Nicholas and Alexandra

Rasputin … she expected me to put a stop to it. Yet it was not my opposition to the Tsar’s proposal to take measures against the press that won me Her Majesty’s displeasure; it was my report to His Majesty about Rasputin after the starets had visited me. From that time on, although the Tsar continued to show me his favor for another two years, my dismissal was assured. This changed attitude of Her Majesty is not hard to understand.… In her mind, Rasputin was closely associated with the health of her son, and the welfare of the Monarchy. To attack him was to attack the protector of what she held most dear. Moreover, like any righteous person, she was offended to think that the sanctity of her home had been questioned in the press and in the Duma. She thought that I, as head of the government, was responsible for permitting these attacks, and could not understand why I could not stop them by giving orders in the name of the Tsar. She considered me, therefore, not a servant of the Tsar, but a tool of the enemies of the state and, as such, deserving dismissal.”

Despite his wife’s animosity, Nicholas retained his affection for Kokovtsov. Nevertheless, on February 12, 1914, the Prime Minister received a letter from the Tsar:

VLADIMIR NICOLAIEVICH:

It is not a feeling of displeasure but a long-standing and deep realization of a state need that now forces me to tell you that we have to part.

I am doing this in writing, for it is easier to select the right words when putting them on paper than during an unsettling conversation.

The happenings of the past eight years have persuaded me definitely that the idea of combining in one person the duties of Chairman of the Ministers’ Council and those of Minister of Finance or of the Interior is both awkward and wrong in a country such as Russia.

Moreover, the swift tempo of our domestic life and the striking development of the economic forces of our country both demand the undertaking of most definite and serious measures, a task which should be best entrusted to a man fresh for the work.

During the last two years, unfortunately, I have not always approved of the policy of the Ministry of Finance, and I perceive that this can go no farther.

I appreciate highly your devotion to me and the great service you have performed in achieving remarkable improvements in Russia’s state credit; I am grateful to you for this from the bottom of my heart. Believe me, I am sorry to part with you who have been my assistant for ten years. Believe also, that I shall not forget to take suitable care of you and your family. I expect you with your last report on Friday, at 11:00 a.m. as always, and ever as a friend.

With sincere regards,

NICHOLAS

Kokovtsov found little solace in Nicholas’s description of his successor as “a man fresh for the work,” especially when he discovered that this successor was to be Goremykin. Certainly Goremykin made no such estimate of his talents. “I am like an old fur coat,” he said. “For many months I have been packed away in camphor. I am being taken out now merely for the occasion; when it is passed I shall be packed away again till I am wanted the next time.”

After his dismissal, Kokovtsov was asked to call on the Dowager Empress. “I know you are an honorable man and I know that you bear no ill will toward my son. You must also understand my fears for the future. My daughter- in-law does not like me; she thinks that I am jealous of her power. She does not perceive that my one aspiration is to see my son happy. Yet I see that we are nearing some catastrophe and the Tsar listens to no one but flatterers, not perceiving or even suspecting what goes on all around him. Why do you not decide to tell the Tsar frankly all you think and know, now that you are at liberty to do so, warning him, if it is not already too late?”

Almost as distressed as Marie, Kokovtsov replied that he “could do nothing. I told her that no one would listen to me or believe me. The young Empress thought me her enemy.” This animosity, Kokovtsov explained, had been present ever since February 1912.

It was in the middle of February 1912 that Kokovtsov and Rasputin had met and disliked each other over tea.

When he first came to St. Petersburg, Gregory Rasputin had no plan for making himself the power behind the Russian throne. Like many successful opportunists, he lived from day to day, cleverly making the most of what was offered to him. In his case, the path led to the upper reaches of Russian society, and from there, because of Alexis’s illness, to the throne. Even then he remained indifferent to politics until his own behavior became a political issue. Then, with government ministers, members of the Duma, the church hierarchy and the press all attacking him, Rasputin counterattacked in the only way open to him: by going to the Empress. Rasputin became a political influence in Russia in self-defense.

Alexandra was a faithful patron. When government ministers or bishops of the church leveled accusations at the starets, she retaliated by urging their dismissal. When the Duma debated “the Rasputin question” and the press cried out against his excesses, the Empress demanded dissolution of the one and suppression of the other. She defended Rasputin so strongly that it became difficult for people to associate in their minds the Empress and the moujik. If she had determined to hate all his enemies, it was not surprising that his enemies decided to hate her.

Stephen Beletsky, Director of the Police Department, later reckoned that Rasputin’s power was firmly established by 1913. Simanovich, who worked with Rasputin in St. Petersburg, estimated that it took Rasputin five years, 1906–1911, to gain power and that he then exercised it for another five, 1911–1916. In both estimates, the turning point falls in the neighborhood of 1912, the year that the Tsarevich Alexis almost died at Spala.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

The Romanov Dynasty

IN 1913, the gilded world of the European aristocracy seemed at its zenith. In fact, fashionable society, like the rest of mankind, stood one step from the abyss. Within five years, three European empires would be defeated, three emperors would die or flee into exile and the ancient dynasties of Hapsburg, Hohenzollern and Romanov would crumble. Twenty million men, aristocrats and commoners alike, would perish.

Even by 1913, there were omens of danger. The aristocracy of Europe continued to move through a world of elegant spas, magnificent yachts, top hats, tailcoats, long skirts and parasols, but the old monarchs who had given character to this world were vanishing. In Vienna, the aged Emperor Franz Joseph was eighty-seven; already he had sat on the throne for sixty-four years. In England, not only Queen Victoria but also her son King Edward VII were in their graves. King Edward’s death left his nephew the Kaiser the dominant monarch in Europe. William reveled in his new preeminence and scorned the pair of gentle cousins who occupied the thrones of England and Russia. William, meanwhile, changed uniforms five times a day and let it be known that when he commanded troops at army maneuvers, the side he was leading was expected to win.

Beneath the polished sphere of kings and society, there was a wider world where millions of ordinary people lived and worked. Here, the portents were even more ominous. Nations ruled by kings and emperors had grown into industrial behemoths. The new machines had given the monarchs vastly greater power to make war; by 1913, it was scientifically assured that a dynastic quarrel would lead to the death not of thousands, but of millions of men. In the upheaval of such murderous wars lay promise of revolution. “A war with Austria would be a splendid little thing for the revolution,” Lenin wrote to Maxim Gorky in 1913. “But the chances are small that Franz Joseph and Nikolasha will give us such a treat.” Even without war, the stresses produced by industrialization promised future storms of frustration and unrest. Governments shuddered under the impact of strikes and assassinations. The red banners of Syndicalism and Socialism floated beside the golden standards of militant nationalism. These were the days when, in Churchill’s words, “the vials of wrath were full.”

Nowhere was there greater contrast between the effortless lives of the aristocracy and the dark existence of the masses than in Russia. Between the nobility and the peasants lay a vast gulf of ignorance. Between the nobility and the intellectuals there was massive contempt and flourishing hatred. Each considered that if Russia was to survive, the other must be eliminated.

It was in this atmosphere of gloom and suspicion that Russia began a national celebration of the ancient institution of autocracy. The occasion was the tercentenary of the Romanov dynasty, which had come to power in