The man who lost an empire because he could not say no to his wife

Tsar Nicholas II

• The Windsors have a parliament. Our British cousins gave their rights away; so did the Hapsburgs, and the Hohenzollerns, too. The Romanovs will not. What I was given, I will give my son.

• Stolypin is a good man. They always kill the good ones… I cannot find a match. Does anyone have a match?… It happened with my grandfather, too. He helped the serfs; he freed them. So how did the peasants express their gratitude? They threw a bomb at him. Damn those revolutionaries. You try to help them by giving them what they want, and what do you get for it? Bombs, gunshots, assassinations! I want them rooted out. I want something done, do you understand me? I want them paid in kind!

• You see, sometimes governments do things their people do not like. So the people react in different ways. The British vote. The Americans frequently remind their leaders of the U.S. Constitution. And the Serbs throw bombs. You see, Serbia wants its independence. But Austria will not grant it to them. So the Serbs resort to violence. It has happened in this country too sometimes. Your great-grandfather was killed by a bomb; so was Uncle Sergei. But Serbia is a long way away. Our foreign ministry will write some angry letters to the Serbian leaders, our generals will go on exercise, and everything will be right again. And we do not need have bad dreams about archdukes. All over Europe kings and queens are sleeping safely in their beds, and that is what we are going to do, too.

• Signing his abdication papers March 15th, 1917. The Ides of March.

Prime Minister Witte

• The people want more schools and health clinics, laws to protect the workers and the right to vote for an elected Duma. They are angry, sir, and they are serious. Imagine, sire, imagine if you would, that you are a factory worker living in Vladivostok or Saint Petersburg. You are really poor. Meals almost never fill your belly. You freeze eight months out of the year. Your children have no school, no doctors. Your country taxes you and sends the men a continent away to die for a piece of land on the Pacific Ocean. Imagine all that you have to deal with. You must give your people a little of what they want. Not everything mind you; just a taste.

• [Begging the Tsar to stay out of World War One] Don’t any of you understand? We are not fighting Napoleon this time! Germany has ten miles of railroad for every one mile of ours and has one hundred factories for every one we have. That gives the Germans a supreme advantage. All Russia has is men, and they will be slaughtered like flies! You could so easily keep Russia out of this war. The only thing you have to do is to walk out the door. Just get up and go home to your wife and children. You would be remembered as the greatest of all the Tsars.

• None if you will be here when this war ends. Everything we worked to build will be destroyed. There is no question another great war will come. The societies and kingdoms of Europe we knew will crumble, and out of the wreckage madmen and lunatics will come to power. And the world will grow old.

Grigori Rasputin

• I studied late to be a starets. I was twenty when this vision came. We peasants get them all the time. The Virgin Mary appears to us. She tells us when to sell our sheep when we want to make a profit. She told me to start walking; so I did. I kept walking throughout Europe and I waited for Her to tell me when to stop walking, but she did not. When I got to Greece, I could walk no more: so I resided in a monastery for two years and then proceeded to walk back to Russia again. Sometimes people ask me “What do I need to become a starets?” and I respond “Good feet.”

Vladimir Lenin

• You must understand that you are free to say whatever you like. You must also understand that I am free to shoot you for saying it.

Father Gapon

• The Tsar is here in Saint Petersburg to bless the troops. He is staying at the Winter Palace. This Sunday, hundreds of us will walk to the palace in a peaceful parade. I will meet him on the balcony and read this: “Your Majesty, we, the working men and women of Saint Petersburg, come to you seeking justice and protection. Only you can hear our grievances. If you do not help us, we will stay here and die, right in this very courtyard.”

