Alexander II_ The Last Great Tsar - Edvard Radzinsky [46]
“In Moscow, as you know, thank God, the uprising was crushed, thanks to the loyalty and steadfastness of our troops.… The revolutionaries losses were enormous, but it is hard to get precise information, since many of those killed burned up and the wounded were carried away and hidden.”
While the revolution was being put down, Alix instilled in Nicholas—with all her faith and passion—the idea of Witte’s evil intentions. The manifesto had led to nothing. The uprisings had continued anyway. Great shadows loomed behind him—his Romanov ancestors and his heavenly protector, Serafim of Sarov. With him, they had crushed the revolution, not the pathetic manifesto, which he had been forced to sign during a grave crisis.
Witte was Nicholas’s mother’s man. In struggling against him Alix was removing his mother from power. For good.
By then it was all clear. Nicholas had dealt with the Revolution. Having lived through that storm the rightists evidently gave up on the idea of replacing the monarch on the throne, but they were contemplating a change in the guard by the throne: the time had come to sweep away the liberals. As always: “Witte has done his deed.”
Not coincidentally, soon afterward Nicholas Nikolaevich joined forces with Alix. Yesterday he was embracing Witte and praising the manifesto; now he was its enemy. The tsar was avid to believe in this new stance. The fury of battle had changed him. A knight and his sword defending his God-given rights, a warrior for his people and his dynasty—Nicholas liked that image.
Now in his letters to his mother there was a pervasive martial tone:
“I want to see my regiments and shall begin, in turn, with the Semyonovsky.” “There was a review of my favorite Nizhegorodsky.” “A review of the officers of the Cavalry Guards.” “A review of the Marine of the Guard.”
Soon after Nicholas informed his mother:
“I have never seen a chameleon, someone who changes his convictions, the likes of [Witte]. Thanks to this quality of character, almost no one believes him anymore.”
In April 1906 Witte handed Nicholas his letter of resignation, and Nicholas replied with satisfaction:
“Count Sergei Yulievich! Yesterday morning I received your letter in which you asked to be relieved of all the positions you now hold. I hereby express my consent to your request. Nicholas.”
Vera Leonidovna:
“The revolution was dying.… Darkness and despair had set in. The intelligentsia had run into error, into anarchism.… Now, looking back, I understand: this was the despair of people who had looked revolution in the face for the first time. The intelligentsia had seen the bloody face of popular revolt and shuddered.… The revolution was not a celebration of freedom but a natural disaster, like a tornado.… The most terrifying part, though, was that we had a feeling, perhaps unconscious, but still: it would return.”
Witte was huge, corpulent. The tall Witte was replaced by the giant Peter Arkadievich Stolypin. Nicholas’s two most famous ministers were tall. Here lay his hidden complex: his large father had always been a reliable and strong defense. He had confidence in tall people.
Late in April in the Winter Palace throne room, Witte, now removed from affairs of state, observed the meeting between his own offspring—the State Duma—and the tsar. “Nicholas is pale,” Witte noted in his diary. “He gave a speech. ‘May my fervent hopes be fulfilled to see my people happy and to bequeath to my son a stronger, better, and more enlightened state.’”
Witte must have chuckled when he heard these words about the heir. The old minister understood everything.
A son robbed by a manifesto—this was Alix’s pathos. Nicholas declared to the uncomprehending Russian parliament that the heir would receive what belonged to him—the old autocracy without a constitution. In other words, Nicholas told the Duma that he intended to disband it.
Later the tsar received the first Russian parliamentarians: in