WI Nicholas II wasn't such a crappy Tsar?

Narnia

Banned
How would Russia be nowadays if Nicholas II was more competent? If the Russia-Japanese went better for Russia and WWI wasn't such a disaster for Russia could he keep power as an absolute monarch?

If Nicholas II made his Okhrana as ruthless as the NKVD would that help do away with the Communists? What else could he have done to make himself more popular, or just do away with rebellion?
 
Absolute monarchy with total police state not be solution for problems of Russia. It might help delay revolution but not save Russian empire. There would be later local rebels and perhaps even some kind of revolution attempt. Its best hope is transfer as constitutional monarchy. Some kind of transition was happening and there wasn't return to absolute monarchy.
 
Brutal response on the part of the old order is only a temporary stopgap and in the long run only makes their opposition more powerful. What the Russians need is meaningful reform to bring up the position of the poor. Without that Russia will always be a powder keg just waiting to be set off (and industrialization is just going to make that worse by bringing about mass societal change likely for the worse for a lot of people). They need to meet the moderate socialists and democrats halfway or else any attempts they make at suppressing the growing revolutionary fervor in Russia will just result in further discrediting of the moderates.
 

Narnia

Banned
From my understanding a major reason for Nicholas II's unpopularity were his failing during the Japanese-Russian war and WWI. If he made better tactical decisions and did better during those wars a lot of the anti-monarchist forces would be smaller as the Tsar would still be seen as a competent ruler. Revolutionary groups would be smaller, and more easily dealt with by a more brutal Okhrana.
 
From my understanding a major reason for Nicholas II's unpopularity were his failing during the Japanese-Russian war and WWI. If he made better tactical decisions and did better during those wars a lot of the anti-monarchist forces would be smaller as the Tsar would still be seen as a competent ruler. Revolutionary groups would be smaller, and more easily dealt with by a more brutal Okhrana.

True that bad war success lowered popularity of Nicholas II but there was many reasons why he and his family was unpopular. Firstly family had very estranged from common people and even part of imperial court. Reforms were slow and Russia was still quiet backward country. And government of Russia didn't treat minorities of Russia very well. Bad war success was only last straw. Russia would have needed real reforms, not steps back to past.
 
As Lalli mentioned, Nicholas' best option to save his empire to transition the government towards a constitutional monarchy. If he allows for the parliamentary process instead of repeatedly dissolving the Duma like OTL, the potential reforms may very well have prevented many poor Russians from turning to the Bolsheviks.
 
Right on Vizio!

The reason so many Russians abandoned democracy as a solution was b/c Nick II kept pulling the rug out from under the Duma every time he felt like it.
I'm being your standard pollyana American, but if the Kadets were able to get and keep decent government from 1905 on involving Stolypin and making serious land reforms people thought worthwhile....it's possible
that a Russian middle class could grow and become politically engaged.

AIUI, Russia's intelligentsia pretty much thought the Tsarist system beyond redemption in the 1880's on, it just a matter of which revolutionary philosophy- Anarchism, Socialism, or democratic republicanism was in favor at any particular moment.
Russia didn't need near the convulsive horrors of the Bolshevik Revolution and Stalin to industrialize or be a world power.

To address the OP, Nick II had to understand he needed to step out of the way, let the people elect whomever they wanted, and work with those ministers to do the heavy lifting.
Most European monarchs were doing so but look at Prussia/Germany and how their parliament did so much to change Germany but failed to restrain Wilhelm II from embroiling them in the meatgrinder of WWI on his personal guarantee to A-H.
However Nick II was an autarch out of the High Middle Ages who was taught since birth he was God's Appointed Maximum leader of All the Russias.
You wouldn't tell Henry VIII he had to work with Parliament.
It took the English Civil War and the Glorious Revolution in 1688 that brought the Windsors to Britain that they really became a constitutional monarchy in practice as well as theory.
Russia was a Byzantine remnant caught in the Industrial Revolution and found itself as much at sea as the Ottomans and Austrians they opposed.

