February 1917: The Emperor's Fatal Mistakes

The next anniversary of the event is approaching, which has become for Russia one of the most fateful and tragic in its history - the February Revolution of 1917. For many years in the USSR we were taught that, as such, it was not, in fact, a “real” revolution — the prologue and introductory part to the Great October Socialist ... However, today, putting aside ideological cliches and the historical myths generated by them, it is worth considering the many questions that this grandiose milestone fraught with itself, which marked the scrapping in our country of its entire structure, which has been formed over centuries. Well, here’s at least over these: “Could the last All-Russian autocrat prevent the collapse of the throne and power? And what should he have done for this? ”





I will make a reservation right away - in the studies that have appeared in recent years that quite fully examine the role of Nikolai II Romanov in the events that we are going to talk about, his personality is described, as a rule, very non-complimentally. We will try to avoid sharp assessments of this historical figure, if only because of the fact that he is canonized by the Russian Orthodox Church and is an icon for many of our compatriots, both literally and figuratively. However, we will not refuse objectivity unambiguously. Excessive idealization of the past invariably leads to bitter mistakes in the present and future.

One more thing - in this part of the article we will not talk about global causes that led the Russian Empire to collapse in 1917. We will deal with those next time. For now, let's talk about, so to speak, the tactical misses of the Sovereign and the state power formed in Russia at that time. Perhaps, having avoided such, the death of the Empire could have been, if not prevented, then at least delayed and made the catastrophe not so terrible. So the Emperor’s mistakes ...

It should begin, perhaps, with the most important, or, as they say today, systemic miss. With the fact that no conclusions were drawn from the tragic events of 1905 by the ruling house or senior government officials. None - from the word "completely." The “small victorious campaign” against “tiny” Japan, which turned into a bloody war, colossal (in the scale of this conflict) losses and shameful defeat ... The revolutionary explosion that followed, almost overturned the country ... Mass popular discontent and anger, for the first time in centuries covering the broadest masses of the population of the empire, and, most importantly - directed not against the "bad boyars" surrounding the "good king", but against the system as a whole ... Nicholas II did not deign to notice this.

After an incomplete decade, Russia rushed into battle again - being ready for it almost worse than for the Japanese war. According to military experts of the time, until 1910 the army and navy only "licked their wounds." One could only speak of a more or less serious reform and modernization of the Armed Forces since the beginning of 1914. The fact that the Russian Empire was completely unprepared for World War I in technical terms is a common truth. Around the world, I had to urgently buy and order not just guns and shells, but rifles and cartridges for them.
There is nothing to talk about other aspects.

However, the most significant problem was not even the weakness of the army. The worst thing is that neither the war with Japan nor the World War were needed by the vast majority of the inhabitants of the Empire, incomprehensible, deeply alien. Yes, at the beginning the people embraced an “unprecedented patriotic upsurge” - but only at first. Then coffins and trains with wounded began to flow from the front, and bitter defeats came instead of brilliant victories. And the peasant of the Oryol or Kursk province, and the St. Petersburg worker or the Kostroma craftsman had a completely reasonable question: "What the hell ?!" Why should he or his son, leaving everything behind, put on his greatcoat and stomp at distant lands, in order to die, it is not clear why?

Okay, they started the war - so they started ... But for what need did Nikolay Aleksandrovich suffer in the Commanders-in-Chief, and even in August 1915, when the position of our army on the fronts was almost the most catastrophic? There was nothing worse for “maintaining” the authority of him personally and of the monarchy, as such, and it was impossible to come up with! Yes, and this position was not for Nikolay. Many contemporaries had the impression that the monarch simply fled to Headquarters from all the tangle of problems and difficulties that existed in Petrograd, from the time of unrest and collapse in the Empire. Like, we will defeat the German - and everything will work out by itself! They didn’t win ... And it didn’t work out. Here you have another fatal mistake.

The next one flows directly from it. Since the Sovereign was the Commander-in-Chief, there was a demand from him, including for the fact that spare regiments were placed in the capital. As a matter of fact, they subsequently went over to the side of the rebels almost instantly - as soon as the unrest captured Petrograd. The army was still ... The so-called "fourth-stage divisions", recruited from the "second rank warriors." They were not eager to fight, but claims to the surrounding reality - especially having seen enough of the insane luxury of the capital, which was booming, despite the war, had a great many. The same “smart heads” that crammed potentially unreliable military units into the already troubled city came up with the idea of ​​deploying a hospital in it, where wounded and crippled front-line soldiers flowed in the river. A good combination is something like extinguishing a fire with gasoline. Nicholas II, being the commander-in-chief, simply had to stop this disgrace in the bud, giving the order to equip military towns as far from the "capitals" where the soldiers would learn to fight, and not run through rallies. Didn’t ...

As a matter of fact, I have already written about that absolutely fantastic neglect that reigned at the "top" of the Russian Empire to our own special services, their acquisition, support, and work. Therefore, I will repeat briefly - counterintelligence, internal political detective work, intelligence and operational work aimed at combating subversive elements and the most real terrorists were put in Russia very badly. In fact, anyone could make a hole from a revolver or gasp a bomb, at least for the Prime Minister (Stolypin), but at least for the Tsar himself. Do you think that after the events of 1905, after the entry of Russia into the war, something has changed for the better? If improvements did occur, then they were extremely insignificant, completely inconsistent with the level and scale of the threats to which the state was subjected. The most striking example - serious historians have long proved that interruptions in the supply of food, first of all, the grains that caused the very “grain riots” in Petrograd, from which it all started, were carefully arranged and organized. By whom? For what? It is unlikely that we will get exact answers to these questions - and the imperial gendarmes and the secret police should have searched for them. In fact, the special services of the Empire conducted some strange "games", solving, such an impression, each of its own questions. So they slammed the revolution.

