The Family Romanov: Murder, Rebellion, and the Fall of Imperial Russia (21 page)

Ugly stories began to circulate about the country’s unpopular German-born empress. The people accused Alexandra of being a spy, and of supporting the kaiser’s army. The mood grew so dark that in Moscow a mob gathered in Red Square to demand her imprisonment in the Peter and Paul Fortress as a traitor to her country.

Nicholas now realized something extraordinary needed to be done to quell the nation’s anger.

When the war began, the tsar had put his cousin Grand Duke Nicholas, known in society as Nikolasha, in charge of battlefield operations. But by the summer of 1915, with the mood of the country darkening and the army in retreat, Nicholas considered firing Nikolasha and taking command himself. Many of his ministers advised against it, fearing that any military failures would be tied to him. In addition, he lacked war experience and knew almost nothing about military strategy. Still, Nicholas believed he was the people’s
Batiushka Tsar
, and just his presence—symbolic and emotional—would spur the soldiers to even fiercer fighting.

But could he walk away from the day-to-day governing of the country?

Alexandra insisted he could. So did Rasputin—but not for patriotic reasons. The
starets
held a grudge against Nikolasha that dated back to the fall of 1914. That’s when Rasputin, recovered from his knife wound, had finally returned to Petrograd. Recognizing Nikolasha’s powerful new position, Rasputin had immediately offered to visit Stavka (military headquarters) and bless an icon. In this manner, he hoped to weasel his way into the commander’s good graces.

But Nikolasha would have none of it. He hated Rasputin for his influence over the imperial couple. “
Yes, do come,” the commander had insultingly replied. “I’ll hang you.”

Rasputin seethed. Such a dangerous enemy had to be eliminated. Now, whenever he was with Alexandra, he began sowing seeds of doubt and suspicion.

“
The Grand Duke is deliberately currying favor in the army and overshadowing the tsar so that one day he can claim the throne,” the
starets
would say; or “The Grand Duke cannot possibly succeed on the battlefield because God will not bless him. How can God bless a man who has turned his back on me, a Man of God”; or
“If
the Grand Duke is allowed to keep his power, he will kill me, and then what will happen to the Tsarevich, the tsar and Russia?”

Alexandra, in turn, repeated Rasputin’s words to her husband. Again and again, she reminded Nicholas that Nikolasha was “
Our Friend’s enemy, and that brings bad luck. His work cannot be blessed, nor his advice be good.” He had to be replaced.

Nicholas was easily persuaded. But he still needed someone to take care of state affairs while he was five hundred miles away at Stavka. He turned to Alexandra. “
Think, my wifey … will you not come to the assistance of your hubby?” Later he added,
“Yes, truly, you ought to be my eyes and ears there … while I [am at Stavka]. It rests with you to keep peace and harmony among the Ministers.”

Alexandra, who had never before shown any interest in running the country, agreed. After all, she would not be alone. At her side, his “
prayers arising day and night,” would be their “Friend,” Rasputin. What could possibly go wrong?

On August 22, 1915, Nicholas boarded the imperial train and headed for military headquarters. In his pocket he carried a letter from Alexandra, cheering on his decision, and a farewell gift—a pocket comb Rasputin had given her. “
Remember to comb your hair [with it] before all difficult tasks and decisions,” she told him. “The little comb will bring its help.”

Nicholas soon took up residence at Stavka, moving into a comfortable mansion located hundreds of miles from any actual fighting. Leaving important military decisions to his chief of staff, the tsar set up a leisurely schedule for himself. He began his official duties at ten a.m., listening to reports from various ministers and officers.
After that, he had lunch, followed by two hours for walks, naps, or car tours of nearby troops. From three to six p.m. he did a bit more work, followed by dinner served on bone china and a nice glass of port wine. During the evenings, he sometimes watched movies in a makeshift theater set up especially for him. Other times, he listened to music on his phonograph. There were some discomforts. “
My field bedstead is so hard and stiff,” Nicholas wrote to Alexandra, “but I must not complain—how many sleep on damp grass and mud.”