WWI showed how relying on an autarch could completely fail a nation.
The Germans, Austrians, Ottomans, and Russians all found themselves
ruined by secretly-drafted personal guarantees that weren't in their nations' best interests.
The British and French Entente was a strange duck brought about by the UK not wanting Germany to be continental hegemon or opposing their dominance of the waves and therefore global commerce.
IMO it was making the best of a busted hand in the face of WIlhelm II wanting a badass navy and therefore Germany's place in the sun (in the running for choice slices of Africa and Asia).

LSS- the more you spread out education, technical proficiency, and decision-making, the less a rotten apple like Nick II influenced by Rasputin can spoil the barrel.
Getting the Russian Empire to that point where a capable,confident bourgeoisie was in charge and able to make a constitutional monarchy work was something seen as generations away.

The Soviets managed to get their nomenklatura together in two generations that'd make them a global power both by fiat of the general Secretary and consensus throughout the Party of cultivating whatever talented folks to the best they could be to serve the State.

Could Stolypin and other K-D reformers have done that if WWI hadn't occurred? Possibly.
 

Narnia

Banned
Could Russia have stayed an absolute monarchy though? A few are still left in the world, so it's not hopeless.

I think a few things could make him popular enough to stay in power.

Victory in the Russian-Japanese war would help his reputation enough that he would be seen as a competent military leader. The humiliating defeat here made the Tsar look like a fool. With better commanders and tactics this war could have gone the other way.

Success, or just staying out of WWI: This was a major reason for Nicholas II's failure. Nobody wanted this war, and the string of defeats made Nick look terrible and incompetent. If he came back victorious, or just stayed out the people would he happier.

Making Nicholas II a stronger, more assertive leader who didn't allow his wife and Rasputin to control so much would help. History has shown that Russians like strong men as leaders. A brutal, well funded Okhrana to purge people like Lenin would have helped as well. More censorship would help. IIRC Marxist books were allowed in Russia because they were considered intellectual. In fact, brutally strict control over Russian universities would have gotten rid of lots of anti-government thought.

A puppet Duma could be used to give the illusion of democracy while still giving Nicholas absolute power until he can consolidate his power as Russia industrializes.
 
^ Not help very long. Social problems were large and Nicholas had solve these somehow. With total police state he might be rule bit longer, but he wold need with long run very brutal ways. And for those things you need much changes for character of Nicholas. And if you want keep Rasputin away from court, you just need healthy heir. And Nicholas maybe would need more reasonable wife, what of course butterfly Alexei's hemophilia away. But saving Russian Empire there should be real constitutional monarchy with strong parliament. And there should be much modernisation and social reforms.
 

Narnia

Banned
A lot of the social problems were caused by Russia's poor economy. If Nicholas II wasn't so engrossed in his family and luxurious life he could have focused on modernizing Russia's economy once he took the throne. That combined with military victories would give him support of the people and the army. He focused too much on pleasing the land-owning nobility and no enough on the people that really mattered. If Nicholas II was an ambitious, ruthless and more intelligent man he could have done great. Perhaps if his father lived longer and taught him better he would have been able to do this stuff. I think he could have foresaw the social changes with modernizing and compensated by going full-out police state in the cities along with controlling education more strictly.
 
He certainly shouldn't have been in charge of a post office not to talk about a huge empire in desperate need of modernization and reform... A good czar in that sense I guess would have been someone who would have been personally capable and intelligent and who would have begun and encouraged serious reforms early on and who would have thus made Russian society more stronger and more dynamic. Though it is quite certain that such reforms would have led to some, probably quite serious unstablity and certainly eventually to abolition of autocracy. So, maybe realistically the best possible altnernative would have just been a personally capable and intelligent Czar who couldn't have botched things so horribly as Nicholas did.
 
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