Nicholas and Alexandra: The Classic Account of the Fall of the Romanov Dynasty

by Robert K. Massie

  Gregory Rasputin was one of the most extraordinary and enigmatic men to appear on earth. He was an overwhelming personality and a superbly convincing actor. He had prodigious physical strength and caroused night and day at a pace that would kill a normal man. His physical presence projected enormous magnetism: prime ministers, princes, bishops and grand dukes as well as society women and peasant girls had felt his powerful attraction and, when the relationship soured, had been as powerfully repelled.

  Now, all of the terrible power of this remarkable personality was concentrated on a single objective: convincing the Empress that he was as she saw him, the pure, devoted Man of God, sprung from the soil of peasant Russia. Because of his painstaking care, Alexandra never saw him as anything else. His superb performance was strongly enhanced by the miracles she had seen take place at the bedsides of Alexis and Anna. Whenever he felt himself threatened, Rasputin skillfully played on the Empress’s fears and her religious nature. “Remember that I need neither the Emperor or yourself,” he would say. “If you abandon me to my enemies, it will not worry me. I am quite able to cope with them. But neither the Emperor nor you can do without me. If I am not there to protect you, you will lose your son and your crown within six months.” Even had she begun to doubt the starets’s purity, Alexandra—having been through Spala and the nosebleed on the train—was not willing to take risks. Rasputin must be what he said he was and he must stay with her or her world would collapse.

  Shrewdly, Rasputin secured his position and enhanced his hold by meeting the Empress’s more prosaic need for constant reassurance and encouragement. His conversation and telegrams were an artful blend of religion and prophecy, often sounding like the gloriously meaningless forecasts which fall from penny machines at county fairs: “Be crowned with earthly happiness, the heavenly wreaths will follow.… Do not fear our present embarrassments, the protection of the Holy Mother is over you—go to the hospitals though the enemies are menacing—have faith.… Don’t fear, it will not be worse than it was, faith and the banner will favor us.” Blurred though these messages were, the Empress, weary and harassed, found them comforting.

  Politically, Rasputin’s advice was usually confined to carefully endorsing policies which the Empress already believed in, making certain that the idea was rephrased in his own language so that it would seem freshly inspired. Where his ideas were in fact original and specific, they accurately and realistically represented peasant Russia. Throughout the war, he warned of the bloodletting. “It is getting empty in the villages,” he told the Tsar. Yet, when challenged by Paléologue that he had been urging the Tsar to end the war, Rasputin retorted, “Those who told you that are just idiots. I am always telling the Tsar that he must fight until complete victory is won. But I am also telling him that the war has brought unbearable suffering to the Russian people. I know of villages where there is no one left but the blind and the wounded, the widows and the orphans.”

  As the war continued, Rasputin, like Lenin, saw that along with peace the other predominant concern of the Russian people was bread. He recognized that the shortage of food was mainly a problem of distribution, and never ceased to warn the Empress that the most critical of Russia’s problems was the railways. At one point in October 1915, he urged Alexandra to insist that the Tsar cancel all passenger trains for three days so that supplies of food and fuel might flow into the cities.

  When it came to the choice of ministers to rule the country, the area in which he exercised his most destructive influence, Rasputin had no design at all. He nominated men for the highest positions in the Russian government simply because they liked him, or said they liked him, or at the very least did not oppose him. Rasputin had no burning ambition to rule Russia. He simply wished to be left untroubled in his free-wheeling, dissolute life. When powerful ministers, despising his influence over the Empress, opposed him, he wanted them out of the way. By placing his own men in every office of major importance, he could ensure, not that he would rule, but that he would be left alone.

  In time, every appointment in the highest echelon of the government ministries and in the leadership of the church passed through his hands. Some of Rasputin’s choices would have been comical except that the joke was too grim. Rasputin once found a court chamberlain named A. N. Khvostov dining at the nightclub Villa Rode. When the gypsy chorus began to sing, Rasputin was not satisfied; he thought the basses much too weak. Spotting Khvostov, who was large and stout, he clapped him on the back and said, “Brother, go and help them sing. You are fat and can make a lot of noise.” Khvostov, tipsy and cheerful, leaped onto the stage and boomed out a thundering bass. Delighted, Rasputin clapped and shouted his approval. Not long afterward, Khvostov unexpectedly became Minister of Interior. His appointment provoked Vladimir Purishkevich, a member of the Duma, to declare in disgust that new ministers now were asked to pass examinations, not in government, but in gypsy music.

