The Rasputin File (37 page)

But they kept calling him. And he shouted into the receiver, ‘What do they want from me? Do they really not want to understand that I am a little fly, and that I don’t need anything from anybody? Do they really have nothing else to write about besides me? I do not trouble anybody. And I could not trouble anybody since I do not have the strength. They discuss every step, they mix everything up. Leave me alone. Let me live.’

And this monologue instantly found its way into the papers along with derisive commentary.

And they called again. And again he shouted into the receiver and hung

up.

I tell you, I am a little fly and there’s no use in concerning yourself with me. There are bigger things to talk about, but for you it’s always one and the same: Rasputin, Rasputin. Be silent. Enough writing. You shall answer to God! He alone sees everything. He alone understands. And judges. Write, if you have to. I shall say nothing more. I have taken it all to heart. Now I am burned out. I don’t care any more. Let everybody write. Let them add to the din. Such, it appears, is my fate. I’ve endured everything. I’m not afraid of anything. Go ahead and write. How much will they worm out of you? I tell you, I don’t care. Goodbye.

And they published that monologue, too. What was to be done? He was the hero of the day.

The ambiguity of his situation in relation to the ‘tsars’ had manifested itself in the story of Prime Minister Kokovtsev and the former prime minister Count Witte.

Did The Peasant Sink A Second Prime Minister, Too?

After Kokovtsev’s appointment as prime minister in 1911, Alix had released a ‘trial balloon’. She sent Rasputin to ‘examine his soul’.

As Kokovtsev subsequently recalled, ‘I was startled to receive a letter from Rasputin literally containing the following: “I am planning to leave for good, and would like to meet you in order to exchange thoughts … say when.”‘ And Kokovtsev agreed to meet him. An almost comical scene ensued. Rasputin entered and sat down without saying a word. His silence continued. He gazed at the prime minister. ‘His eyes, set deep in their sockets, close to each other, small, and of steel-grey colour, were fixed on me, and Rasputin did not take them off me for a long time, as if he was thinking of producing some sort of hypnotic influence on me or was simply studying me.’ But the peasant suddenly muttered, ‘Should I leave or not, then? I no longer have an existence, and they are weaving whatever they want about me!’

Here the prime minister, according to Alix’s plan, was supposed to say how he would defend Rasputin. But Kokovtsev said, ‘Yes, of course, you will be doing a good thing if you leave…You must understand that this is not your place here, that you are injuring the sovereign by going to the palace … and giving ammunition to anybody you like for the most improbable inventions and conclusions.’

In reply Kokovtsev heard, ‘All right, I am bad, I shall go. Let them manage without me.’ Rasputin was again silent for a long time, and then he got up from his place and said only, ‘Well, so we have made each other’s acquaintance, then. Goodbye.’

And when Rasputin told her about Kokovtsev’s suggestion that he ‘leave’, Alix no longer liked the prime minister. For the meeting with Rasputin had not just been a meeting with the man of God. It had above all been a trial to test Kokovtsev’s readiness to submit to her opinions, his readiness to join the camp of her friends, to become one of ‘ours’.

The tsarina complained to Nicky. And the sovereign asked the new prime minister to render an account of his meeting with the peasant.

When I had finished my account, the sovereign asked me, ‘You did not tell him that we would send him away, if he did not leave of his own accord?’ Upon receiving my answer that … I had no reason to threaten Rasputin with exile, since he had said that he had long wished to leave, the sovereign
told me that he was glad to hear it. And that he ‘would be quite pained if anyone were uneasy because of us.’ Then the sovereign asked, ‘What sort of impression did that peasant make on you?’ I replied that I had been left with a most unpleasant impression, that it had seemed to me … that standing before me was a typical Siberian tramp.

Kokovtsev later formulated it even more candidly for the Extraordinary Commission: ‘I served eleven years in the Central Prison Administration … and saw all the convict prisons, and … among the Siberian vagrants of unknown ancestry, as many Rasputins as you like. Men who, while making the sign of the cross, could take you by the throat and strangle you with the same smile on their faces.’

And Rasputin understood: it was time to move against Kokovtsev. ‘Mama’ no longer wanted the prime minister.

