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The Russian Revolution
The Last of the Czars – Revolution
March 1915 the Russian Army captured a key fort in Poland. But their joy was short lived.
From now until the summer they would suffer defeat after defeat. As desperate as the political
situation was the Czar and his empress Alexandra remained absorbed in their own family life and
the past glories of the Romanovs. But as the tides of history swelled into a title wave they found
themselves right in its course struggling to remain afloat.
Revolution - Part One
Alexandra wrote daily reams to her husband at the front.
“In our archives, her letters alone number over 600 and two-thirds of them were written the
years of the First World War. She sometimes wrote two or three letters a day. Nikki and Alex
wrote to each other in English – their best common language. In a style all of their own frozen
in time.”
1. That summer of 1915, Nikki had his hands full with the front and so his wife began
to try to lighten his mood by helping. How did she try/what did she do to help?
“Please my angel, I have absolutely no faith in Nicholas. I am haunted by our friends wish and
to know that it will be fatal for us and for the country if not fulfilled. You know Nicholas’s
hatred for Gregory is intense. Nobody knows who is emperor now. It is as though Nicholas
settles all, makes the choices and changes.”
At the end of August, 1915 Nicholas summoned his council ministers and told them he was
going to replace Nicholas.
2. How did Rasputin always try to appear to the Empress? What did this lead to?
“People like my grandfather who at the time was governor of Saint Petersburg used to receive
little notes from Rasputin. All his notes used to start the same way – ‘Dear friend, please
appoint so and so’ to whatever Rasputin thought.”
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The Russian Revolution
Governors threw them into the trash. In fact, it is doubtful that Rasputin’s little notes had much
impact on ministerial appointments at all.
3. What is truly important about Rasputin’s role in the Russian Revolution?
If Rasputin was damaging the Czar’s name in the capital, the war was testing his subjects loyalty
throughout the rest of the empire. Wounded soldiers recuperating far from their families were
torn by the letters that started to arrive from home.
“They were writing that, for example, if one had also been drafted that one of them had had to
sell their cow, that the horse wouldn’t work anymore, that there were no men left in the village.
All had been driven away to this carnage and that women were doing the work of horses. Life
had become very hard. There were no supplies left, no cotton or cloth.”
4. The Czar, the little father, tried to keep moral at the front high. However, how was
the Czar really feeling and why?
And to those who saw their Czar at this time, his face betrayed his sense of isolation.
That winter of 1916, the whole family was again reunited with Nicholas in the headquarters at
the front.
5. In December, 1916 what did Rasputin write to the Czar?
In Petrograd, Rasputin’s supposed political influence was brought to the mill of the Czars
political enemies. “One member finally had the courage to say what others were thinking.
6. What were the people thinking?
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The Russian Revolution
Those closest to the Czar felt it was now time to act. The Czar’s first cousin, Grand Duke
Dimitry was to take up the challenge.
If Nicholas would not put an end to Rasputin’s influence, then he would. The plan was to be
masterminded by Felix. Married to the Czar’s niece, he was one of the richest men in Russia and
known for his flamboyant behavior. A more unlikely assassin would have been hard to find.
At the Alexander Palace, the Czarina was frantic upon hearing the dire rumors about Rasputin.
She wrote to Nikki: “You can imagine our feelings, thoughts. Our friend has disappeared. I
cannot and won’t believe that he has been killed. God have mercy.”
Three days later, one of the pairs of goulashes belonging to Rasputin was found on the Petoskey
Bridge. The police began to search the river and soon made a grizzly discovery.
Alexandra was inconsolable. It was her wish that Rasputin be buried in the gardens of the
Alexandra Palace where she could take courage from his spiritual presence.
Nicholas returned from the front to comfort his grief stricken wife, who was by now despised by
her subjects, and bereft by her source of hope. For Nicholas, it was one step closer to the abyss.
After a year commanding his battalions in the brutal war with Germany, Nicholas had made little
headway against the enemy. The fighting was bleeding the nation dry of men, resources and
morale. Before it was all over, this army would suffer millions of casualties. On the home front,
both food and government were bad and in short supply. In the capital – Petrograd, revolution
was brewing.
From their home, the Alexander Palace, outside Petrograd, Alexandra wrote to Nicholas daily.
Even hourly. “The Peter the Great, Ivan the Terrible, crush them all under you. Remember, the
Czar rules. How long? Years – people have told me Russia loves to feel the whip. It’s their
nature. I am fighting for your reign and baby Alexei’s future. We must give a strong country to
baby and dare not be weak for his sake.”
7. Nicholas returned home for Christmas and the New Year – 1917. More than ever
before, this naturally private family withdrew into their own world. But, some of
those closest to the family wrote about it. What did they write?
Not only her heart, but the Romanoff empire itself was about to crumble.
8. What rumor was being said about Alexandra? What was the truth?
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The Russian Revolution
“The family began to realize that in some way the Czar had given up. He had somehow inertly
abdicated probably some six months before the real abdication. He didn’t believe in himself
anymore.”
The relatives were desperate. The Czar’s brother in law, Grand Duke Alexander came to plead
with Nicholas on behalf of the whole dynasty.
The Czars ministers and members of the Duma, or Parliament, believed his passivity would
destroy them all. The chairman of the Duma, was Mikhail Rodzianko.
The man who would eventually emerge as the Russian people’s revolutionary hero was still in
exile. Lenin greeted the new year of 1917 in Europe where he addressed a group of Swiss
workers. He did not know that in 3 months, in his own country, there would be a revolution.
9. Meanwhile, what was going on with Lenin as the strikes and protests in Petrograd
were multiplying?
10. The weather made the strikes and protests worse. Describe what happened.
At this critical point, Nicholas made a decision to leave his strife torn capital and return to the
headquarters of the front. He arrived on Thursday, the 8th of March.
On that very same day, crowds at the capital broke into food shops and helped themselves. By
Saturday, even the traditionally loyal were assuring the demonstrators that they would not use
their guns or whips. Revolution was imminent.
Alexandra wrote despairingly to Nicholas on the very eve of the Russian Revolution – Sunday,
the 11th of March. The 24th of February by the Old Russian calendar – riots were going on in the
streets. The Czar cabled his response to his frantic ministers – that the riots during this difficult
time with Germany be ended tomorrow. His order was useless – a fantasy.
In the very square where Nicholas had unveiled a statue of his father years before, the
Revolution brewing for days now broke out. Spontaneously soldiers and citizens became one.
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The Russian Revolution
The ruling class in Russia had lost without realizing it. – So wrote Alexander Kerensky who was
to become one of the leaders of the new provisional government.
“Soldiers were surrounded by civilians lining up on the opposite side of the street. They wanted
to know what we intended to do with the members of the Czar’s family. They demanded harsh
treatment for them. I said that the most dangerous of them would be kept in custody, but that
under no circumstances was the crowd to take the law into it’s own hands. I insisted that
bloodshed be avoided.”
With revolutionary troops blocking the railway lines the Czar’s only option seemed to be to head
for the small town of Scow where royal troops were said to remain.
On Wednesday, the 14th of March the imperial train slipped into a siding outside of Scow.
Nicholas appealed to his generals for support in vein. The weakened Nicholas would have to
go. It was time to pass on the thrown.
11. The most bitter words came from Nicholas’s uncle Nicholai whom the Czar had
removed from the head of the army. What did Nicholai ask the Czar to do?
Grand Duke Nicholai could not bring himself to say the word – abdicate. It was said by the
courtiers that Nicholas sank into his wife’s arms and wept.