Why is Russian Empires authoritarianism considered untenable?

[alexmilman]

Even without WWI the political set-up wasn't stable and barely staved off a revolution in 1905.

But that “set-up” fundamentally changed after 1905. It can be argued that it did not change enough, all the way to the British System, but it was (AFAIK) in line with Germany and jumping all the way to all-powerful parliamentary system would not necessarily work in a country with no history of parliamentarism. OTL personages of the Duma were quite unimpressive and what they and their likes were capable of had been illustrated by the Provisional Government. It strongly reminded “The Addams family” (old miniseries) where Gomez Addams is bragging about his business experience: “I took charge of a failing company and within half a year led it into a bankruptcy”

The system could evolve but for this it needed time and an absence of the major idiocies like wwi.

 

[Kapellan23]

@Kapellan23
Can you explain what the treachery of allies means? Can't recollect either France or the British Empire making a separate peace with the Central Powers. Or refusing to provide Imperial Russia with money or supplies. Gallipoli ring a bell? Failure but an effort to improve supplies to Russia.

Support of revolution and terrorists during civil war.

 

[Kapellan23]

Serfdom, my dear boy.

The Russian peasants had it the worst of any working class in Europe. Russia was a backwards nation, striving and struggling to catch up to western European ones. Peter the great tried setting things in motion when he moved his capital, but in over 2 centuries Russia had never caught up, despite it's size and population, because it was too slow to reform, and when it did, inevitably those reformed were pushed backwards again.

Remember that after Tsushima in 1905 there was a revolution that was barely put down - the Tsars nearly went then, but Nicholas 2 didn't learn, didn't reform, and instead allowed his nation to sleepwalk into an ever bigger war with an even more powerful enemy.

"The Russian peasants had it the worst of any working class in Europe."-Especially poor British peasants who did not have own earth.

"Russia was a backwards nation, striving and struggling to catch up to western European ones."-What imaginations. Russia was among great powers.

"Remember that after Tsushima in 1905 there was a revolution that was barely put down "-Next myth. Revolution, and actually terrorist war began before the Battle of Tsushima.

"the Tsars nearly went then, but Nicholas 2 didn't learn, didn't reform"- About reforms in general it is ridiculous. The Russian Empire for the beginning of the 20th century had the most liberal legislation from the countries of Europe.

 

[Finbarr the Fair]

Support of revolution and terrorists during civil war.

The UK was on the Whites side then.

And since this was after the fall of the Romanovs had nothing to do with their demise.

 

[Tjakari]

Those regimes were equally untenable. The Nazis only lasted 10 years. The Khmer Rouge held power for just 5. Maoism and Stalinism died with their namesakes. By comparison, Imperial Russia lasted centuries before the peasants got tired of their shit.

Nazis: If they had better economics they'd have done just fine. Their greatest Achilles heel (in a victory/negotiated peace scenario) was their conquest economy, everything else could be maintained just fine. Sad as that is to say. I suppose that does make them untenable though. So that's one.

Khmer Rouge: I don't know too much about the Khmer Rouge, but I will say as extension of the above, that outside intervention was necessary to end it. It might have exhausted itself (that's an insane amount of social disruption) but whether that exhaustion comes before or after the extermination is "complete" would be my question.

Maoism: Only died because of internal machinations within the Chinese Communist Party. Maoism of a sort was definitely tenable, it wouldn't have been pretty, but so long as they stayed away from Cultural Revolution era policies, they'd be fine.

Stalinism: Likewise, only died because of internal politics in the governing party. Internal politics that, I should add, were not one sided. Khrushchev wasn't preordained to become Premier anymore than Deng Xiaoping was, probably less so. A few personnel changes in the party can have Stalinists remain in power indefinitely. The death of Stalinism was one of those happy instances where relative decency wins out.

The last two are definitely not untenable systems, they were still vulnerable though.
The first two I'm more open to agreeing with you on, but I don't know enough to guess how the Nazis would hold up in peace time. Same and to even lesser extent, with the Khmer Rouge.

 

[Jellico]

I often wonder about broad statements of incompetence at the top in these end of empire scenarios. Usually you have competing levers of power (nobles, church, proletariat, etc) moving away from each other so when the ruling power appeases one it annoys all the others. Eg. in this case going straight to something democratic would undercut the power of the aristocrats who were providing the bureaucracy that ran the country. Nicholas 2 might not have been Bismark, but one has to wonder if anything could be done by the 20thC. More gradual reforms were needed to ween the aristocrats off the levers of state over 50 years.

 

[marathag]

"Russia was a backwards nation, striving and struggling to catch up to western European ones."-What imaginations. Russia was among great powers.

You can be a great power, while lagging behind most of the measurable economic fields

What percentage of Russian Homes had indoor plumbing in 1914 vs France, Germany or the UK? How many automobiles per capita?

 

[Mad Bad Rabbit]

Russia doesn't have any decent seaports, and almost all its rivers empty into the Arctic or the Black Sea. They're at a permanent disadvantage in terms of transporting freight from X to Y, no matter what the leadership does. The Tsar can build railroads, Stalin can build canals, but it's still not as good as having seaports at temperate latitudes.

 

[Aisha Clan-Clan]

latin american-style cuadilloism seems like the "normal" and plausible outcome from the collapse of the russian monarchy, not communism

 

[Masteroftheuniverse]

Not sure how this applicable to the Russian Empire circa 1917. It was, since 1905, a constitutional monarchy with a reasonably well developed capitalism and aristocracy not being dominating politically or economically.

Russia after 1905 was a constitutional monarchy in name only. The Duma had no real power and was dissolved whenever it defied Nicholas.

 

[alexmilman]

Russia after 1905 was a constitutional monarchy in name only. The Duma had no real power and was dissolved whenever it defied Nicholas.

