Having entered the world war, Russia was in a state of deep systemic political and social crisis, it was tormented by internal contradictions, long-overdue reforms were not carried out, the created parliament did not decide much, the tsar and the government did not take the necessary measures to reform the state.
Circumstances of the unsuccessful reign of Nicholas II
The stormy revolutionary events of 1917 were largely due to objective circumstances: the contradictions between the nascent big bourgeoisie and the autocracy, relying on the estate class of landowners, between the dispossessed peasantry and the workers and owners of land and factories, the church and the state, the commanding staff of the army and soldiers, as well as the military failures at the front and the desire of England and France to weaken the Russian Empire. In addition, there were subjective factors associated with the tsar, his family and the tsar's entourage, which had a significant impact on the management of the state.
The indecision and inconsistency of the tsarist regime, and especially the rapprochement with such a destructive person as Grigory Rasputin, steadily destroyed the authority of the government. By the end of his reign, Nicholas II, due to his lack of will and spinelessness, complete submission of his will to his wife Alexandra Fedorovna and the "elder" Rasputin, due to the inability to compromise for the sake of preserving the empire, did not enjoy any authority and was largely despised not only by all strata of society, but also by representatives of the royal dynasty.
In many ways, the tsar's problems were associated with his wife Alexandra Feodorovna, nee German princess Alice of Hesse-Darmstadt, whom he married for love, which was a rarity in dynastic marriages. His father Alexander III and mother Maria Feodorovna were against this marriage, because they wanted their son to marry a French princess, besides, Nikolai and Alice were distant relatives as descendants of German dynasties.
In the end, Alexander III had to agree with his son's choice, because after the train disaster near Kharkov, when he had to keep the roof of a destroyed carriage over his head to save his family, his health was undermined, his days were numbered, and he agreed to the wedding of his son, which took place less than a week after the tsar's funeral and was overshadowed by the memorial services and mourning visits that were taking place.
Tragic events
Then the misfortunes of Nicholas II continued. On the day of his solemn coronation on Khodynskoye Pole in May 1896, to which more than 500 thousand came for "royal gifts", a mass crush began, in which 1389 people died. The tragedy occurred through the fault of the organizers of the celebrations, who closed the pits and gullies in the field with boardwalks, which, unable to withstand the pressure of the crowds, collapsed.
Then there was Bloody Sunday. On January 9, 1905, a peaceful procession of workers to the Winter Palace with a petition about their needs organized by priest Gapon was shot, 130 demonstrators were killed. Although Nicholas II had no direct relation to the Khodyn crush and Bloody Sunday, he was accused of everything - and the nickname of Nicholas the Bloody stuck to him.
The war with Japan, which began in 1905, was ineptly lost. In the Battle of Tsushima, almost the entire Russian squadron, sent from the Baltic Sea, was killed. As a result, the fortress of Port Arthur and the Liaodong Peninsula were surrendered to the Japanese. The defeat in the war provoked a revolution, which forced the tsar to adopt in August 1905 a manifesto on the establishment of the State Duma as a legislative body, and in October of the same year - a manifesto on the granting of basic civil liberties to the population and the obligatory coordination of all adopted laws with the State Duma.
All these events did not add authority to Nicholas II, and the ruling class and the common people saw him as a loser, unable to manage state affairs.
Unsuccessful marriage of the king
The marriage of Nicholas II had tragic consequences for the entire dynasty, his wife turned out to be a strong-willed and domineering woman, and with the lack of will of the tsar, she completely ruled over him, influencing state affairs. The king became a typical henpecked. Being a German by birth, she was unable to establish normal relations in the circle of the royal family, courtiers, and the king's entourage. Society has formed an opinion about her as a stranger who despises Russia, which has become her home.
This alienation of the tsarina from Russian society was facilitated by her external coldness in her treatment and lack of friendliness, which was perceived by everyone as contempt. The Tsar's mother, Maria Feodorovna, the nee Danish princess Dagmara, who had previously been warmly received in Russia and easily entered St. Petersburg society, did not take her daughter-in-law for her and disliked the Germans. In this regard, the life of Alexandra Feodorovna at the royal court was not pleasant.
The situation was aggravated by the fact that Tsarevich Alexei, who was born in 1904, suffered from a serious hereditary disease - hemophilia, which passed to him from his mother, who inherited the disease from Queen Victoria of England. The heir was constantly suffering from illness, his illness was incurable and kept secret, no one knew about it, except for the closest people. All this brought suffering to the queen, over time she became hysterical and more and more departed from society. The tsarina was looking for ways to cure the child, and in 1905 the royal family was introduced to the famous in the capital's secular society "God's man", as he was called, "the elder" - Grigory Rasputin.