  Similarly, Rasputin’s ardent endorsement of the Empress’s belief in autocracy was at least in part self-defensive. Only under a system in which his patron and patroness were all-powerful would he survive. He resisted the demands of those in the Duma and elsewhere who urged responsible government, because the first act of such a government would have been to eliminate him. Furthermore, Rasputin honestly did not believe in responsible government. He did not believe that the Duma members or Rodzianko, their President, represented the real Russia. Certainly they did not represent the peasant Russia from which he had sprung. He believed in the monarchy not simply as an opportunist, but because it was the only form of government known in the villages. Traditionally, the peasants looked to the Tsar. Aristocrats, courtiers, landowners—precisely the men who sat in the Duma—were the classes which, historically, had barred the peasants’ access to the Tsar. Seen in this light, it became the Duma members, not Rasputin, who were the unscrupulous opportunists trying to steal the Tsar’s powers. To give the Duma more power than it had, to further dilute the role of autocracy, would bring to an end the old, traditional Russia of Tsar, Church and People. Rasputin understood this and resisted it. “Responsible government,” wrote the Empress to the Tsar, “as our Friend says, would be the ruin of everything.”

  How did Nicholas regard these ardent, persistent letters exhorting him to choose this or that minister and, above all, to believe more in “our Friend”? There were times when he reacted by quietly ignoring her advice, wrapping himself in a mantle of silence, avoiding direct answers and calmly going his own way. The very vociferousness of Alexandra’s letters is evidence that she was often dissatisfied with his response; had she truly been ruling the empire and Nicholas merely a pawn executing her commands, these insistent, repetitive exhortations would not have been necessary.

  But if Nicholas did not always gratify his wife’s entreaties, he rarely confronted her with an overt refusal. This was especially true in any matter involving Rasputin. Toward the starets, the Tsar’s own attitude was one of tolerant respect tinged with an amiable skepticism. At times, he confessed himself soothed by Rasputin’s semi-religious chatter. Leaving for the front in March 1915, he wrote to Alexandra, “I am going with such a calm in my soul that I am myself surprised. Whether it is because I had a talk with our Friend or because of the newspaper telling of the death of Witte [who had died of a stroke at sixty-seven] I don’t know.” On other occasions, Nicholas was annoyed at Rasputin’s intrusion into political matters and begged his wife “do not drag our Friend into this.”

  Nevertheless, when the Empress threw herself at him verbally, pleading that he follow the advice of “the Man of God,” Nicholas often bowed. He knew very well how much she counted on the presence and prayers of Rasputin; he had seen with his own eyes what had happened at the bedsides of Alexis and Anna. To comfort her, encourage her and appease her fears, he endorsed her suggestions and recommendations. This relationship was greatly accentuated once Nicholas had left for Headquarters. Then, having left the management of internal affairs in the Empress’s hand
s, Nicholas regularly deferred to her suggestions in the appointment of ministers. And it was her choice of ministers, proposed by Rasputin, beseechingly pressed on and unwisely endorsed by the absentee Tsar, which lost the Tsar his throne.

  * A novel explanation of Rasputin’s two violently contrasting images—the holy man and the debauchee—is offered by Maria Rasputin in her book, Rasputin, My Father. According to this faithful daughter, her saintly father’s good name was blackened by the monstrous device, concocted by the Tsar’s enemies, of hiring an actor who resembled the starets and instructing him to debauch himself in the most obscene manner in the most public places. It is a dutiful effort, but it breaks under the weight of contrary evidence.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  The Government Disintegrates

  IN the early autumn of 1915, Alexandra Fedorovna had been Empress of Russia for twenty-one years. During this time, she had shown little interest in politics and no personal ambition. Except in defense of Rasputin, she rarely even mentioned government affairs to the Tsar. She scarcely knew her husband’s ministers and, during the first decade of her marriage, held them completely in awe. In 1905, Count Fredericks persuaded her with difficulty to speak to the Tsar on a political matter. When he came back and asked her a second time, Alexandra burst into tears. After her son was born and Rasputin appeared, she intervened when he seemed threatened. Then her power could become formidable: Kokovtsov’s dismissal as Premier was primarily her work. But she remained shy and silent in the presence of the ministers and she still had no experience in government affairs.

