What caused the fall of Nicolas II and the Russian Empire?

Answer 1

Nicholas II was the last Tsar of Russia who also claimed the title of Grand Duke of Finland and King of Poland. His official title was Nicholas II, Emperor and Autocrat of all the Russia's and he ruled from 1894 until his abdication in 1917. His rise and fall can be attributed, as all great mythology teaches us, from his own hubris. There were, however, many social, economic and political factors that led to the fall of Nicholas II and the Russian Empire. Indeed, at the time of Nicholas II birth, the seeds of revolution were already fomenting as subversive Russian literature promulgated by such groups as The Decembrist's, The Petrashevsky Circle and by a man named Mikhail Bakunin, had become the popular Propaganda of young students at Russian Universities.

As Nicholas II was born in 1868, a young man by the name of Sergey Nechayev was attending St. Petersburg University, (although not officially enrolled), and had become well acquainted with the subversive literature so popular with Russian students. Between 1868-1869, Nechayev led a radical minority with another political dissenter Petr Tkachev and together with this group they devised the Program of Revolutionary Activities which advocated social revolution as the ultimate goal. It was here that Nechayev wrote the Catechism of a Revolutionary, that would haunt Nicholas II and his family for the rest of his life.

The Catechism of a Revolutionary consisted of 26 rules or laws for the revolutionary to live by. In the History of Anarchism by Peter Marshall, Nechayev's Catechism is described as one of the most repulsive documents written in the history of terrorism. This document reflected a significant amount of Russian Revolutionary thought. Indeed, Vladimir I. Lenin openly admired Nechayev and Fyodor Dostoevsky modeled his character Verkhovensy of the Possessed after this man. After the Bolshevik Revolution Nechayev was hailed as a hero and several books, essays, articles and poems were written about him. The effect Nechayev had on the fall of the Russian Empire and Nicholas II demise can not be overlooked and his own words from the Catechism of a Revolutionary give remarkable insight into the commitment of the revolutionary cause.

In a Catechism of a Revolutionary, Nechayev wrote:

"The Revolutionist is a doomed man. He has no private interests, no affairs, sentiments, ties, property nor even a name of his own. His entire being is devoured by one purpose, one thought, one passion - the revolution. Heart and soul, not merely by word but by deed, he has severed every link with the social order and with the entire civilized world; with the laws, good manners, conventions, and morality of that world. He is its merciless enemy and continues to inhabit it with only one purpose - to destroy it."

He urged the revolutionary to learn the arts and sciences of mechanics, physics, chemistry and even medicine and above all to learn the "living science of men" for one purpose only, which was the quickest and surest way to destroy "this filthy system". With such powerful and evocative words, young Nicholas II never really stood a chance with his own beliefs in absolute autocracy and the divine right of rule. But the political turmoil and seeds of revolution were not caused by Nicholas and his own hubris came long after Nechayev had died alone in a prison cell in 1882 twelve years before Nicholas II was crowned Tsar of Russia.

At the age of twenty six years old, Nicholas' II father Alexander III died unexpectedly leaving the throne to an ill prepared son who reportedly asked his cousin; "What is going to happen to me and all of Russia?" The answer to that question came slowly but surely as Nicholas went about the business of administrating the affairs of Russia. His father Alexander III had spent a great deal of his rule formulating policy and Nicholas remained faithful to much of his fathers visions while focusing on the minutia of administration.

Soon after Nicholas II ascended the throne he was petitioned by a deputation of various towns people comprised of farmers, laborers and peasants who urged the new Tsar to lead Russia towards a constitutional Monarchy but Nicholas turned his back on them responding with strong language that said: "I want everyone to know that I will devote all my strength to maintain, for the good of the whole nation, the principle of absolute autocracy, as firmly and as strongly as did my late lamented father." This attitude only strengthened the view of peasants and towns people that Nicholas was ignorant and indifferent to the needs of the people and the problems of political and social life for the poor.

