Empire of the Tsars: Romanov Russia with Lucy Worsley (2016–…): Season 1, Episode 3 - The Road to Revolution - full transcript

Lucy Worsley concludes her history of the Romanov dynasty, investigating how the family's grip on Russia unraveled in their final century. She shows how the years 1825-1918 were bloody and ...

LUCY WORSLEY: In the 1820s,
the Romanov dynasty appeared invincible.

They'd ruled Russia for
more than two centuries.

They'd built an empire
and beaten Napoleon.

But now there was a new threat,

more deadly than an invading army.

The Russian people themselves.

(CANNON FIRES)

In July 1826,

five revolutionaries were led out
of this St. Petersburg fortress,

to their deaths.

These were the leaders of the Decembrists,



rebels who'd staged a failed uprising.

The execution went disastrously wrong.

The ropes weren't tied properly
on the gallows

and when the stools were removed
from underneath three of the men,

they fell down to the ground.

They were squirming about,
they were still alive!

One of them had broken legs,

and as they strung him back up again,
he shouted out,

"Poor Russia, they can't even
hang men properly here."

The Decembrist revolts were something new.

Not for nothing has it been called
the first Russian Revolution.

These men wanted to change the system.

Some even wanted to do away
with the Romanovs altogether.

In Russia, small groups of rebels
were easily dealt with,



but in the Romanovs' final century,
their power unraveled.

As the Russians went from
executing revolutionaries,

to murdering the Tsar.

We're going to meet the
last of the Romanovs,

Nicholas and Alexander.

And Alexander and Nicholas.

And I'll show how these four tsars

would meet the challenge of revolution
in different ways.

With denial.

With liberal reform,
ended by a terrorist bomb.

With brutal reaction

and refuge in the mysticism
of notorious holy man, Rasputin.

And we'll see how the Romanovs collided
with a people reeling from famine and war.

Bringing the dynasty
to its tragic and bloody end.

(GUNSHOT)

(THEME MUSIC PLAYING)

LUCY: In December 1825,

Tsar Alexander I,

the hammer of Napoleon, was dead.

Who was to succeed him?

It was confusing.

And sensing a power vacuum,

the Decembrists seized their moment.

Three thousand soldiers gathered here,
refusing to swear the oath of loyalty

to the new Tsar, Nicholas.

Many of their leaders had
been to Western Europe.

They'd been to Paris,
they'd been radicalized by the ideas

that they'd come across there.

So, they gathered by the bronze horseman,

the statue of the modernizer
Peter the Great,

in order to call for change.

What they wanted was an end to serfdom
and a free press.

In fact they wanted the foundations
of democracy.

The new Tsar dithered.

The situation seemed to be
getting away from him.

As night fell,
he ordered his artillery to open fire.

Seven rounds emptied the square
of all but the dead and the wounded.

That night Nicholas wrote to his brother.

"I am emperor," he said,

"but my God, at what a price?

"At the price of the blood of my people."

The traumatic events of his very first day
would harden Nicholas.

The untested youth
caught in this portrait,

soon discovered that being Tsar is much
easier if people are scared of you.

It's said that he had
"A gaze like a rattlesnake,

"that could freeze the blood
in your veins."

And these are the words of his own son.

Nicholas' ambition was laid out
on the walls of the Winter Palace,

in this interior created to impress
visiting diplomats.

The Decembrists had idealized
Peter the Great as a modernizer,

but Nicholas modeled himself on Peter,
the great military conqueror.

Beneath Peter's larger than life portrait,
would sit Nicholas himself.

But Peter had wanted Russia
to accelerate into the future.

Nicholas would spend the next 30 years
trying to put on the brakes.

From his throne, Nicholas formulated
a new philosophy for Russia.

The rest of Europe was struggling
with concepts like liberty,

equality and fraternity,

and Nicholas made a very Russian response.

For him it was to be about orthodoxy,

autocracy and nationality.

It was an ultra-conservative message.

In Nicholas' new mantra for Russia,

there was to be God on one side,

Russia on the other,

and Nicholas himself in the center,
holding the whole thing together.

Orthodoxy, autocracy and nationality,

was invented to create an obedient people,
who didn't ask questions.

Even Nicholas' inner circle
were chosen for their dependability.

He liked to say that he needed
loyal advisors, not smart ones.

Nevertheless, groups of writers
and thinkers emerged.

The intelligentsia,

who set out to challenge
this stupefying status quo.

By the middle of the century,
subjects like serfdom

were openly tackled by radical journals
like The Contemporary,

whose roll call of writers included
Leo Tolstoy and Ivan Turgenev.

More than any other writer it was Turgenev
who changed people's minds about serfdom.

He grew up in a noble family

on an estate rather like this,
he had a privileged childhood.

But he'd witnessed his mother
being tyrannical with the family serfs.

He saw serfs beaten,

sent off to the army,
serf families split up.

Turgenev wrote a series of stories,

collected under the innocuous title,

Sketches from a Hunter's Album.

Here was a human portrait
of the serfs themselves,

alongside the cruelty of their masters,
the landowners.

This book was published in 1852,

exactly the same year as Uncle Tom's Cabin
in the United States.