  All this changed when Nicholas took command of the army. Then the gap he left behind in the civil administration was filled by his wife. It was not a formal regency; rather, it was an almost domestic division of family duties. As such, it was wholly within the tradition of the Russian autocracy. “When the Emperor went to war, of course his wife governed instead of him,” said Grand Duke Alexander, explaining what he considered a natural sequence of events.

  That Nicholas regarded her role in this light is clear from his letters. “Think, my wify, will you not come to the assistance of your hubby now that he is absent,” he wrote cheerfully after leaving for Headquarters. “What a pity that you have not been fulfilling this duty long ago or at least during the war.” On September 23, 1916 (O.S.), he said, “Yes, truly, you ought to be my eyes and ears there in the capital while I have to stay here. It rests with you to keep peace and harmony among the Ministers—thereby you do a great service to me and to our country.… I am so happy to think that you have found at last a worthy occupation. Now I shall naturally be calm and at least not worry over internal affairs.” And the next day: “You will really help me a great deal by speaking to the ministers and watching them.” When she felt unsure and apologized for her presumption, he reassured her: “There is nothing to forgive you for, on the contrary, I must be deeply grateful to you for so far advancing this serious matter by your help.”

  Once the Tsar had asked for her help, Alexandra threw herself into the task. To “keeping peace and harmony among the ministers” and managing internal affairs, she brought the same intense devotion and narrow stubbornness she had shown in fighting for the life of her son. Lacking experience, she made numerous, outsized mistakes. She groped blindly for people and facts, unable to verify what she was told, often depending on the impressions of a single short interview. As she went along, her self-confidence improved, and it was a personal triumph when in September 1916 she delightedly wrote to the Tsar, “I am no longer the slightest bit shy or afraid of ministers and speak like a waterfall in Russian.”

  Rasputin was not only her advisor, he was also her yardstick for measuring other men. “Good” men esteemed Rasputin’s advice and respected him. “Bad” men hated him and made up disgusting stories about him. The work of “good” men would be blessed, and therefore they should be appointed to high office. “Bad” men were sure to fail, and those already in office should be driven out. Alexandra did not particularly care whether a prospective minister had special aptness or expertise for his new role. What mattered was that he be acceptable to the Man of God. It was far more important that he like Rasputin than that he understand anything about munitions or diplomacy or the distribution of food.

  Every new candidate for the Council of Ministers was scrutinized and measured in this manner: “He likes our Friend.… He venerates our Friend.… He calls our Friend Father Gregory.… Is he not our Friend’s enemy?” Unlike the Duma, whose very existence she considered a stain on the autocracy, the Empress accepted the Council of Ministers as a legitimate institution. Ministers, appointed by the Tsar and responsible only to him, were necessary to govern the country. What Alexandra could not abide were ministers who opposed the autocratic will. Any sign that a minister disagreed with the Tsar made her suspicious; the thought that ministers and Duma might be working together drove her frantic.

  For her, the ideal minister was personified by the aged Prime Minister, Ivan Goremykin. Having stepped down as Prime Minister in 1906 to make way for Stolypin, Goremykin had been restored to power before the outbreak of war. Now seventy-six and in failing health, Goremykin had no illusions about his role. As far back as 1896, Pobedonostsev had written to Nicholas that Goremykin needed a rest, otherwise “he would not last throughout the winter.” Goremykin had repeatedly asked—and been denied—permission to resign. “The Emperor can’t see that the candles have already been lit around my coffin and that the only thing required to complete the ceremony is myself,” he said mournfully.

