assistance of your hubby now that he is absent,” he wrote cheerfully after leaving for Headquarters. “What a pity that you have not been fulfilling this duty long ago or at least during the war.” On September 23, 1916 (O.S.), he said, “Yes, truly, you ought to be my eyes and ears there in the capital while I have to stay here. It rests with you to keep peace and harmony among the Ministers—thereby you do a great service to me and to our country.… I am so happy to think that you have found at last a worthy occupation. Now I shall naturally be calm and at least not worry over internal affairs.” And the next day: “You will really help me a great deal by speaking to the ministers and watching them.” When she felt unsure and apologized for her presumption, he reassured her: “There is nothing to forgive you for, on the contrary, I must be deeply grateful to you for so far advancing this serious matter by your help.”

Once the Tsar had asked for her help, Alexandra threw herself into the task. To “keeping peace and harmony among the ministers” and managing internal affairs, she brought the same intense devotion and narrow stubbornness she had shown in fighting for the life of her son. Lacking experience, she made numerous, outsized mistakes. She groped blindly for people and facts, unable to verify what she was told, often depending on the impressions of a single short interview. As she went along, her self-confidence improved, and it was a personal triumph when in September 1916 she delightedly wrote to the Tsar, “I am no longer the slightest bit shy or afraid of ministers and speak like a waterfall in Russian.”

Rasputin was not only her advisor, he was also her yardstick for measuring other men. “Good” men esteemed Rasputin’s advice and respected him. “Bad” men hated him and made up disgusting stories about him. The work of “good” men would be blessed, and therefore they should be appointed to high office. “Bad” men were sure to fail, and those already in office should be driven out. Alexandra did not particularly care whether a prospective minister had special aptness or expertise for his new role. What mattered was that he be acceptable to the Man of God. It was far more important that he like Rasputin than that he understand anything about munitions or diplomacy or the distribution of food.

Every new candidate for the Council of Ministers was scrutinized and measured in this manner: “He likes our Friend.… He venerates our Friend.… He calls our Friend Father Gregory.… Is he not our Friend’s enemy?” Unlike the Duma, whose very existence she considered a stain on the autocracy, the Empress accepted the Council of Ministers as a legitimate institution. Ministers, appointed by the Tsar and responsible only to him, were necessary to govern the country. What Alexandra could not abide were ministers who opposed the autocratic will. Any sign that a minister disagreed with the Tsar made her suspicious; the thought that ministers and Duma might be working together drove her frantic.

For her, the ideal minister was personified by the aged Prime Minister, Ivan Goremykin. Having stepped down as Prime Minister in 1906 to make way for Stolypin, Goremykin had been restored to power before the outbreak of war. Now seventy-six and in failing health, Goremykin had no illusions about his role. As far back as 1896, Pobedonostsev had written to Nicholas that Goremykin needed a rest, otherwise “he would not last throughout the winter.” Goremykin had repeatedly asked—and been denied—permission to resign. “The Emperor can’t see that the candles have already been lit around my coffin and that the only thing required to complete the ceremony is myself,” he said mournfully.

Nevertheless, Goremykin’s stubborn, old-fashioned views of autocracy and the role of the minister were much too rare and valuable for him to be let go. “I am a man of the old school and an Imperial Command is for me a law,” he declared. “To me, His Majesty is the anointed one, the rightful sovereign. He personifies the whole of Russia. He is forty-seven and it is not just since yesterday that he has been reigning and deciding the fate of the Russian people. When the decision of such a man is made and his course of action is determined, his faithful subjects must accept it whatever may be the consequences. And then let God’s will be fulfilled. These views I have held all my life and with them I shall die.” Not surprisingly, the Empress was delighted with Goremykin, whom she always affectionately called the “Old Man.” “He sees and understands all so clearly and it is a pleasure speaking to him,” she declared.

Just how unique Goremykin and his views of autocracy were became glaringly apparent in the severe ministerial crisis which followed the Tsar’s decision to take command of the army. Of all the ministers, Goremykin alone supported his master’s decision. In vain, he urged them, “I call upon you, gentlemen, in the face of events of extraordinary importance to bow to the will of His Majesty, to lend him your full support in the moment of trial, and to devote all your powers to the service of the Sovereign.” When they refused, he said wearily, “I beg you to inform the Emperor that I am not fitted for my position and that it is necessary to appoint a man of more modern views in my place. I shall be grateful to you for the service.”

