Having a religious denomination declare you a saint does not prove you are a good political leader, especially if you get overthrown and martyred due to poor leadership ability.
Was Tsar Nicholas II a good ruler?
- Thread starter Irrisa
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Having a religious denomination declare you a saint does not prove you are a good political leader, especially if you get overthrown and martyred due to poor leadership ability.
"There's good money in empire building. But, there's more in empire wrecking.... This empire we're living in... it's breaking up right under our feet. Only most fools won't see it and take advantage of the situation created by the collapse. I'm making my fortune out of the wreckage."
Not sure if they were channeling Rhett Butler consciously or not. Gone with the Wind did enjoy a certain amount of popularity in the late USSR.
Did Fire and Shadow, at any time, indicate that he was "an Official Saint"?
If not this reply is entirely nonsensical.
In any case debating if someone is a "saint, be it Nicholas II or John Paul II is something that belongs in Chat.
Just as statement of the fact, NII and his family had been canonized in 2000 by the Russian Orthodox Church as passion bearers (someone who faces his or her death in a Christ-like manner) so they are “official saints” (as far as I understand the whole mumbo-jumbo) with a right to have their own icons, the nimbus and whatever. Not a subject to debating as far as the official Church definition is involved. Justification is a completely different matter but, if I understood you correctly, you were talking strictly about the formal side of an issue.
I am desperately trying to hold the number of kicked members in this thread below three.
We get a religiopus debate going that is a questionable goal, with a straight up Banhammer a real possibility.
That is it. Total goal here. Prevent the Brush fire from blowing out into a 100,000 acre forest fire.
Just thought that clarifying the official status [1] would help to stop the pointless bickering that has nothing to do with alt-history. Hopefully, did not add fuel to the brush fire and, anyway, I’m not going to continue on the subject.
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[1] To misquote certain unsavory historic figure, it is exclusively up to the Russian Church to decide who is and who is not their saint.
What does the canonisation of Nicholas II, or indeed anyone else, to do with if they were a "good" person, or a "good" ruler? Religious groups are frequently blind towards personal failings, intentionally or not.
In the case of an individual look at their actions in personal life; in the case of a monarch, politician or such person, look at how they rules/governed/administered.
I would submit that, while Nicholas may have been a personally "good" person he was a terrible monarch.
In the case of an individual look at their actions in personal life; in the case of a monarch, politician or such person, look at how they rules/governed/administered.
I would submit that, while Nicholas may have been a personally "good" person he was a terrible monarch.
I don't understand this obsession with sanctifying Nicolas. He was an Anti-Semite, authoritarian who supported brutal state tactics and faltered only because he lacked resolution, not moral scruple. The fact that the Orthodox Church felt the need to make him a saint doesn't mean we have to overlook his moral failings, his obstinacy and his complete inability to manage the country or lead the government. In my view he certainly wasn't a good person, and I think it's telling that in this thread there's been an attempt to focus on his execution and what happened to his family to dry to drum up sympathy - and the deaths of the royal children were tragic, sure - but it's completely irrelevant to the discussion of whether Nicolas II himself was a moral figure, which I would argue he was not, and even then that's only tangential to the actual question of this thread, was he competent or at least well-intentioned? And the answer to both of those questions is a firm NO.
As has been discussed, the deification of Nicholas II is in large part due to the circumstances of his and his family’s death. For me at least, it’s always been sufficient to ask one question?
Why do we wring our hands and shed tears for the horrendous events in that basement in Yekaterinburg (Sverdlovsk?) and not for the many millions of people in the Russian Empire who suffered and died for Nicholas’ decisions? The Polish peasant clutching his cross necklace before a shell landed in his trench. The small Jewish girl speared on a Cossack lance in Poltava. The Bashkir sailor who died screaming in the hull of a burning ship at Tsushima. An elderly tenant in a Petrograd apartment building who dropped dead from lack of food. Repeat ad nauseum until you’ve seen the deluge of human suffering.