Lonely for his family, the tsar soon begged his wife to allow eleven-year-old Alexei to live with him at headquarters. She had a hard time letting the boy go. Since his birth, he’d rarely been out of her sight for more than a few hours. But she finally agreed. After he left, she sent dozens of fretting letters to Stavka. “
See that Tiny doesn’t tire himself on the stairs,” she wrote. “He cannot take walks.… He forgets he must be careful.… Take care of Baby’s arm, don’t let him run about on the train so as to knock his arms.” And every night at nine o’clock—the time when she and Alexei had said their prayers together—she went into his bedroom by herself. Kneeling before his icons, she prayed for his safety.

Meanwhile, Alexei adored life at Stavka. Sleeping on a cot in his father’s bedroom, he took lessons each morning with Pierre Gilliard, who had accompanied him. Afterward, he played with his toy rifle in the garden. “
He … walks backwards and forwards on the path, marching and singing loudly,” wrote Nicholas. At mealtimes, he often pulled pranks on the staff gathered around the table, bombarding them with little pellets of bread and soaking them with the garden fountain. And in the afternoon, father and son took car rides or swam in a nearby river. Sometimes, wearing identical khaki uniforms, they reviewed troops or visited factories.

Not surprisingly, Nicholas’s presence made no difference in the war’s course. Shortages of military equipment and supplies, raw
materials for factories, and food for the cities and the troops grew worse. Prices soared. Soldiers went without boots, coats, guns, and bullets.

The result was “
more of the same,” said French Ambassador Paléologue. More military disasters. More retreats. More dead and wounded men.

Still the tsar clung stubbornly to his belief that God would set things right. “
It is His plan,” he said. “You will see … everything [is] for the best.” And so Nicholas remained at Stavka.

In Petrograd, Rasputin had a new apartment. Located on the third floor of an ordinary brick building in a working-class neighborhood, it was not an elegant place. But it was very close to the train that ran between the city and Tsarskoe Selo, making trips to the palace easy. Living in a modest apartment also helped Rasputin preserve his image as a holy man whose interests were heavenly rather than earthly.

This, of course, was far from the truth. Every day, a long line of people from every walk of life snaked down his apartment stairs—shopkeepers, countesses, college professors, peasants. Knowing Rasputin’s influence with the empress, they came seeking favors: one to have her husband transferred from the front, another to obtain a job promotion, still another to be given a lucrative government contract. One musically untrained woman even wanted Rasputin to have her made the lead singer at the Imperial Opera!

If he chose to help, Rasputin would scrawl a note in his almost illegible handwriting to high-ranking officials within the government. “
My dear and valued friend,” it would read, “do this for me. Gregory.” Many of these notes appeared at the palace. “
All were drawn up in the same way,” recalled one court official, “and they opened all doors in Petrograd.” In return for granting these requests, the
starets
accepted money, wine, food—whatever the favor seeker had to offer.

Another group of people also hung around Rasputin’s apartment—a unit of policemen. Placed there by Nicholas to protect the
starets
, they took detailed notes of all his comings and goings. And their
notes did not paint a holy picture. “
Rasputin took part in a drinking party with some [college] students,” read one. “A musician struck up and there was singing and Rasputin danced with a maidservant.”

Read another: “
Rasputin came home dead drunk at 1 a.m. and insulted the concierge’s wife.”

And another: “
Rasputin came home at 7 a.m. He was dead drunk.… He smashed a pane of glass in the house door; apparently he had had one fall already, for his nose was swollen.”

These reports—thousands of pages taken over the course of a year—were given to Alexandra. But she refused to see the truth. The reason people hated him, she claimed, was because they hated her. Furiously, she threw the pages into the trash.

The contents of these reports, however, leaked to the public. Soon, the “Staircase Notes” were being whispered about by court officials, countesses, factory workers, even soldiers. And almost everyone was outraged. Not only was the citizenry convinced that Rasputin was a fake, but they saw the empress as a narrow-minded, reactionary, hysterical woman because she remained under the fraud’s spell. Such gossip could only further degrade the monarchy, making them appear less near to God than ever before. For the good of the country, many now believed the
starets’
power had to end.