From Filippov’s testimony in the File: ‘The actual removal of Kokovtsev took place under pressure, highly skilful and persistent pressure, applied by Rasputin, who had the peculiar knack of characterizing a hated person with a single phrase or epithet that left its mark in the midst of a discussion of quite extraneous topics, a knack that had an extraordinarily magical effect on weak and haughty natures like the sovereign’s.’

And although Kokovtsev had put the government’s finances in order and a period of genuine stability had begun, he was sent into retirement in January 1914 as a member of the Council of State, where he was rewarded, like Witte before him, with the title of count.

It would seem that the fall of Kokovtsev should have brought about a return to the political stage of the highly intelligent Count Witte, who was so well disposed to Rasputin and who ‘sang his tune’, as Bogdanovich put it.

Appointing Witte, the favourite of the progressive parties and of industrial capital, would seemingly have solved all the problems. On the one hand, he was attractive to society, and on the other, he had enough intelligence and authority to seal the mouths of the elder’s enemies. And Witte knew that the quick-witted Rasputin understood all this and would support him. But like many people, Witte did not grasp the true situation: Rasputin could be influential only in those instances where the tsarina had not come to her own conclusion. In the other instances he was obliged to play her game: to give expression to Alix’s opinions by means of his own premonitions, predictions, and wishes.

In regard to Witte, Alix’s opinion was firm. She hated him. For he was the creator of the constitution that in 1905 had limited the powers of the tsar and the future powers of her son — that had ‘robbed the Little One’ of
his legacy. And however useful the brilliant prime minister might have been, she had never been able, nor did she wish, to overcome her feelings. Just as Marie Antoinette had been unable to overcome her own aversion both to Lafayette and Mirabeau, however useful they might have proved and however they might have tried to save her.

And Rasputin understood all this and did not even hint at his regard for Witte.

But where Alix did not have an opinion, there Rasputin’s kingdom began. Here a nearly forgotten eighteenth-century practice came back into its own: that of acting through the ‘tsars” favourite. And if Rasputin could not bring about Witte’s reappointment, he could still influence the appointment of the new finance minister, a position to which Alexandra Fyodorovna was perfectly indifferent.

It was then that bankers started to gather around Rasputin. And they introduced him to Pyotr Bark. Bark was a child of the young Russian capitalism. He had left the Ministry of Finance as a forty-three-year-old senior official to become the managing director of the Volga-Kama Bank, where he made good use of his old government connections. And then he left the bank and returned to active government service, becoming under Kokovtsev the deputy minister of commerce and industry. Knowing of the situation surrounding the prime minister, Bark and, most importantly, the bankers who supported him, launched a campaign to take control of the Ministry of Finance. As Filippov testified in the File, ‘The fall of Kokovtsev, an extremely cautious politician in matters of finance who had evinced exceptional firmness and independence regarding the banks, was advantageous to the bankers.’

In January 1914 Ivan Goremykin became prime minister — a seventy-five-year-old whom Rasputin addressed as ‘Elder’, using the archaic vocative form. With Goremykin began Russia’s classic policy of counter-reform, in this case a rejection of Stolypin’s changes. Discussed in that connection were candidates for the new minister of finance. And Rasputin suddenly started talking about Bark’s good soul and abilities. When the empress passed on Father Grigory’s thoughts on Bark, the tsar could only wonder at Rasputin’s importunity regarding a subject of which he had so little grasp. The only explanation was inspiration from on high. And Bark was appointed minister of finance. It was the first time that a state rather than a church appointment had come about at Rasputin’s prompting. Of course, what had taken place was not merely the appointment of a new minister of finance but a revolution, one which Rasputin did not understand. He only
knew that money was now being managed by one of ‘ours’. In fact, it was the end of the policy conducted by Stolypin and continued by Kokovtsev. A minister of finance had been appointed who was the protégé of the mighty banks. Those banks would now through their minister of finance begin running the finances of the quasi-feudal state. Filippov, who was himself a banker and knew the machinations of banking from the inside, provided an explanation in the File.