Personnel policy of the Sovereign ... Well, there should be a special discussion about this in general. First of all, regarding whether it was even possible to call “personnel policy” what was going on in the state before the revolution. Contemporaries, in any case, this disgrace was called nothing but “ministerial leapfrog”. The emperor, personally in charge of the appointment of the highest dignitaries of the Empire, changed them, excuse me, like a windy beauty - fans. And, well, some tertiary - in two and a half years before February, Russia changed: there were six military ministers! There are four Ministers of the Interior (and the same number are heads of the Ministry of Justice). And in addition - six prime ministers. The last of them - Prince Nikolai Golitsyn behaved during the revolution in a completely inappropriate way. He himself did nothing, and did not give it to others until he ran away. And Minister of War Belyaev, who wiped his pants at headquarters all his life? His appointment (which happened, in fact, at the direction of the Empress, who turned members of the Cabinet of Ministers as their own dolls), Nikolai himself explained by the fact that Belyaev’s predecessor ... “didn’t know French!” And this one, slut, spits, as in his own. Definitely - the main quality in the appointment to a similar post in the country waging the World War ...

As a result, the Tsar at a critical moment was surrounded, almost without exception, by mediocrity, cowards, and people who were incapable of making responsible decisions, yes, who simply found themselves out of place. General Sergey Khabalov, who commanded the Petrograd garrison on critical days, was characterized by his contemporaries as a person completely inappropriate for this post - the former head of the military school, a teacher, who had no combat experience or fighting spirit. Well, he proved it quite - when the question arose of punishing the rebellious soldiers of the reserve battalion of the Pavlovsky Life Guards regiment, who opened fire on their own officers and police, Khabalov categorically refused to execute them, sending him to a guardhouse. And it was necessary to shoot! As a result, when the “government”, frightened to a swoon, headed by Golitsyn decided to declare Petrograd in a state of siege, Khabalov couldn’t even find people to stick up the corresponding announcements in columns. Nowhere else to go ...

The rest were the same “guardians of the throne” - the front commanders, unanimously, in fact (except for Kolchak), spoke out for the abdication of the Emperor, the Minister of the Interior Protopopov, who appeared to the rebels with a request ... for his own arrest! What can I say if Nikolai was betrayed by his own family! And it’s okay - only Grand Duke Mikhail Alexandrovich, in whose favor the Sovereign has denied, and he flatly refused to “shoulder the burden of the crown” when he realized that with it you can easily lose your head with these cursed days. Among the Romanovs were those who, in the days of February, ran with red bows and publicly explained their ardent love for the “people's revolution”! The same Grand Duke Kirill Vladimirovich, commander of the Guards Naval Crew of his Majesty’s retinue, who at the height of the revolution with his personnel pressed himself against the building of the State Duma and declared that he was "joining her." Prince ...

No doubt - Nikolai Romanov was not the charismatic person around whom the true defenders of Vera, Tsar and Fatherland could group. It’s not Napoleon Bonaparte, before whom, after his return from exile, after losing the terrifying war and the capture of Paris by the Allies, they nevertheless fell to their knees and bowed banners whole regiments. However, Napoleon’s charisma was only enough for 100 days ... However, Nicholas II didn’t have this either. When the ardent followers of the murdered Sovereign try to prove that his abdication was "an attempt to prevent bloodshed and save Russia", I want to answer: exactly! That would be so - if only after that the country had not broken into a new revolution, the Civil War, the long-standing Troubles, which almost destroyed it. You must admit that in the light of all this, the abdication of the throne of Emperor Nicholas II looks, let's say, in a slightly different way - like his last fatal mistake, which had the most terrible consequences for the country and people entrusted to him by God.

Let's remember - at the time of the Emperor's adoption of this decision, the revolution embraced only Petrograd. It was relatively calm even in Moscow, not to mention the outskirts. Behind the commander in chief of the Russian Imperial Army there were 15 million bayonets and sabers! The rebellious garrison of Petrograd numbered exactly one hundred times fewer soldiers - in addition, those that could not be compared with the war veterans. Let us give an example from French, again, history - the Paris Commune is not so far in time from our February. The similarity is enormous. The same far from victorious war with Germany, the same rebellious capital brawl, the same troops that came over to its side, the same creation of a “revolutionary government”, red flags, “freedom of equality and fraternity” ... That's just the French government, wisely removed from Paris, quickly managed to make peace with the Germans and the bayonets of the soldiers who remained faithful to her to drive revolutionary dope out of Paris, until she spread to the whole country.

Neither the Russian Emperor nor his entourage could do anything like that - although there was an opportunity. In the spring of 1917, a major military offensive was planned - and even then it would have been definitely not for everyone before the revolutions. Perhaps, (and such an opinion was repeatedly expressed in historiography), the Emperor and the government needed only to “firmly hold out for a few weeks”? Or was the catastrophe predetermined and inevitable? We will try to find answers to these questions in the next part of the article.