Dialogue

:Petya: My mother spent her whole life here. She was born in this factory, grew up here, took her classes here, played here, got married here. I was born, Father died, I got married here and had children. And now it is all over for her. The other people here just keep on working. Well, I cannot blame them. They have to work to feed their families. Father, I have a confession to make. I want to kill somebody. The other factory workers come visit me some time. They tell me we ought to make bombs, blow things up. Well, I want to fight back for once!
:Father Gapon: The only thing violence produces is more violence. They will beat you and throw you in jail. There is a better way. We will go to see the Tsar with our grievances.
:Sonya: You know the saying, Father: God is too high and the Tsar is too far away.
:[The "Bloody Sunday" massacre has just occurred.]
:Tsar Nicholas II: How many dead?
:Prime Minister Witte: Sir, we are still counting; but it is estimated to be in the hundreds.
:Tsar Nicholas II: Who gave the order to fire upon them?
:Prime Minister Witte: Your Majesty, nobody ordered it.
:Tsar Nicholas II: You run this government. Somebody had to have ordered something!
:Prime Minister Witte: Would you have gone out to meet them?
:Tsar Nicholas II: Of course not.
:Prime Minister Witte: Would you have given them a Duma? Allowed them to have elections? Had schools and hospitals built for them?
:Tsar Nicholas II: How could I?
:Prime Minister Witte: Then why bother to inform you about this? You would not have done anything!
:Empress Dowager Marie: I have come to congratulate you, Nicky.
:Tsar Nicholas II: What for, Mama?
:Empress Dowager Marie: For finding, in all of Russia’s countless cretins, idiots and incompetents, the men least qualified to run your government!
:Empress Dowager Marie: You have to stop being out here on the front lines and get back to Tsarskoe Selo, where you belong! Rasputin is in Saint Petersburg, running it all into the ground! If you do not act now, we will be ruined and madmen will come!
:Tsar Nicholas II: What should I do?
:Empress Dowager Marie: Hang him! Send him to the gallows! I do not wish ill on any man, but so many Russians are going to die if you do not!
:Tsar Nicholas II: I cannot.
:Empress Dowager Marie: Then send him to Siberia! Get back home, send Alexandra to Livadia and take charge of everything!
:Tsar Nicholas II: Rasputin lives in Siberia. Besides, what am I to do when my son has a hemophilia attack and Sunny needs Rasputin’s help?
:Empress Dowager Marie: Do you believe that? Do you honestly and seriously believe that? Millions of Russians are going to starve to death and be murdered, and all because you cannot say no to your wife! In that case I ask you, Nicholas, what can you do?
:Tsar Nicholas II: Just what I am doing.
:Empress Dowager Marie: I wish your father were still alive. He would know what to do!
:Tsar Nicholas II: Don’t you dare throw him in my face!
:Empress Dowager Marie: Why shouldn’t I? He would have burned Vienna down, bombarded the Germans, hung the rebels, shot the strikers, anything to give Russia peace! And he would certainly know what to do about Rasputin! Your father knew how to be a Tsar!
:[The tsar is teaching gardening to his children.]
:Tsar Nicholas II: In a few months, these will be turnips.
:Grand Duchess Anastasia: [giggling] They are carrots.
:Tsarevitch Alexei: And when they grow, will we still be around to eat them?
:Tsar Nicholas II: All we do is dream of England. We have been very happy there.
:Alexander Kerensky: England will not accept you.
:Tsar Nicholas II: Won’t accept? King George is my cousin!
:Alexander Kerensky: He does not seem to want you, either. He has got his own station to worry about.
:Tsar Nicholas II: Yes, I must not make trouble for…
:Alexander Kerensky: Neither will the French. They are at war to save liberty. You were an autocrat.
:Tsar Nicholas II: Damn it! I am a father with a family! Is there not any way? How about Finland? It is only thirty miles away!
:Alexander Kerensky: I would never get you out of Saint Petersburg alive. Are you aware that I am all that stands between you and the block? You will be safe under my administration, you have my promise on that. There is blood enough on everybody’s hands; I will not have yours on mine. A fine mess Russia in in. Treasury is empty. The Radicals want this, the Socialists want that, the Kadets want the other thing. The Bolsheviks want this, the Mensheviks want that. I could not throw them in jail even if I wanted to! You had power but no laws; I have laws but no power.
:Tsar Nicholas II: I wish I could help.
:Alexander Kerensky: You had your chances. I sure hope I get mine.
:British Ambassador to Russia: Is Russia committed to the war effort?
:Alexander Kerensky: Indeed.
:French Ambassador to Russia: There is talk about Russians demanding Russia’s withdrawal from the war.
:Alexander Kerensky: That is the mostly the Bolsheviks. But do not worry about that; the Bolsheviks only have six seats in the Duma, nobody takes them seriously.
:U.S. Ambassador to Russia: Washington is prepared to grant a loan of several hundred million rubles to aid your fledling government, but that is contingent upon Russia’s military involvement. No war, no loan.
:Kerensky is annoyed by the use of American taxpayers’ money to saw Russian opinion
:Alexander Kerensky: You cannot buy Russia! We will fight! But not to get your tax money. We have lost so much already.
:U.S. Ambassador to Russia: If I were you, I would put this Lenin quietly in jail.
:Alexander Kerensky: I cannot do that just because. There has been a bad history in Russia about that sort of thing. It is has been far too easy for the leaders to throw people in jail.
:U.S. Ambassador to Russia: I have read his speeches. Surely you have to.
:Alexander Kerensky: I cannot throw a man in jail for what he thinks! Of all the people of the world, you Americans should understand that best! It is in your Bill of Rights.
:U.S. Ambassador to Russia: Lenin wants to overthrow the government by force. We Americans call that treason.
:Tsarevitch Alexei: Why did you abdicate for me? You never asked!
:Tsar Nicholas II: I did not want you to have to pay for my mistakes.
:Tsarevitch Alexei: Am I not paying for them now? Are not we all?

Source: Wikiquote