  Nevertheless, Goremykin’s stubborn, old-fashioned views of autocracy and the role of the minister were much too rare and valuable for him to be let go. “I am a man of the old school and an Imperial Command is for me a law,” he declared. “To me, His Majesty is the anointed one, the rightful sovereign. He personifies the whole of Russia. He is forty-seven and it is not just since yesterday that he has been reigning and deciding the fate of the Russian people. When the decision of such a man is made and his course of action is determined, his faithful subjects must accept it whatever may be the consequences. And then let God’s will be fulfilled. These views I have held all my life and with them I shall die.” Not surprisingly, the Empress was delighted with Goremykin, whom she always affectionately called the “Old Man.” “He sees and understands all so clearly and it is a pleasure speaking to him,” she declared.

  Just how unique Goremykin and his views of autocracy were became glaringly apparent in the severe ministerial crisis which followed the Tsar’s decision to take command of the army. Of all the ministers, Goremykin alone supported his master’s decision. In vain, he urged them, “I call upon you, gentlemen, in the face of events of extraordinary importance to bow to the will of His Majesty, to lend him your full support in the moment of trial, and to devote all your powers to the service of the Sovereign.” When they refused, he said wearily, “I beg you to inform the Emperor that I am not fitted for my position and that it is necessary to appoint a man of more modern views in my place. I shall be grateful to you for the service.”

  Instead, the majority of the ministerial council decided that, as the Tsar refused to heed its advice, there was nothing to do but resign. “It is our duty,” declared Sazonov, the Foreign Minister, “… to tell the Tsar frankly that under existing conditions we cannot govern the country, that we cannot serve conscientiously and that we are doing harm to the country.… The Cabinet cannot perform its functions while it does not enjoy the confidence of the Sovereign.” A collective letter of resignation, signed by eight of the thirteen ministers, was addressed to the Tsar. It had no effect whatsoever. Nicholas summoned the ministers to Headquarters and told them that until he saw fit to replace them, they were not permitted to resign.

  A few days later, in a letter to Alexandra, he ruminated on the gap between himself and his ministers. “The behavior of some of the Ministers continues to amaze me. After all I told them at that famous evening sitting, I thought they und
erstood … precisely what I thought. What matter—so much the worse for them. They were afraid to close the Duma—it was done. I came away here and replaced N. [Grand Duke Nicholas] in spite of their advice; the people accepted this move as a natural thing and understood it as we did. The proof—numbers of telegrams which I receive from all sides with the most touching expressions. All this shows me clearly one thing: that the Ministers always living in town, know terribly little of what is happening in the country as a whole. Here I can judge correctly the real mood among the various classes of people.… Petrograd and Moscow constitute the only exceptions on the map of the fatherland.”

  The Empress was less interested in finding excuses for ministerial behavior than she was in driving each man who had signed the letter out of office. Thus, the next sixteen months saw a sad parade of dismissals, reshuffles and intrigues. In that time, Russia had four different prime ministers, five ministers of interior, four ministers of agriculture and three ministers of war. “After the middle of 1915,” wrote Florinsky, “the fairly honorable and efficient group who formed the top of the bureaucratic pyramid degenerated into a rapidly changing succession of the appointees of Rasputin. It was an amazing, extravagant, and pitiful spectacle, and one without parallel in the history of civilized nations.”

  Two of the signers, Prince Shcherbatov, the Minister of Interior, and Samarin, the Procurator of the Holy Synod (Minister of Religion), went quickly, dismissed without explanation early in October. Krivoshein, the Minister of Agriculture, left in November, and Kharitonov, the State Controller, departed in January. The next to go, in February 1916, was the faithful Goremykin. “The ministers do not wish to work well with old Goremykin … therefore, on my return some changes must take place,” had written Nicholas. At first, the Empress was reluctant. “If in any way you feel he hinders, is an obstacle for you, then you better let him go,” she wrote, “but if you keep him he will do all you order and try to do his best.… To my mind, much better clear out ministers who strike and not change the President who with decent, energetic, well-intentioned … [colleagues] can serve still perfectly well. He only lives and serves you and your country and knows his days are counted and fears not death of age, or by knife or shot.” Rasputin also hated the idea of losing Goremykin: “He cannot bear the idea of the Old Man being sent away, has been worrying and thinking over that question without end. Says he is so very wise and when others make a row … he sits merely with his head down—it is because he understands that today the crowd howls, tomorrow rejoices, that one need not be crushed by the changing waves.”