Is Rasputin soley to blame for the fall of the Romanov Dynasty in Russia?

Comments ( 4 )

1. K2010 says

   Not at all
   this conclusion might be reached from “Anastasia” anime which is a pure fantasy

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2. Cossak says

   Rasputin tried all the best to prevent the fall of Romanovs,but they didn’t listen him at all. He was telling Nikolay to not enter in the WW1 and etc…He has nothing to be blamed for.

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3. Wave2012 says

   Only in American textbooks.

   In Russia he is briefly mentioned in the textbooks but nobody pays serious attention to him.

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4. Spellbound says

   No, he played almost no part in their downfall.

   Rasputin had very little to do with the February, and even less to do with the October Revolution.
   The effect he had was to anger many nobles and to alienate some of the middle classes from the Tsarina and Tsar.

   However, the problems that Nicholas II faced were much more complex and deep rooted than the affairs of an itinerant priest at court.

   He needed to address the following problems:
   The cities were starving – this was because the peasants needed to bring in the harvests and to transport food to the cities were mostly in the army.
   The workers were poorly paid for very long hours, worked in harsh conditions and had very poor living conditions.
   The army was falling apart due to military defeats, poor leadership, infiltration of the army by political groups and the fact that the mainly peasant army wanted to return to their farms.
   The peasants were dissatisfied with the Emancipation of some 50 years earlier, which saw them take on 50 year redemption mortgages in order to buy their freedom – millions were indebted.
   And the intelligentsia and middle classes were dissatisfied with the lack of political representation.

   To solve the crisis that led to his abdication and the February Revolution he could have ensured that enough peasants were left to work the land – even raising city-living volunteers to go to help sow & bring in the harvests.
   He could have increased pay for the workers, with promises of better living and working conditions after the war ended.
   He could have sent his officer corps to Britain or France to learn how they were holding up the Germans – they would possibly be willing to send troops and advisors to help shore up the Russian front lines.
   He could have freed the peasants from their debt, and given them the land on which they worked.
   He could have offered a constitutional monarchy, perhaps following the British model, which would have placated the intelligentsia.

   In the end, he did none of these things, believing that as God made him Tsar, so he did not have to modernise Russia.

   Rasputin’s role in all of this was minimal – he is a footnote in most academic books about the revolutions. No serious historian credits Rasputin with much involvement at all.

   See:
   The October Revolution by Roy Medvedev
   The Russian Revolution by Sheila Fitzpatrick
   http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/RUSmarchR.htm
   http://soviethistory.org/index.php?page=subject&SubjectID=1917july&Year=1917
   http://soviethistory.org/index.php?page=subject&SubjectID=1917october&Year=1917

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