But no matter how much gossip swirled, the telephone in Rasputin’s apartment kept ringing as, time and again, Alexandra summoned him to Tsarskoe Selo, where they met at Anna Vyrubova’s house on the estate to avoid the gossipers.

Rasputin would rush to her side, somehow managing to sober up before arriving. Once there, he ingeniously acted the role of a holy man. So convincing was his performance that Alexandra firmly believed Rasputin was God’s messenger, sent to guide them through the war. “
I fully trust in Our Friend’s wisdom endowed by God to
counsel what is right for you and our country,” she wrote Nicholas soon after he departed for Stavka. “He sees far ahead and therefore his judgment can be relied upon.” It would be fatal, she insisted, not to listen to his advice.

And Rasputin had lots of advice—especially about Nicholas’s ministers. The
starets
felt threatened by these powerful men, most of whom hated him. He wanted them out of his way. But not so he could rule Russia; Rasputin never wanted that. He merely wanted to be left alone to continue his depraved lifestyle. And so, as he’d done with Nikolasha, he began talking against the ministers.

Alexandra was an avid listener. Since her earliest days as empress, she had divided her world into a large group of “enemies” and a much smaller group of “friends.” And over the years, she’d grown increasingly paranoid. In her mind, the war was really a struggle between the few “good” and “moral” people who supported Nicholas against the ever-growing circle of people who opposed him. Rasputin easily convinced her that the ministers were scheming against her husband, herself, and the
starets
.

Within weeks of Nicholas’s departure, Alexandra began bombarding him with letters, sometimes several a day, filled with her paranoid suspicions about so-called rotten ministers. “
Forgive me, but I don’t like the choice of Minister of War. Is he not an enemy of Our Friend?” she would write. Or
“Long-nosed Saznov [the foreign minister] is such a pancake.” Or “
Why do we have a [useless] rag as Minister of Court?”

Once the seeds of doubt had been sown, she suggested replacements:

“Our Friend finds Ivanov would be good as Minister of War.”

“
Really, my Treasure, I think he is the man Our Friend hinted [about]; I am always careful in my choice.”

“
Our Friend begs very much that you should not name Makarov
as Minister of the Interior—you remember how he … never stood up for me—it would indeed be a mistake to name him.”

Rasputin chose all the replacements. Unfortunately, he did not care about these men’s ability or knowledge. Instead, he picked them, wrote one historian, “
because they liked him, or said they liked him, or at least didn’t bother him.” One time, the
starets
discovered a candidate in a Petrograd nightclub. Drunk yet again, Rasputin loudly declared the band’s bass singer too weak. Glancing around the club, he spied a plump aristocrat named A. N. Khvostov. Slapping his back, Rasputin said, “
Brother, go and help them sing. You are fat and can make a lot of noise.” The equally drunk Khvostov agreed. Staggering onstage, he burst into song. Rasputin clapped with delight.

Not long afterward, Khvostov was unexpectedly appointed to the post of minister of the interior.

And so it went—a crazy game of “
ministerial leapfrog”—as ministers were appointed and fired by Nicholas at the behest of the empress and her
starets
. Between September 1915 and March 1917, four different men held the position of prime minister. In that same time, Russia had five ministers of the interior, four ministers of agriculture, and three ministers of war, transport, and foreign affairs. At one point, unable to find a man fawning enough to suit Rasputin, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs went without a leader for four months. Alexandra solved the problem by having Nicholas turn over the foreign ministry’s responsibilities to the prime minister. But the prime minister was already doing the job of the minister of the interior, also a vacant position. Overworked, the prime minister handed over the interior’s work to the minister of justice, who in turn handed the justice work over to the minister of agriculture. This complicated leapfrogging deprived Russia of its most able statesmen at a time when they were most needed. Instead, a
group of incompetent, mediocre men now held the most important positions in government.