Definitely time to look into that, because it sounds interesting!
Was Tsar Nicholas II a good ruler?
- Thread starter Irrisa
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It really is worth it. Not enough people do the economic history of late Tsarism, but its a fascinating connection between failed modernisations, successful modernisations starved of logistics or credit, "import substitution" modernisations doomed to fail by market access compared to French products. France was basically the Imperial power to Russia, like the UK to Canada or Australia. Interestingly enough _Lenin's_ economic writings on the structure of the Ukraine grain market is worth reading, and one of his less polemic works. There were vast swathes of land where capital had penetrated the market fully, including with rural wage labour; but, where the fantasy of the Mir still beat other fantasies of a working class controlled agricultural "factory." IIRC from Strauss' economic history of the Soviet Union ( https://www.marxists.org/archive/strauss/index.htm ) that orchids and vinyards were also highly modern. Strauss writing in 1941 didn't have access to the data on the "fake" heavy industry sectors which were in fact military, and probably is underresourced on the failure of soviet attempts to expand in agricultural specialist areas, even though he notes the failed growth rates.
Sam R.
If they do want peace, why did Lenin not peace out ASAP, practically the Germans wanted a hummiliating peace to be accepted by Russia, Which in turn the Russian people is not willing to do.
At this point, I am debating a scenario with the POD of 'Kerensky reads the room concerning support for the war and throttles it back as hard as he can without Russia getting overrun' that focuses on the question of Nicholas von Holstein-Gottorp (complete with OTL's skill as a statesman and personal popularity) trying to rebuild himself politically in a budding Menshevik-dominated democracy.
He wanted to. Negotiations began in December 1917. The Bolsheviks were given an extremely bad treaty subsequently, and Lenin supported signing it immediately, but didn’t convince the Central Committee. Instead Trotsky’s idea of “let’s stay at war but not fight” was put into effect, and Lenin okayed it. This was as you might imagine an incredibly stupid idea, and when the Germans just advanced with no opposition the eventual treaty was signed without real negotiation.
I think the general collapse in living standards following the breakup of the USSR is the reason why many people think it was a bad thing. I can't say I adore Lenin, but the breakup of the USSR as it happened was a tragedy for millions of people.
You just linked a youtube video. That's no source, everyone can make stuff up and upload them.
But he did? The peace negotiations started directly after the revolution, even though the Soviet government had to fight a civil war. Brest-Litovsk almost got through on the first vote, but the "revolutionary war"-enthusiasts managed to gain enough votes against it.
Outside of White Russian propaganda, nobody in Russia cared about the loss of territory to some extent.
Ideally, no... the antisemitism in the Russian Empire was primarily religious in nature, and theoretically, if a Jew were to convert to Orthodoxy, that person would officially cease to be a Jew. This wasn't always honoured in practice though, as Jewish converts and their descendants still faced some real, though "unofficial" discrimination, as in the case of Sergei Witte, whose wife was a convert from Judaism...
And the USSR was a superpower only rivaled by the US at that time. So according to your great logic, Stalin was a better ruler.
Lenin in particular was convinced the West was about to get overthtown in a Revolution the same way the Provisional Government, and tsarist before them, had been. Which, in theory, would have made B-L not matter.
This is also why Trotsky’s plan to just not acknowledge the war was ongoing was adopted, despite that being possibly the single stupidest plan in himan history.
Actually, the “monarchy” as in “imperial family” (all of it) was not in a very good financial situation. The total wealth was big but it was more or less fixed and operated at a low profit to avoid criticism for using a privileged position. Plus, even after AIII cut number of the Grand Dukes and Duchesses, there were still huge financial liabilities: each of them had been entitled to a considerable defined income. OTOH, all of them had been obliged to maintain certain life style so the whole thing was very costly and could not be completely dropped without a loss of prestige. A lot of wealth was in the fixed assets like the family jewelry, palaces (which needed a maintenance), art collections, etc.
You can find details in the memoirs of GD Alexander Michailovich or GD Maria Pavlovna. Anyway, IIRC even prior to wwi most of the lands of imperial family had been put into the pool available to the distribution (contrary to the “common knowledge” by 1914 approximately 90% of the agricultural land belonged to the small holders).
