which causes the army itself to turn against him.

By angering the people with economic problems such as shortage of food, shortage of money, jobs and a host of other things, political blunders such as not following through with promises and allowing his people to question him, and by irking the military by making a fool of it, Czar Nicholas II set himself up for revolution quite masterfully. I feel quite confident that any outside influences started inside from one of Nicholas' many missteps.