Influence of the Queen and Rasputin
The "elder" really possessed the abilities of a healer and eased the suffering of the heir. He began to regularly visit the royal palace and acquired a strong influence on the queen and through her on the king. The meetings between the tsarina and Rasputin were organized by her maid of honor Anna Vyrubova, who had influence on the tsarina, while the real purpose of visiting the tsar's palace was hidden. Frequent meetings of the tsarina and Rasputin at court and in society began to be regarded as a love affair, which was facilitated by the love of the "elder" who had connections with women from the secular society of St. Petersburg.
Over time, Rasputin acquired a reputation in St. Petersburg society as a "tsarist friend", a seer and a healer, which was tragic for the tsar's throne. With the outbreak of the war, Rasputin tried to influence the tsar, dissuading him from entering the war. After heavy military defeats in 1915, due to problems with the supply of weapons and ammunition, Rasputin and the tsarina persuaded the tsar to become the Supreme Commander-in-Chief and remove from this post the respected Prince Nikolai Nikolaevich in the army, who sharply opposed the "elder".
This decision was suicidal, the king was poorly versed in military affairs; in society and the army, such a decision was perceived with hostility. Everyone regarded this as the omnipotence of the "elder" who, after the departure of the tsar to Headquarters, gained even greater influence on the tsarina and began to interfere in state affairs.
Having been at Headquarters since the fall of 1915, Nicholas II actually no longer ruled the country, in the capital everything was ruled by an unpopular and unloved queen in society, who was under the boundless influence of Rasputin, who blindly followed his recommendations. They exchanged telegrams with the tsar and convinced him to make certain decisions.
As the people who communicated with the queen at this time describe, she became intolerant of any opinion that contradicted her views, felt infallible and demanded from everyone, including the king, to fulfill her will.
At this stage, the "ministerial leapfrog" began in the government, the ministers were dismissed, without even having time to grasp the essence of the matter, many personnel appointments were difficult to explain, everyone connected this with the activities of Rasputin. Of course, the tsar and tsarina to a certain extent listened to the recommendations of the "elder", and the metropolitan elite used this for their own purposes and, finding an approach to Rasputin, made the necessary decisions.
Conspiracies against the king
The authority of the tsar and the royal family was rapidly falling; the clan of grand dukes, the State Duma, the army generals, and the ruling class took up arms against Nicholas II. Contempt and rejection of the king also spread among the common people. The German queen and Rasputin were accused of everything.
In the capital, all interested parties spread ridiculous rumors and obscene caricatures of the queen on the theme of her love affair with the "elder": they say, she is a spy, tells the Germans all military secrets, for this a cable was laid from Tsarskoye Selo with direct communication with the German General Staff. and in the army and government people with German surnames are appointed, who are destroying the army. All these rumors were one more absurd than the other, but they were believed and the queen was ready to be torn apart. Attempts to encircle the tsar to remove Rasputin from him were unsuccessful.
Against the background of espionage hysteria at the end of 1916, conspiracies against the tsar began to ripen: the palace grand-ducal led by Prince Nikolai Nikolaevich, the general led by the headquarters of the General Headquarters General Alekseev and the commander of the Northern Front, General Ruzsky, the Masonic in the State Duma led by Milyukov and who joined him "Trudoviks" headed by Kerensky, who had contacts with the British Embassy. They all had different goals, but they were united in one thing: to wrest the abdication from the tsar, or to liquidate it and eliminate the influence of the tsarina and Rasputin.
The grand dukes were the first to act, they organized in December 1916 the murder of Rasputin in the palace of Prince Felix Yusupov, in which the prince himself, Grand Duke Dmitry Pavlovich and (very likely) a British intelligence officer participated. The murder was quickly solved. The tsarina demanded to shoot all those involved in the murder, and hang Kerensky and Guchkov, but the tsar limited himself to only expelling those involved from Petersburg. On the day of the assassination of Rasputin, the tsar dismissed the State Duma for the holidays.
In the State Duma, the opposition to the tsar united around the Central Military-Industrial Committee, created by industrialists to supply the army and led by the Octobrist Guchkov, and the All-Russian Zemstvo Union, led by the cadet Lvov and the progressists (nationalists led by Shulgin). The opposition united in the "Progressive Bloc" headed by the cadet Milyukov and demanded the creation of a "responsible ministry" formed and accountable to the State Duma, which meant the introduction of a constitutional monarchy. These demands were supported by the grand-ducal group and the generals headed by General Alekseev. Thus, a single block of pressure on the king was formed. On January 7, State Duma Chairman Rodzianko officially announced the need to form such a government.
On February 9, in Rodzianko's office, a meeting of conspirators was held, at which a coup plan was approved, according to which, during the Tsar's trip to Headquarters, they decided to detain his train and force him to abdicate in favor of the heir under the regency of Prince Mikhail Alexandrovich.