As far as nobility goes, as a wealthy land-owning class it was pretty much destroyed by reform of AII. Of course, there were still some wealthy and not too wealthy landowners but in general the nobility became the “service class” (state or commercial) or intelligencia (look at the von Wrangel family: they were international aristocrats but out of two last pre-revolutionary generations father was working in various commercial companies, one son was and art dealer and magazine publisher and another, after getting a technical education, went to military service). The really rich top aristocratic families like Yusupovs had been rare.
Anyway, even before AII a majority of the nobility were “service people” with a little or no wealth of their own. The reforms just added opportunities in a private sector and eliminated most of the remaining landowners (as in “people who lived on the income from their estates”, not to be confused with the people who simply had a rural summer house with a little bit of land).
The main wealth was, as everywhere else, going to the capitalist/merchant class.
I wonder if anybody ever declared that NII was a competent monarch. Not that I know of such a claim but I can easily miss it. 😂
Now, as far as being “a good man” is concerned, this is one of the ill-defined areas which could be argued ad nauseam without getting anywhere just because everybody is entitled to his own definition. It is safe to say that he was not a sadist like Ivan IV, not a tyrant like Peter I and was a faithful head of a family, unlike Catherine II, Nicholas I or AII. Was it enough to make him a “good man” depends on the point of view.
As for giving up power to a more competent person, this was not easy because the competent persons were in the short supply. It can be said that during the reign of NII power was in the hands of two (arguably) most competent ministers in the Russian history, Witte and Stolypin. But it is also a fact that while being a great economist and a competent railroads manager Witte, just based on these two competences, led Russia into a direction that paved the way to RJW. Based upon the economic considerations he switched from traditional alliance with Japan to one with China, was one of the supporters of Port Arthur/Dalnii construction (both proved to be a disaster even before the war), re-oriented Trans-Siberian RR extension to China-Korea (causing tensions with Japan) neglecting the line going completely through Russia and causing a need to build a bridge across the Amur (a very complex project) during WWI (*). Due to the purely commercial considerations, the expensive projects like foundation of Murmansk and connecting railroad had to happen during WWI and Archangelsk had a narrow gauge RR causing big supply bottlenecks during wwi. Wasn’t it a duty of the ministers and General Staff to figure things out and to push the plans through? What about the Duma and Council of State? Where were all these competent people?
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(*) Stolypin was for it but Witte and progressive faction of the Council of State were against (speaking of the competence of the elective bodies).
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Slime blob has been making exactly that case here. He summoned you in the hopes that you'd back him up.
I for one rank 'have someone compose, and then order wide distribution of, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion' a bigger strike against claims of being a good person than 'sleeping around' or even 'doing so behind back of spouses'. But that is Just Me.
Choosing between Lenin and NII is like being asked whether you want to be punched really hard in the right or left testicle. Either outcome is sub optimal.
Could we get them to kick each other in the testicles, while someone else forms a constitutional monarchy?
I did not know that NII personally composed or explicitly ordered to compose them but this has little to do with the point I’m making: definition of a “good man” is too individual to be discussed seriously.
But you see, he didn't abuse all of his children as much as he could have, he didn't massacre all of the people who disagreed with him, and he didn't hate his wife. And I mean, all those people who did get massacred can just be waved off. So basically, so long as you ignore everything horrible he ever did, and play up what are frankly pretty minor positives, he was a decent human being.
Apparently.
1: Hmm, it is uploaded by somebody using the pseudonym 'mad monarchist'. Seems a completely unbiased source to me. /s
2: It has 'politically incorrect' in its title, is it also historically incorrect?
Not, that I disagree that without the Bolshevik revolution Russia would likely have ended up as Europe's largest economy.
If one simply extrapolates economical growth per capita of the czarist era to the rest of the 20th century one ends up with something only slightly below the USSR.
The author also theorized that Russia could have even higher growth than the USSR if liberalising reforms (Reducing barriers to entry, and increasing competition) had happened instead of bolshevism. However, he did not claim to know whether such reforms would have happened given the institutional setting.
1. No. Most of the reforms and development despite Nicholas II and were opposed by him.
2. Whom? The Russian system was going to collapse, regardless of the Great War. Quite possibly the war delayed matters.