‘Bark…gave the banks promissory notes … [which] began the widespread subsidization of private banks with state funds, allegedly in support of industrial enterprises…The funds were then used by the banking chiefs to purchase stock certificates and speculate on their fall, which would prove especially dangerous in the initial period of the war.’

But Goremykin had neither the strength nor the ability to return Russia to the mute tranquillity of the times of Alexander III. However he enjoyed the most ‘obedient’ relations with Alix, received the man of God, and carefully read the interminable memos that Father Grigory sent him along with petitioners. ‘Dear Elder of God, listen to them, assist them if you can, with apologies, Grigory.’

Rasputin’s friend Filippov testifies in the File how the drunken Rasputin once called the elderly Goremykin at his apartment to pass on the latest petition. Goremykin apologized for not being able to receive Rasputin, since his wife was gravely ill, and Rasputin, slurring his speech, assured him ‘the old woman will soon recover.’ And the old woman did.

The Shadow of Marie Antoinette

The last peaceful year of their empire came to an end with a betrothal in the large Romanov family.

Zinaida’s relations with the royal family had become ever more strained. Rasputin stood between them. And in November 1913 Zinaida wrote to her son about a dinner at the Livadia Palace.

I was seated at the royal table, and during the dances I was called to sit next to the hostess, who congratulated me and spoke a great deal about the two of you. In spite of her conspicuous courtesy, the conversation was dry, and it was clear how far I was from being in her good graces. [The tsar] got off with smiles and handshaking, but didn’t say a word. The fat one [Vyrubova] acts as if she enjoys all the rights of a fifth daughter … The black sisters [the Montenegrin princesses] walk about like people stricken with the
plague. None of the courtiers will even go up to them, seeing that the hosts ignore them completely.

It was Felix Yusupov’s turn to visit his future relatives. The tsar liked to play tennis. There is even a film strip, like a message from a vanished Atlantis: Nicholas on his tennis court. On 11 November, Nicholas wrote in his diary about playing tennis with his niece’s future husband. And added the sentence, ‘He’s the best player in Russia; there’s something to be learned from him.’ (That obviously non-military Adonis had to have at least some good points!)

And on 22 December 1913, Xenia recorded in her diary the mother’s customary entry on a daughter’s betrothal: ‘God grant them happiness in love. I cannot believe that Irina is getting married!’

Since Zinaida’s relations with the tsarina were strained, the wedding took place on what was for Alix ‘enemy territory’ — the Anichkov Palace of the dowager empress. The couple were married in the palace church. On 9 February 1914 Nicky entered in his diary, ‘Alix and I and the children went to the Anichkov in the city for Irina’s wedding to Felix Yusupov. Everything went well. There were lots of people.’

A royal escort and two automobiles brought Felix’s new relatives, Nicky, Alix, and the girls, from Tsarskoe Selo.

Irina arrived at the palace ahead of the groom. The beauty wore a gown of white satin embroidered in silver with a long train. A rock crystal tiara with diamonds supported a lace veil. An alarming detail: the tiara had once belonged to Marie Antoinette.

The groom, resplendent in a black
redingote
with gold-stitched collar and lapels, was at the time stuck in a palace lift. It was an old one that worked intermittently. So it was soon possible to see the entire imperial family, including the emperor, making desperate attempts to free the groom from his accidental prison. While the kind Nicky and the girls tried to help, Alix silently looked on.

A few months remained before the start of world war. And exactly three years until the fall of the empire in February 1917.

The Place of Tragedy is Ready!

Felix’s parents relinquished to him the left side of the ground floor of their palace on the Moika Canal. As he has described it in his memoirs, ‘I installed a separate entrance and made the necessary changes. On the right were the main rooms, including the ballroom with its columns of yellow
marble and arcades in the back looking out onto the winter garden, and the living room with its sapphire-coloured wallpaper and its paintings and Gobelin tapestries…All in the style of Louis XVI.’

All in the style of the king whose head was chopped off by revolution.

‘To the right of the lobby I built temporary quarters for the times I would come to Petersburg by myself. One of the doors opened onto a hidden stairway leading down into the basement …I wanted to build in that part of the basement a Renaissance-style salon. The work had barely been completed when revolution broke out, and we never used that living space into which we had put so much effort.’