So, early on as the Tsar, Nicholas II earned an unpopular position among many of the people. Indeed, in 1895, Vladimir I. Lenin was arrested as a political dissident for his efforts in revolutionary causes and spent fourteen months in the infamous cell 193 of the St. Petersburg Remand Prison. Of course, Nicholas could not know at this time that such an action only cemented Lenin's cause, and it is doubtful he even knew who Lenin was at that time. Just a few months later, in May of 1896, while Lenin languished in a prison cell, Nicholas II was officially crowned as Tsar of all of the Russia's in an elaborate and costly ceremony as the discontent of people stricken with poverty in this land continued to grow.

While the early years of Nicholas' II reign was not much more than a continuation of his fathers policies and goals, Nicholas did preside over the restoration of the gold standard for Russian currency and the building of the Great Siberian Railway which contributed to better trade in the Far East. He continued with his fathers efforts to strengthen ties between Russia and France and advocated a general policy of pacification with the rest of Europe which culminated in the now famous Hague Peace Conference which was among the first efforts at devising a reasonable expectation of rules of engagement and rules of war. Any expectation of a reign of peace on Nicholas' II part was, however, shattered by the unexpected attack of by Japan on the Russian Far East Fleet three hours before the Japanese made a formal declaration of war.

Nicholas II was stunned by the attack and couldn't believe that it had been made without a formal declaration of war. His own advisor's had assured him the Japanese did not have it in them to attack. The Japanese, however, had just recently emerged from years of isolation as an industrial power in their own right and were adamant about preserving their sovereignty and obtaining an equal status with the Western powers. Japan had already been embroiled in the Sino-Japanese War hoping to secure China and Korea as essential buffers that would serve their national security but Russia convinced Germany and France to join them in what is now known as the Triple Intervention in April of 1895 which forced Japan to concede much of what they had gained.

Russia's own ambitions of an increasing empire was more than alarming the Japanese. It was the building of the Trans-Siberian Railway to Port Arthur that became the focal point of concern and directly led to the infamous Boxer Rebellion of which both Japan and Russia became part of the Eight Nation Alliance formed to intervene in the Boxer Rebellion. Russian had sent troops to Manchuria to secure its own interests but assured the alliance they would leave Manchuria once the rebellion had subsided. When it was over, Russia did not leave and Japan became even more agitated.

Japan had made several attempts at negotiations showing a willingness to concede Manchuria for control of Korea. With each attempt, Nicholas and his advisor's gave no response to Japans desire for control of Korea and on February 8th of 1904, Japan organized a sneak attack on the Russian fleet and eight days later Russia declared war on Japan. After many misadventures and lost battles the once great Russian Far East Fleet was reduced to near annihilation after the Battle of Tushima Strait and because of an uncompleted Trans Siberian Railway the army on land suffered many logistical problems. After Port Arthur fell to the Japanese, Nicholas II accepted mediation by the Americans and by mid 1905 the Russo-Japanese war had ended with the Treaty of Portsmouth.

The seeming confidence that Czar Nicholas showed entering the war combined with a seeming ineptness for military strategy and finally losing the war only exasperated many people in Russia and the defeat revealed an autocratic failure too out of touch with his own people. By 1905 the long called for peoples revolution finally began as the bewildered Tsar stood by a nation in turmoil while his uncle the Grand Duke Sergei was killed by a bomb leaving the Kremlin. The same Nicholas II who asked his cousin upon ascending the throne what would become of him and Russia now sadly lamented in a letter to his mother:

"It makes me sick to read the news! Nothing but strikes in schools and factories, murdered policemen, Cossacks and soldiers, riots, disorder, mutinies. But the ministers, instead of acting with quick decision, only assemble in council like a lot of frightened hens and cackle about providing united ministerial action... ominous quiet days began, quiet indeed because there was complete order in the streets, but at the same time everybody knew that something was going to happen - the troops were waiting for the signal, but the other side would not begin. One had the same feeling, as before a thunderstorm in summer! Everybody was on edge and extremely nervous and of course, that sort of strain could not go on for long.... We are in the midst of a revolution with an administrative apparatus entirely disorganized, and in this lies the main danger."

