Where Kotkin’s book really delivers is the discussion of why the Russian Empire entered into a suicidal war against Germany in 1914. I have never read a clearer, better argued analysis of Nicholas II’s decision to bring his tottering empire into this ridiculous war that served no actual purpose in terms of foreign relations.
Kotkin argues that the reason why Nicholas declared war on Germany was purely internal. The tsar resented his authoritarian powers being curbed even to a tiny extent by the Duma (or the Russian version of a parliament that the tsar had been forced to accept back in 1905). The tsar was convinced that Russia didn’t need a constitutional monarchy and was made very sulky by the attempts to move the country in that direction.
The tsar’s hope was that a massive war against Germany would create a feeling of a mystical union between the people and the tsar, sweeping away the needless parliament. Yes, he was that stupid. This actually wasn’t among the most bizarre of his ideas.
Of course, the result of the war was quite the opposite of what the tsar had envisioned: the people got extremely angry at the tsar for sending them to die for no particular reason and ended up killing the tsar and his whole family.
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\\ the people got extremely angry at the tsar for sending them to die for no particular reason and ended up killing the tsar and his whole family.
And nowadays some in Russia praise the tsar and present him as an innocent victim, including some historians like the one whose Stalin’s autobiography you recommended to me. Thousands of Russians were killed in WW1. If one loves Russian people, how can one avoid thinking the tsar got exactly what he deserved?
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Oh, the tsar totally deserved everything he got and more. The Orthodox Church canonized this freak, which tells us all we need to know about that church.
Kotkin says that any nostalgia for the Russian Empire is misplaced, and he is absolutely right. It was a horrible, hopeless place. The tsar refused to modernize in any way. He wanted to retain autocracy by any means. And what likelihood of that was there?
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Interesting. The tsar’s idea doesn’t seem that ridiculous – there are definitely cases where wars shore up support for existing regimes, no? I’m not at all a history buff, but I wouldn’t be surprised if this was part of the dynastic bag of tricks – as in, something that worked before at least once. And if we don’t hold that the idea is ridiculous on its own, it would be interesting to know why it failed in that particular instant.
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“I’m not at all a history buff, but I wouldn’t be surprised if this was part of the dynastic bag of tricks – as in, something that worked before at least once. ”
– The previous war (the Russo-Japanese war of 1905) had been lost by Russia and almost destroyed the Russian Empire. The Empire was already very weak. Unlike the British Empire, the tsar adamantly refused to go towards the model of parliamentary monarchy. He had to agree to the existence of the parliament after the loss of the Russo-Japanese war and the consequent popular revolution at home. However, he did all he could to render the parliament impotent and thwarted it at every move. The Russian Empire was simply incapable of modernizing in any way. The tsar would have been at home 200 years earlier with his, as you correctly say, tried and trusted bag of tricks. However, he was incapable of realizing that times were changing and his authoritarian power model had no more legitimacy in the eyes of the people. He expected Russians to worship him as a deity, like they worshiped their tsars 200 years earlier. But times had changed, and people were seeing him simply as an outdated obstacle on the way to modernization. This is why the 300-year-old Romanov monarchy tottered and fell apart within just a few days after a few street protests.
Thank you for these intelligent and interesting questions!
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