Essay On Tsar Nicholas II

Nicholas II or better known as the last tsar was one of the most indecisive and unequipped to rule Russia "The Czar can change his mind from one minute to the next; he’s a sad man; he lacks guts (Rasputin). His indecisive nature led to many arising issue’s and opposition which he was not able to respond to with the speed and effectiveness of his predecessors, leading to worsening conditions in Russia. Most of this ineptitude stemmed from his failure to adapt to changing and worsening conditions in Russia. Konstantin Pobedonostev taught him, a firm believer in monocracy, whose lessons developed a belief that he was invincible and had God’s right to rule, taught him. “It was not a weakness of will that was the undoing of the last Tsar, but a willful determination to rule from the throne, “ Orlando Figes. Nicholas II had some successful reforms, but these were mostly

Witte understood the wretched and hostile conditions that plagued Russia. There was agricultural inefficiency, incompetence and backwardness on a grand scale, manufacturing output was one of the lowest in Europe, and poor transport and communication inefficiency halted any growth in the economy. Witte knew that industrialization was vital for any progress, and so under Nicholas ll’s reign he came up with a number of reforms such as protective tariffs from foreign goods, foreign investment etc and also managed to put the Russian currency on the gold standard so it could be traded. However his ignorance of the seriousness of the dire grinding poverty caused a great amount of opposition towards the Tsar, thus though successful in modernizing Russia, he failed to appease the majority of the population (90% peasant population) thus the road to revolution and change became all the more