Opposition to Tsarist Rule 1914-17: The Impact of War and the February Revolution » The Tsar, the Tsarina and Rasputin

The Tsar goes to the front, 1915

The war damaged more than Russia's army and economy. It also wrecked the Tsar's political position. These are the political effects of the war.

In the summer of 1915 the Russian army was in retreat. Nicholas II decided to act. In September 1915 (late August by Russia's old calendar) he sacked the commander-in-chief, his relative Grand Duke Nicholas, and took the job himself. He left Petrograd for the Stavka at Mogilev, hundreds of kilometres away.

Nicholas believed it was his duty to share the danger with his soldiers and hoped his presence would lift their spirits. The Tsarina and Rasputin also urged him on. Most of his ministers begged him not to go. They were right to worry, for two reasons:

• He now took the blame. Before, people could blame the generals for defeats. Now every defeat was the Tsar's own. He was not a trained general, and the real planning was done by his chief of staff, General Alekseyev, but the responsibility was his.
• He was away from the capital. Cut off at headquarters, Nicholas could not see how angry Petrograd was becoming. He left the running of the government at home largely to his wife.

Key terms:

• Commander-in-chief: the person in overall command of a country's armed forces
• Stavka: the headquarters of the Russian army
• Haemophilia: an illness in which the blood does not clot properly, so bleeding is hard to stop
• Progressive Bloc: the group of Duma parties that joined together in 1915 to demand a change of government
• Elite: the small group of people at the top of society, such as nobles, generals and the royal family

The Tsarina's government

The Tsarina Alexandra was deeply loyal to her husband and believed firmly in autocracy. But she was a poor choice to run the home front.

• She was German-born. Russia was fighting Germany, and many Russians called her 'the German woman'. Rumours spread that she was a German spy. They were untrue, but they were widely believed.
• She distrusted the Duma and any minister who wanted to work with it. In her letters she pressed Nicholas to be firm and to give nothing away.
• She relied on Rasputin for advice about who should be a minister.

The result was chaos. Able ministers were dismissed and replaced by men chosen for their loyalty. Between September 1915 and February 1917 Russia had four prime ministers, five ministers of the interior, three foreign ministers and three ministers of war. People called it 'ministerial leapfrog'.

No minister stayed long enough to solve anything. At the very time Russia needed a strong government to deal with the shortages, it did not have one.

The influence of Rasputin

Grigori Rasputin was a peasant from Siberia who claimed to be a holy man with the power to heal. He was introduced to the Tsar and Tsarina in 1905.

Their only son and heir, Alexei, had haemophilia. A simple fall could cause days of dangerous bleeding, and the doctors could do little. Rasputin seemed able to calm the boy and ease his attacks. Alexandra came to believe that God had sent him to save her son. In her letters she called him 'Our Friend'.

Alexei's illness was kept secret. So most Russians could not understand why a rough peasant was so close to the royal family. Rasputin was also known for heavy drinking and for scandals with women, which shocked the nobility and the Church.

Once the Tsar had left for the front, Rasputin's influence grew:

• He advised the Tsarina on appointments. Men he favoured were given posts, and men who criticised him lost theirs. Alexander Protopopov, made minister of the interior in September 1916, was widely seen as his choice.
• Alexandra passed on his advice in her letters to Nicholas, even on matters of war and food supply.
• Newspapers were not allowed to discuss him freely, so gossip filled the gap. Cartoons showed the Tsar and Tsarina as puppets in his hands. A false rumour said he and the Tsarina were lovers.

Historians point out that the rumours were worse than the truth, and Nicholas often ignored Rasputin's advice. But the damage was real. Rasputin made the royal family look foolish and corrupt, and he destroyed respect for the Tsar among the very people who should have defended him.

Murder, December 1916. A group of nobles decided to save the monarchy by removing him. Prince Felix Yusupov, Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich (the Tsar's cousin) and Vladimir Purishkevich, a right-wing Duma deputy, killed Rasputin at Yusupov's palace in Petrograd. His body was found in the frozen river. The murder showed how far even the Tsar's own relatives had turned against the way Russia was run. It solved nothing, because the government stayed just as weak.

Losing the Duma and the elite

The Tsar could have used the war to win over the Duma. Instead he pushed it away.

• After the defeats, the Duma was called back in the summer of 1915. About two thirds of its deputies, including the Kadets and Octobrists, formed the Progressive Bloc.
• The Bloc was not revolutionary. It wanted to win the war. It asked the Tsar to appoint a government that had the confidence of the country.
• Nicholas refused and suspended the Duma in September 1915.
• In November 1916 the Kadet leader Pavel Milyukov attacked the government in the Duma. He listed its failures one by one and asked each time: 'Is this stupidity or is it treason?' The speech was banned from the newspapers, but copies passed from hand to hand across Russia.

Support drained away at the top too. Nobles and members of the royal family wrote to Nicholas, warning him to change his ministers. Senior generals lost faith in him. He ignored the warnings.

By the start of 1917 the Tsar was almost alone. The middle classes in the Duma, the nobles and the generals had all lost confidence in him. When trouble came, few people would be willing to save him. That story is told in The February Revolution and the Tsar's Abdication.

Exam-style question

Describe TWO features of EITHER the influence of Rasputin OR the effects of inflation on Russia in the years 1914-17. [6 marks]