Spontaneous uprising in Petrograd
In addition to the conspiracy at the "top", the situation at the "bottom" was seriously complicated and warmed up. Since December 1916, problems began with the supply of grain, the government introduced food appropriation (the Bolsheviks were not the first), but this did not help. In the cities and the army, by February, there was a catastrophic shortage of bread, cards were introduced, there were long queues on the streets to receive bread on them. The discontent of the population resulted in spontaneous political strikes by the workers of Petrograd, in which hundreds of thousands of workers took part.
Bread riots began on February 21st, ransacking bakeries and bakeries demanding bread. The tsar left for Headquarters, he was reassured that everything would be fine, the riots would be suppressed. On February 24, a spontaneous mass strike began throughout the capital. People took to the streets demanding "Down with the Tsar", students, artisans, Cossacks and soldiers began to join them, atrocities and murders of police officers began. Part of the troops began to go over to the side of the insurgents, the murder of officers and skirmishes began, in which dozens of people died.
All this led to an armed uprising on February 27. Troops in whole units went over to the side of the rebels and smashed the police stations, captured the Kresty prison and released all the prisoners. Massive pogroms and robberies began throughout the city. Previously arrested members of the State Duma, released from prison, led the crowd to the residence of the State Duma in the Tauride Palace.
Sensing the moment to seize power, the Council of Elders elected the Interim Committee of the State Duma. The spontaneous uprising began to take the form of the overthrow of the tsarist regime. Simultaneously, in the Tauride Palace, State Duma deputies from the Social Revolutionaries and Mensheviks formed the Provisional Executive Committee of the Petrosovet and issued their first appeal to overthrow the tsar and establish a republic. The tsarist government resigned, in the evening the Provisional Committee, fearing the seizure of power by the "Petrosovet", decided to take power into its own hands and form a government. He sent a telegram to Alekseev and the commanders of all fronts about the transfer of power to the Provisional Committee.
Coup d'état
On the morning of February 28, Nicholas II in his train recovered from Headquarters to Petrograd, but the roads were already blocked and he could only get to Pskov. By the end of the day on March 1, General Ruzsky met with the tsar, before that Alekseev and Rodzianko persuaded the tsar to write a manifesto on the formation of a government responsible to the State Duma. The king objected to this, but in the end he was persuaded, and he signed such a manifesto.
On this day, at a joint meeting of the Provisional Committee and the Executive Committee of Petrosovet, it was decided to form a Provisional Government responsible to the State Duma. In Rodzianko's opinion, this was no longer enough. It was impossible to stop the spontaneous mass of the rebels by such half measures, and he informed Alekseev about the advisability of the Tsar's abdication. The general prepared a telegram to all front commanders with a request to inform the tsar of his opinion on the advisability of his abdication. At the same time, from the essence of the telegram it followed that there was no other way. So the grand dukes, generals and leaders of the State Duma betrayed and led the tsar to the decision to abdicate.
All the front commanders informed the tsar by telegrams about the advisability of his abdication. This was the last straw, the king realized that he was betrayed, and on March 2 announced his abdication in favor of his son during the regency of Prince Mikhail Alexandrovich. Representatives of the Provisional Committee, Guchkov and Shulgin, came to the tsar, explained to him the situation in the capital and the need to calm the rebels by his abdication. Nicholas II, worried about the fate of his young son, signed and handed over to them the act of his abdication in favor of not his son, but his brother Mikhail. He also signed documents on the appointment of Lvov as the head of the Provisional Government and Prince Nikolai Nikolaevich as the Supreme Commander-in-Chief.
Such a turn put the conspirators at a standstill, they understood that the accession of Mikhail Alexandrovich, unpopular in society, could cause a new outburst of indignation and not stop the rebels. The leadership of the State Duma met with the brother of the tsar and persuaded him to abdicate the throne, he wrote an act of abdication on March 3 before the convocation of the Constituent Assembly, which was to decide the form of government by the state.
From that moment on, the end of the reign of the Romanov dynasty came. Nicholas II turned out to be a weak state ruler, at this critical time he could not retain power in his hands and led to the collapse of his dynasty. There was still the possibility of restoring the ruling dynasty by decision of the Constituent Assembly, but it was never able to start its activities, the sailor Zheleznyakov put an end to it with the phrase: "The guard was tired."
So the conspiracy of the ruling elite of Russia and the massive uprisings of workers and soldiers of the Petrograd garrison led to the coup and the February Revolution. The instigators of the coup, having achieved the fall of the monarchy, provoked confusion in the country, could not stop the collapse of the empire, quickly lost power and plunged the country into a bloody civil war.