This disorganization of an administrative apparatus directly led to the now infamous Bloody Sunday of the 22nd of January of 1905. While the reports of more than four thousand citizens killed that day is most likely greatly exaggerated, the Czar's officials gave a count of ninety six people dead and three hundred and thirty three injured and moderate figures put the dead as high as one thousand, the actual body count remains unknown. And even though after the incident Nicholas II wrote in his diary; "A painful day. Serious disorders took place in Petersburg when the workers tried to come to the Winter Palace. The troops have been forced to fire in several parts of the city and there are many killed and wounded. Lord, how painful and sad this is.", many of the people in the streets that day were reportedly heard shrieking; "The Tsar will not help us!" It was this fateful day that foreshadowed the doom of the Tsarist regime and Nicholas' II own demise. Indeed, the future Labour Prime Minister, Ramsey MacDonald, seized that moment to declare the Czar a "blood-stained creature and a common murderer" and earned Nicholas II the unenviable moniker of Bloody Nicholas. By November of that year, Vladimir Lenin had returned from his exile from Russia to aid in the Revolution and the Tsar's own begrudging attitude toward the Dumas, a faux advisory body to the Monarch forged by the October Constitution did little to assuage the people. Yet by 1907 Nicholas had manged to quell the revolution and Lenin went back into exile and the Czar had hopes for the peace he had for so long advocated.

Of course, the peace that Nicholas yearned to see was only a veneer of simmering rage among the people and a useless salve for his own inner turmoil as he watched his youngest, his only son Alexi, struggle with hemophilia as the gathering storm that rained across Europe whispered softly of rumors of war. Then came the assassination of Archduke Francis Ferdinand in 1914 and brought about the crumbling of the Triple Alliance and Triple Entente, secret treaties made by rivaled nations, and drug the Tsar smack dab in the middle of World War I. For Russia, World War I was a total disaster. Although Nicholas was strongly advised against mobilizing his troops and even though the Tsar had no contingency plans for a partial mobilization let alone a full scale mobilization, Nicholas put the Russian army on alert and Germany and Austria interpreted this as a declaration of war.

It was not, of course, a declaration of war and Russia had little to gain by entering into the conflict between the Slavic countries and Germany and Austria. Yet, Nicholas kept blundering any negotiations of peace and by August 1st 1914 Germany made its formal declaration of war and an Ill prepared Russia was led to war by an immensely unpopular Monarch who knew little of the strategies of war. Logistically it was a foolish nightmare for the Czar and his army as the Russian troops had to traverse more than 800 miles, (1,290km), to reach the front as opposed to the Germans who traveled less than a quarter of that distance. The munitions available to Russian troops was ridiculously inadequate and the heavy industry required to supply Nicholas' army was pathetically wanting.

In spite of the clear signs that made it easy to predict a Russian failure, Nicholas forged ahead and ordered an attack on the German army in East Prussia but the Germans were quick to mobilize and handily defeated two of the Russian army invaders. It was the Battle of Tannenberg where Nicholas met his own Waterloo and practically his entire army was annihilated and many of his loyal officers, so desperately needed to protect the Romanov dynasty, were killed, casting a dark and ominous shadow over the Tsarist regimes future. The losses of Russian troops fighting on the Eastern Front was devastating, compelling a retreating General Denkin from Galicia to write: "The German heavy artillery swept away whole lines of trenches, and their defenders with them. We hardly replied. There was nothing with which we could reply. Our regiments, although completely exhausted, were beating off one attack after another by bayonet .... Blood flowed unendingly, the ranks became thinner and thinner and thinner. The number of graves multiplied. Total losses for the spring and summer of 1915 amounted to 1,400,000 killed or wounded, while 976,000 had been taken prisoner." The fall of Warsaw and the humiliating retreat of the decimated Russian army only further fueled the discontent at home and Nicholas only compounded the problem further by dismissing the much respected and more experienced Nikolai Nikolevich as Commander in Chief and assuming that role himself. The hubris of this deadly move made him directly responsible for all further losses in the war, took him to the front and away from his own government, leaving his wife Alexandra to represent the Tsarist regime. Alexandra, in an attempt to save her ailing son, had made a fiercely loyal friendship with the "mad monk" Grigori Rasputin who was not at all liked by the common people and feared even more. This coupled with Alexandra's German background and the wild rumors of an illicit affair with Rasputin generated accusations of treason for the Tsar's wife and the damage Rasputin had done in is ill advisement of war to Nicholas only brought about his own murder by a group of nobles led by Prince Yusupov in response to Nicholas failure to act more judiciously.

