Was Tsar Nicholas II a good ruler?
- Thread starter Irrisa
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That argument doesn't have any more credibility than "I was only obeying orders". He claimed to be the ultimate authority, therefore the actions of those he appointed and those they appointed are Nicholas's responsibility.
In short, the Romanovs and their last hangers on being unjustly slain takes nothing away from how the head of that family was an utterly unfit ruler who deserved at best ignoble exile.
I have issues with extrajudicial killings on principle, and repeat they were worth more to the Anti-Communists dead than alive.
One could say the same thing about the Bourbons, and yet they still got restored to power in both Spain and France after getting deposed. It's not hard to see why the Bolsheviks didn't want to take chances on that again.
A) Would have required a decisive defeat or collapse first (barring the 'Pu Yi Scenario').
B) There were a number of Holstein-Gottorps running around who may have been tolerable mascots, and a few who could have been rulers no worse than any of the muscle-heads that would have shot their way to the top in a White victory, but Nick Alexandrovich was neither and even the outright monarchists did not want him on the throne.
If Nicholas was going to be ignored and rejected by anti communist forces anyways then he wouldn’t be much of a liability to them either.
He does kill the 'Restore Rightful Ruler To Bring Peace & Justice To The Realm' meme humiliatingly dead so long as he lives. Dead... like it or not all too many of the Anti Bolshevik crowd did think his life was more important than those of his regime's considerable-it-it's-own-right number of victims.
They happened despite him, not because of him. Like Marcos, but actively brutal.
Kerensky's failure to seriously address any of the demands of the Russian left discredited the moderate left and allowed the Bolsheviks to move into the vacuum. He was in a terrible position, but he made some obvious mistakes- launching the Kerensky Offensive, for instance. The Bolsheviks were a bunch of obscure exiles when the Tsar was overthrown; it was the failures of the Provisional Government that empowered them.
Also true. My fiancee is binging "Bridgerton" and I'm reminded that I would really love a high budget show that shows how the other 99% of people lived in Regency/Victorian Britain. If properly done would be eye-opening for sure.
marathag
Banned
Poles, by and large, liked what FJ had been doing, compared to Willy or Nicky.
The more autocratic, the less likely things would be good for the Subjects living under that
Personally if I were the Bolsheviks I would have just had executed Nicholas and had the rest of his immediate family put in some reasonably accommodated cabin under guard somewhere in bumfuck nowhere Siberia after the Civil War concluded.
Have them interviewed every once in awhile to show the rest of the world's press that they aren't dead or being tortured or whatever.
Have them interviewed every once in awhile to show the rest of the world's press that they aren't dead or being tortured or whatever.
It would be an interesting question what would have happened had the lads in Berlin/St. Petersburg made it a point to keep the local Gentry* happy the way Vienna did in their cut of Poland.
(* Make no mistake, life for the peasantry/commoners of Galicia was miserable no matter the confessional identity and it was a source of emigration both internal and international. Posen and Congress Poland were merely worse)
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brooklyn99
Banned
The exact same could be said about Soviet apologists/sympathizers (especially in the West) who adore Lenin and think the end of the USSR was a bad thing.
Nicholas was canonised together with the rest of his murdered family as martyrs, as a human being he was tragically flawed, a good read is Miranda Carter’s , the three emperors. A parallel biography of Nicholas, Wilhelm II and George V. All three men were limited in their capabilities but Britain was lucky as it was a constitutional monarchy where George had limited opportunity to screw things up. Nicholas had the most power and ended up with the most damage. Willy was in the middle in terms of damage but comes across as the nastiest of the three
Well, he is extolled as a family man, a reluctant ruler (a Christian ideal), humble (gardened with his hands)--so he is seen as a Godly, kind man in the Orthodox tradition.
Well Tsar Nicholas, also did reform stuff, and improved the lives of the people there. Everything was thrown under the bus and the USSR did little to improve the lives of the common person, compared to the Tsarist regime which did alot.
IIRC Russia was supposed to be the largest economy and most powerful one by 1950 in all of europe, if no ww1 and other major conflict happen some French economist said