Instead, the majority of the ministerial council decided that, as the Tsar refused to heed its advice, there was nothing to do but resign. “It is our duty,” declared Sazonov, the Foreign Minister, “…  to tell the Tsar frankly that under existing conditions we cannot govern the country, that we cannot serve conscientiously and that we are doing harm to the country.… The Cabinet cannot perform its functions while it does not enjoy the confidence of the Sovereign.” A collective letter of resignation, signed by eight of the thirteen ministers, was addressed to the Tsar. It had no effect whatsoever. Nicholas summoned the ministers to Headquarters and told them that until he saw fit to replace them, they were not permitted to resign.

A few days later, in a letter to Alexandra, he ruminated on the gap between himself and his ministers. “The behavior of some of the Ministers continues to amaze me. After all I told them at that famous evening sitting, I thought they understood … precisely what I thought. What matter—so much the worse for them. They were afraid to close the Duma—it was done. I came away here and replaced N. [Grand Duke Nicholas] in spite of their advice; the people accepted this move as a natural thing and understood it as we did. The proof—numbers of telegrams which I receive from all sides with the most touching expressions. All this shows me clearly one thing: that the Ministers always living in town, know terribly little of what is happening in the country as a whole. Here I can judge correctly the real mood among the various classes of people.… Petrograd and Moscow constitute the only exceptions on the map of the fatherland.”

The Empress was less interested in finding excuses for ministerial behavior than she was in driving each man who had signed the letter out of office. Thus, the next sixteen months saw a sad parade of dismissals, reshuffles and intrigues. In that time, Russia had four different prime ministers, five ministers of interior, four ministers of agriculture and three ministers of war. “After the middle of 1915,” wrote Florinsky, “the fairly honorable and efficient group who formed the top of the bureaucratic pyramid degenerated into a rapidly changing succession of the appointees of Rasputin. It was an amazing, extravagant, and pitiful spectacle, and one without parallel in the history of civilized nations.”

Two of the signers, Prince Shcherbatov, the Minister of Interior, and Samarin, the Procurator of the Holy Synod (Minister of Religion), went quickly, dismissed without explanation early in October. Krivoshein, the Minister of Agriculture, left in November, and Kharitonov, the State Controller, departed in January. The next to go, in February 1916, was the faithful Goremykin. “The ministers do not wish to work well with old Goremykin … therefore, on my return some changes must take place,” had written Nicholas. At first, the Empress was reluctant. “If in any way you feel he hinders, is an obstacle for you, then you better let him go,” she wrote, “but if you keep him he will do all you order and try to do his best.… To my mind, much better clear out ministers who strike and not change the President who with decent, energetic, well-intentioned … [colleagues] can serve still perfectly well. He only lives and serves you and your country and knows his days are counted and fears not death of age, or by knife or shot.” Rasputin also hated the idea of losing Goremykin: “He cannot bear the idea of the Old Man being sent away, has been worrying and thinking over that question without end. Says he is so very wise and when others make a row … he sits merely with his head down—it is because he understands that today the crowd howls, tomorrow rejoices, that one need not be crushed by the changing waves.”

Nevertheless, in Goremykin’s enfeebled hands, the government had almost ceased to function. His fellow ministers avoided or ignored him. When he appeared in the Duma, the elderly man was greeted by a prolonged hiss which made it impossible for him to speak. The Tsar, the Empress and Goremykin himself understood that the situation could not continue. “I keep wracking my brains over the question of a successor for the Old Man,” wrote Nicholas. Alexandra sadly agreed, and for a while they thought of appointing Alexander Khvostov, the conservative Minister of Justice. An uncle of the singing Minister of Interior, this older Khvostov was one of the ministers who had refused to sign the infamous letter. First, however, Khvostov was to have a visit from Rasputin.

“Our Friend told me to wait about the Old Man until he had seen Uncle Khvostov on Thursday, what impression he will have of him,” Alexandra wrote to the Tsar. “He [Rasputin] is miserable about the dear Old Man, says he is such a righteous man, but he dreads the Duma hissing him and then you will be in an awful position.”

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