The cost of war and the increasing hardship of the Russian people triggered off a series of riots and rebellions while Nicholas stayed entrenched in his military campaign leaving the inadequate Alexandria to govern a discontented people. To even further mire himself in his own hubris, the Tsar who had foolishly listened to the bad advise of inept counselors also had a tendency to ignore the advice of competent allies, including that of British Ambassador Sir George Buchanan, who warned Nicholas II that constitutional reforms were necessary to stave off impending revolution. With his own government left for the prey of political intrigue and insurrections, the Russian Empire was on the verge of a complete and total collapse. The farmers of the land had been conscripted to fight the imprudent World War I and food prices kept rising as the price of eggs had risen to four times the cost they were in 1914 and butter five times the amount. The severe winters Russia was prone to having crippled the railways and delivered the Tsarist regime its final blow. That combined with the ill conceived notion that prohibition of alcohol would boost patriotism only helped to diminish the necessary income to the governments treasury hindering any needed funding of the war effort and leaving no room for any needed social policies.

On February 23rd of 1917, the severe winter and increasing food shortages led to open pillaging by the people of the shops and bakery's in Petrograd. This led to the police shooting pillagers from the rooftops and that was followed by an enraged populace rioting in the streets carrying the red banners of a would be communist nation, chanting disparaging remarks about Alexandria and her husband. The end of this "February Revolution" brought about Nicholas' II abdication of the throne and while he tried to pass the throne to brother the Grand Duke Micheal, the provisional government rejected this manifesto, Micheal declined the throne until the people could vote for a continuance of Monarch rule.

These series of events brought Lenin back from exile and he quickly assumed leadership of the Bolsheviks urging them to completely reject the provisional government. This was a crafty move by Lenin as the people were bound to find disillusion in the provisional government and by opposing them the Bolsheviks accepted no responsibility for those failures. While his artfulness was clearly evident, these were desperate times for the Russian people and much intrigue and chaos followed even forcing Lenin to flee, once again, to Finland until the Bolsheviks could secure the support of the hungry peasants. A botched coup attempt by General Komilov, rallied the masses to the side of the Bolsheviks and Lenin, ever the opportunist returned just in time for the October Revolution where he declared; "All power to the Soviets!" and commanded the provisional government be overthrown and on the night of October 7th, Lenin and his Bolsheviks stormed the Winter Palace and ushered in the age of Soviet rule.

Nicholas and his family were imprisoned and while the former Czar clung to the belief that he would be rescued by loyalist's to the throne, on the night of July 16th he and his family were brought down into the basement of the two story house where they were imprisoned and told they had been sentenced to death by Ural Soviets of Workers Deputies. Nicholas responded with a stunned; "What? What?" Then turned to his family as the order to shoot them was repeated by a Bolshevik officer Yakov Yurovsky and in resignation, the defeated Monarch Nicholas II turned to the anxious soldiers and reportedly, quoting Jesus, told them to "do what you must" and Nicholas was the first to die, followed by the rest of his family from multiple gun shot wounds and bayonet stabbings. It was in that final moment that Nicholas II, like all tragic heroes come to understand, realized his own hubris and died a martyr deaths for his beloved Russia. In 1981 The Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia declared he and his family a martyred saints and in the year 2000 The Russian Orthodox Church recognized the Romanov family as saints as well.

This is the story of a would be Monarch who found himself thrust upon the throne before he was ready to rule and who committed mistake after mistake after mistake until there was nothing left of the time honored and sacred notion that the Tsar and the Russian people were one. This is the story of the crafty and opportunistic Vladimir I. Lenin who supplanted Nicholas II to rule himself with an iron fist under the banner of communism and this is the story of the Russian people who have been so celebrated by her Russian authors as a people who love to suffer. This is the story of royalty, revolution and Russian revelations that all led to the ten days that shook the world.

Answer 2

The czar fell in March 1917.