As the tin says. If Nicholas II of Russia was killed during the 1905 revolution who would be the nextish in line to succeed him who could accomplish something good?
Well, Alexei is just a child, and a sick one at that. The best he could accomplish is to be a useful symbol under a competent regent. Unfortunately the regency would go to the Empress unless she dies as well, and her rule would have likely been a trainwreck.
After Alexei, Grand Duke Michael is the next in line of succession. He was a fairly good leader, honorable, hard-working and more politically sensitive than Nicholas II. He looks like he would have made a decent Emperor. Maybe not a great one, but decent.
And after him, next in line is Grand Duke Vladimir. He was the stereotypical upper-class twit: ambitious, arrogant, a hedonistic wastrel, and also politically conservative and anti-British. Would have definitely been a bad ruler, maybe even worse than Nicholas.
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This handsome little devil
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This handsome little devil
So then it would seem that the best option for the empire would be for say Nicholas Alix and Vlad to be having dinner when the revolutionaries kill the whole rotten lot.
Yeah, that sounds promising. Though I believe it would be useful for the Empire's stability to have Alexei live as long as possible.
Could I ask why? It would seem to me that having Michael as Tsar as soon as possible would be the best to hope for.
As for the interesting idea of a republican government...true, it might develop into a stable democracy, way better than any Imperial regime. But in 1905 Russia bordered three hostile "great powers", all three monarchies and all three conservative and authoritarian to various degrees. If Russia undergoes a successful revolution, they might very well decide to smother the new republic and/or tear away large chunks of its territory.
Eh, my personal expectation would be that the Germans and Austrians would only be interested if Russian Poland declares independence. In which case they might lose that. But keeping ahold of Poland would be difficult anyway. It would also be awkward for Germany in particular because intervening in the Russian revolution is likely to make the German political situation itself awkward. The SPD would be likely to mobilize against the war, and at that point the Germans have to deal with the fact they'd be undertaking an open ended war against Russia, even though this likely keeps Russia out of wider European politics for awhile. Thus benefiting Germany against France.