Of course, suffering is always present and no government can avoid it or eliminate it in its absolute entirety. But systems like the one Nicholas presided over (and enthusiastically maintained) seemed to perpetuate and encourage human suffering like it was on a mission. The specific metric of what a good ruler is dependent on how you see and interpret history, but I think in almost every metric he left the world worse than he found it. And, personal or moral claims aside, the decision that the Bolshevik jailers made was certainly no worse than decisions Nicholas had made in the tens of thousands on a far larger scale.
Why do we wring our hands and shed tears for the horrendous events in that basement in Yekaterinburg (Sverdlovsk?) and not for the many millions of people in the Russian Empire who suffered and died for Nicholas’ decisions? The Polish peasant clutching his cross necklace before a shell landed in his trench. The small Jewish girl speared on a Cossack lance in Poltava. The Bashkir sailor who died screaming in the hull of a burning ship at Tsushima. An elderly tenant in a Petrograd apartment building who dropped dead from lack of food. Repeat ad nauseum until you’ve seen the deluge of human suffering.
Of course, suffering is always present and no government can avoid it or eliminate it in its absolute entirety. But systems like the one Nicholas presided over (and enthusiastically maintained) seemed to perpetuate and encourage human suffering like it was on a mission. The specific metric of what a good ruler is dependent on how you see and interpret history, but I think in almost every metric he left the world worse than he found it. And, personal or moral claims aside, the decision that the Bolshevik jailers made was certainly no worse than decisions Nicholas had made in the tens of thousands on a far larger scale.
Kronenberg
Banned
Ban
To be "good" by standards of his population, Russian supreme ruler needs to be a bloody tyrant who (optionally) expands Russian / Soviet Empire territory (Stalin, Peter the Great, Ivan the Terrible). Many Russians (not all) hate "weak rulers" - contrary to some misguided delusions.
Honestly, the idea that the main reason for Nicky's downfall was his "despotism" / "lack of liberalization" is an model manifestation of a complete lack of understanding of how non-Western regimes function, proven time and time again by the complete and utter failures of the likes of Kerensky, Gorbachev or Yeltsin.
Late Tsarist/Soviet elites were idealistic & naive relative to their more realistic predecessors. THAT is a reason why they folded so easily, instead of spilling oceans of blood as the latter would have done.
Honestly, the idea that the main reason for Nicky's downfall was his "despotism" / "lack of liberalization" is an model manifestation of a complete lack of understanding of how non-Western regimes function, proven time and time again by the complete and utter failures of the likes of Kerensky, Gorbachev or Yeltsin.
Late Tsarist/Soviet elites were idealistic & naive relative to their more realistic predecessors. THAT is a reason why they folded so easily, instead of spilling oceans of blood as the latter would have done.
I think people don't like Kerensky, Gorbachev, and Yeltsin because they failed miserably at their jobs and got a ton of people killed because of it. It's not that they were too nice, it's that they fucked everything up and (especially in the case of Yeltsin), did cataclysmic damage to the entire nation.
Gorbachev and Yeltsin turned a stable (if ossified) dictatorship into a nightmarish mafiya hypercapitalist nightmare full of bullets and krokodil.
Ah yes of course, how could I forget the famously weak-willed Yeltsin who shelled Russian parliament when real political opposition reared its head. Or the naïve and starry eyed Kerensky who used the army to crush political opposition during the July Days. Or even the heights of pacifism, the August coup faction who tried to used military force to maintain the Soviet Union and spectacularly failed. Clearly those natural submissive easterns should have grunted with approval at the approach of Soviet tanks on the Red Square in 1991.
These theories always rely on a near racialized model of political behavior that it’s astounding that people still peddle them. The great political divide between “Western and non-Western” peoples and their governments is a fiction. In reality, a complex system of economics, politics, and social movements condition any and all of the periods of Russian history you quickly name dropped. Reducing them all to “Tyrant Good, Idealist Bad” is stunningly bad analysis.
The biggest hole blasted in these theories is that they used to be applied to Germany.
“Those barbarous Huns can’t help but electing autocrats and storming Europe. The evidence is overwhelming: they’ve done it twice in a row now! Clearly it’s something unique to their civilization. If we don’t break up their nation into pieces, they’ll do it again and you soft-heartened humanists will have blood on your hands!”