Constitutional monarchy is a monarchy in which ruler’s freedom of actions is restricted by a law (constitution). It does not have to be a state in which monarch is a powerless figure. Neither Germany nor AH had their monarchies organized by the ritish model.
Nicholas could and did dissolve the Duma more than once ... just to call a new one. Nothing unique in this schema. Duma did not form the government but it had to approve the laws and budget. And the fact that it could (and did it more often than it was dissolved) defy Nicholas tells that it did have a noticeable power.

 

[Onkel Willie]

"The Russian peasants had it the worst of any working class in Europe."-Especially poor British peasants who did not have own earth.

British peasants, for as far as a peasantry still existed, were way better off than Russian peasants who were 90% illiterate. Britain had introduced compulsory school attendance in the 1870s. The Russian Empire never did. Moreover, under the Representation of the People Act 1884 60% of men got the vote. No such thing as voting existed in Russia in 1884. A select number of Russians would get to vote from 1905 onward based on property restrictions much more stringent than those in Britain.

"Russia was a backwards nation, striving and struggling to catch up to western European ones."-What imaginations. Russia was among great powers.

You can be a great power and still be underdeveloped. For example, I don't dismiss that China is a great power today, but nonetheless I wouldn't want to be an average Chinese farmer or worker.

"Remember that after Tsushima in 1905 there was a revolution that was barely put down "-Next myth. Revolution, and actually terrorist war began before the Battle of Tsushima.

Yes, it started before. The Russo-Japanese War was still the catalyst.

"the Tsars nearly went then, but Nicholas 2 didn't learn, didn't reform"- About reforms in general it is ridiculous. The Russian Empire for the beginning of the 20th century had the most liberal legislation from the countries of Europe.

This is a joke, right?

 

[AModestGent93]

The house of Saxe-Coburg Gotha was (and is) mildly inbred. It’s pretty well known that hemophilia ran in the family. the heir (who presumably would be the one running the empire in this “tsardom survives” scenario, Alexei Romanov, spent like 1/3 of his life on the verge of death.

But we're not talking about Saxe-Coburg Gotha, but focusing on the Romanovs who had the Church among others providing a bulwark against just that. Alexei inherited hemophilia due to the genetics of his mother's family tree not due to inbreeding on the side of his father.

As for me I think it was incompetence, Tsar Nicholas was not decisive in how power was applied and that cost him dearly

 

[Jiraiyathegallant]

Did Tsarist Russia have 91% school attendance by 1914?

I don’t think illiteracy is going to be a huge problem if they can survive another generation.

 

[AModestGent93]

Did Tsarist Russia have 91% school attendance by 1914?

I don’t think illiteracy is going to be a huge problem if they can survive another generation.

I can't recall if it was that high, but reforms were happening and picking up speed, eventually they would have had an long term impact on the populous.

 

[Jiraiyathegallant]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_the_Soviet_Union

This says in 1914 that 91% of the children were receiving instructions in the schools, which I would assume means school attendance.

 

[Fulton 44]

1. The Tsars did not employ a modern police state. The Okrana was relatively small. Propaganda efforts were amateurish. Sentences meted out to dangerous political dissidents were relatively mild. They were playing with fire by not coming down hard on violent radicals and at the same time not making concessions to moderate liberals.
2. That said, even in a hydraulic state like Stalinist Russia, the regime has to depend on the support of at least a significant part of the population or else soldiers will turn on their officers, assassins will emerge, and mass uprisings will become intractable.
3. At the end Tsar Nicholas 2 had so thoroughly screwed up that virtually no one (not the people, not the intelligentsia, not the nobility, not the bureaucracy, not the army) had any confidence in him. He just made a lot of very very bad choices.

 

[sendô]

"The Russian peasants had it the worst of any working class in Europe."-Especially poor British peasants who did not have own earth.

"Russia was a backwards nation, striving and struggling to catch up to western European ones."-What imaginations. Russia was among great powers.

"Remember that after Tsushima in 1905 there was a revolution that was barely put down "-Next myth. Revolution, and actually terrorist war began before the Battle of Tsushima.

"the Tsars nearly went then, but Nicholas 2 didn't learn, didn't reform"- About reforms in general it is ridiculous. The Russian Empire for the beginning of the 20th century had the most liberal legislation from the countries of Europe.

There's little point in debating this with you if you're coming back with finger in the ear, la-la-la not listening posts like this.

It's a fact of history that by the 20th century Russia was miles behind the western powers in terms of development, civil rights and industrialisation.

 

[Michele]

I'm not so sure the peasants would have been a factor without external pressures (i.e., losing a big war, and with it lots of farmhands, with the obvious consequences on agriculture) piling up. Barring those, plenty of the countryside revered the Tsars for not knowing much better.

The really politicized people, and therefore the real mass of maneuver against the status quo, were the workers in the factories of the main cities. Of course the leaders wouldn't be the workers, but the thin middle class.

So:
- stay away from big wars you're not prepared for (and in which you really don't stand much to gain - who the heck cares about Serbia? Just because they're Slavs too?!);
- make thus sure you avoid famines;
- grant somewhat better living conditions to the workers;
- share some power with the middle class;
- watch your back against the nobles (who will be mighty offended by some of the above and might therefore be tempted by some old-fashioned palace-and-dagger stuff);
- keep modernizing as best as you can (the Tsar actually was already haltingly and half-successfully trying this).

You are unlikely to become a first-class power in an industrialized world, but you might well remain in power over a backward but big empire.

 

[Kapellan23]

The UK was on the Whites side then.

And since this was after the fall of the Romanovs had nothing to do with their demise.

They were on the side of Soviet, some of the first recognized the government having signed trade contracts.

As the most banal example with attack and the evacuation in Arkhangelsk.