WI: No Rasputin

What impact would Rasputin not coming to court have on Russian history, in particular during WWI and the lead up to the Russian Revolution. Would removing him from the picture have any noticeable impact?
 
Hard to say; it's possible that it puts the Royal Family in a better position to be aware of what's going on with their country, which would mean the Russian Revolution playing out differently, but you still have the problem of a sickly heir taking up a lot of the family's attention as well as Nicholas II still being reactionary and rather unprepared for the throne at best. If you want him as a PoD, it's probably better to either have Alexander III live longer or at least have his illness manifest at an earlier stage so Nicholas is actually prepared for the throne, or change his marriage so he doesn't wind up with a haeomphiliac son.
Wiki does mention him "being impressed with the mechanism of parlimentary democracy on a trip to England"; maybe he could spend more time there earlier in his life on the logic that being abroad for a time and having some kind of independent position would be useful preparation for the throne(in the sense of how to manage one's affairs, put on a good public face, etc.)? It would also have him away from the royal family enough to counteract some of Alexander III's authoritarian leanings.
 
If there was no Rasputin, somebody else would fill his place. If Tsar wanted to be isolated from the events, he would find a way. There never is a shortage of shady characters preying on weakness of powerful people. Fact is Russian Empire was living on borrowed time by 1914. The regime was deeply unpopular, disconnected from reality and lacking any idea what to do beyond oppresing any and all oposition of regime. They were doing this in a cruel, yet inefficient way, that inspired revolt but did not come close to eliminating oposition in a way Stalin did. But, regime with the coruption so endemic that even in the time of struggle for its very survival some of bureaucracy would engage in blatant corruption had zero chance to survive any serious crisis. In short, no Rasputin or Rasputin, it stays the same, more or less. He just epitomized and brought to surface the worst things of the regime.
 
Nothing significant changes.

The Czar and his family might have a slightly better reputation, but that doesn't make Nicolas any less incompetent. The war is allowed to drag on until revolution engulfs this insane regime.

Rasputin was just a symptom, he wasn't the cause.
 
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