Reality was much less dramatic. Instead, we found out that a stable economy, tamed political class, and integration into a semi-coherent order rather than a chaotic bloc of competitors empires makes for a decidedly less bloody series of governments. Material factors are decisive in what sorts of governments are brought and maintained in power, not some notion of intergenerational barbarity.
To take the most egregious example, I will talk about Gorbachev. Gorbachev took the helm as the Soviet Union was facing a number of structural problems. The economy was stagnant and began to collapse. Nationalist consciousness was arising in many of the constituent republics. A stifling nomenklatura dominated all aspects of political life. An insurgency in Afghanistan was draining state coffers and planes full of body bags containing dead young men was creating massive unpopularity. To complicate matters, the oil economy was in fits and the Americans were ramping up the pressure on the Soviet military-industrial complex with programs like SDI. Chernobyl happened which furthered chaos and loss of faith in the state. Sure, Gorbachev was not necessarily a decisive man but what in God’s good name does his “willingness to annex territory” have to do with any of this. Repression was tried and it failed. But in your theory, the cavemen of the Soviet Union didn’t see enough spectacle of violence to keep them in line. It was not stagnation of wages and opportunity, ruinous foreign wars and the cultural exoticism and appeal of the West, or any other number of real material explanations for collapse. It was down to the stomach of one man and his cabinet for bloodshed.
I could expose Kerensky, Yeltsin, or anyone else to this treatment if you like because it’s so easy to poke holes into. It’s the classic racialized fearmongering that has traditionally dominated discussion of Russia. It has a rich history from fear of the steppe nomads in the ‘great East’ to the 19th century British press system to Nazi propaganda to pseudo-sexual American comic series. Sadly, it still continues and will continue to lead to bad analyses of current politics and a complete inability to consider material factorsc conditions, and their effect on political systems and responses to stimuli.
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Kronenberg explaining how Russian people apparently work on a psychological level
Nice!
Outstanding first post! Bigotry and nationalism, along with implied support for Crimes Against Humanity, in your very first post.
We need to make sure this stands are your legacy here, give the spectacular nature of it
How to do that...
Oh, I know!
Banned for Trolling Straight Out of the Gate!
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True that.
Especially Yeltsin. Like...Russia was always in for hard times, but a very gradual liberalisation of the economy, retaining state control in key areas, setting up strong worker protections and doing things carefully could have mitigated a lot of the damage. Shock therapy ruined Russia.
And Yeltsin wasn't 'weak'. He was a strongman who used military force to hold onto power. He was just a drunk idiot as well.
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Was Nicholas’ antisemitism rooted in race like Hitler or was there some other reason?
Well Russia has a long history of anti-Semitism but it did get worse under Nicholas. However such prejudices were common across society, especially within the Orthodox church.
Specifically wrt Nicholas I couldn't venture an opinion.
This is a criticism applicable in some measure to just about every form of government except sortition and anarchy.
Because they’re some of the most prominent victims in the Mount Everest worth of corpses the Communists built. Because they’re murder is so utterly vicious, excessive and counterproductive that it’s farcical (I believe @axelmilman is one of the users who have neatly set out how Nicholas’ murder was a boon to the whites not just because of the circumstance but as he was an active hindrance whilst alive). Because although the place and people changed, everything you just described happened afterwards too only on an industrial scale after the events in that Yekaterinburg basement.
Ultimately because the fate of the Romanovs became the statement Lenin wanted just not the one he intended, a statement of intent.
Really? I’m open to any examples of Nicholas murdering an extended family and their servants based off their association with one man. I mean really, aside from the teenage girls and terminally ill child we also have a grand-uncle who’s already dying, a nun who’s spent a decade caring for Moscow’s poor and the fucking cook!?
Nicholas very much believed in the traditional values of the Russian State, which Jews (and a number of other minorities in the Empire) were generally very skeptical towards. On top of this, one of the most important traditional values of the state (at the very least, in the mind of N2) was staunch belief in Orthodox Christianity - so religious minorities would have gotten extra contempt from him.