And just as Uncle Tom helped to mobilize
public opinion against slavery over there,

this book had the same effect
against serfdom over here.

Tsar Nicholas I was so angry
about the book

that he placed Turgenev under house arrest

for having insulted the
landowners of Russia.

Privately, Nicholas acknowledged that
serfdom would eventually have to go.

But not yet.

His beloved army depended on it
to fill its ranks.

And he needed the military
to enlarge his empire.

Under Nicholas, Russia expanded
its territory in the Caucasus,

and Central Asia.

And became the dominant
power in the Near East.

Russia had the largest army in the world.

All the other powers thought
that she was a terrifying threat.

But these numbers were deceptive.

Mostly the army was made up
of these conscripted peasants,

whose equipment was poor
and whose motivation was poorer.

And Nicholas, although he loved
military parades, hadn't helped.

He'd promoted people who were loyal,
as opposed to people who were talented.

He just didn't have the right generals
to win a war.

So it would only be a matter of time

before the might of the Russian war
machine, would prove to be paper-thin.

(BLOWS)

That moment came in 1853,

when Nicholas blundered
into the Crimean War.

Russia was fighting France, Britain
and the Ottoman Empire,

and to Nicholas' increasing horror,

he was on the losing side.

The Russians lose the Crimean War

essentially because they're
a pre-industrial country trying to fight

countries which are already being
transformed by the Industrial Revolution.

The British and French get to the Crimea
by modern forms of transport,

the steamship and the railway.

Meanwhile the Russians are still
essentially in the pre-industrial era.

They have to walk to the Crimea,

they can't supply their troops
in the Crimea

by anything but pre-industrial means,

and Russian artillery is outranged
on the battlefield by

English and French rifle muskets.

They also simply don't have
the financial muscle

to keep going.

LUCY: To add to Nicholas' disgrace,
Russia was losing on her own soil.

There was no escape from the humiliation,

not even at the Romanovs'
summer palace at Peterhof.

Just over there on the horizon,
on a clear day,

is the island of Kronstadt.

It's the naval base that defends
St. Petersburg 20 miles that way.

And from the very palace grounds,

Nicholas with his telescope
could see French and British warships

stationed near the island.

To them this was a terrific
show of strength, but to Nicholas,

it was a personal humiliation,
to see the enemy so close,

so deep into his empire.

He'd been brought face-to-face
with his own military weakness.

His courtiers noticed a physical change
in Nicholas.

He was perpetually downcast,
his face in wrinkles.

In 1855, six months into
the Siege of Sevastopol,

the Emperor and autocrat of
all the Russias, was taken ill.

Nicholas had a chill,
but even so he went outside

into the horrible St. Petersburg
winter to review his troops.

While he was watching
the snow was falling,

but he took off his coat
and he unbuttoned his shirt.

This made him even iller,

and when he went back inside his palace,
he wouldn't let his doctors see him

until it was too late.

He had full-blown pneumonia.

Some historians have speculated that
maybe this was a deliberate action

by Nicholas, maybe he was
trying to commit suicide by snow.

The broken Nicholas had kept
Russia static for 30 years,

and now his country was a backwater.

But did his son, Alexander,
have what it took to change things?

Well, this is how Alexander II
is remembered in Russia today.

As the last great Tsar.

And, with good reason.

This inscription lists Alexander's CV
in glowing terms, and rightly so.

He introduced reforms in education,

in the judiciary, in local government,
in the army,

but his biggest achievement
is listed right here at the top.

It says, "In 1861,

"Alexander overturned serfdom, liberating
millions of peasants from centuries

"of slavery." An act that earned
him his name, "The Tsar Liberator."

By the mid-1850s, the arguments
for abandoning serfdom were immense.

It was part of the disgrace of Crimea.

It tied people to the land,
so that industry couldn't develop.

And increasingly it was
just seen as wrong.

But when it came to reforming the system,
huge self-interest was also at work.

What really convinced Alexander to end
serfdom, was the threats that he perceived

to the Romanovs themselves.

Unless he introduced change
through reform from above,

his hands might be forced from below
through revolution.

After years of consultation
with landowners,

Alexander signed
the Decree of Emancipation in 1861.

In the Moscow State Archives,

it's possible to see how the serfs
themselves would have learned the news.

This is the official document
announcing the end of serfdom,

that was printed and
sent out across Russia

to be read aloud in churches.

Now, in democratic America,

they'd have a civil war before everybody
could agree to end slavery,

but in autocratic Russia,

Alexander thought he could just send out
a document and it would happen.

He also thought that there must be a way

of pleasing all the parties
to this transaction.

Well, he was wrong about that.

Now the serfs could own property,

marry according to their choice,
trade freely and vote in local elections.

But when it came to sharing out land,
Russia's elite were less than generous.

When the land was split up,
the landlords got two-thirds of it.

And the best parts.
The ex-serfs were given the leftovers.

They were going to find it hard
to scratch out a living from that.

And the landlords got compensation,

but the ex-serfs now had to pay
for the right to work their land,

placing them immediately in debt.

The devil was in the detail.

Many people had hoped that Alexander's
reforms were the first step towards Russia

becoming a liberal democracy,
but they were destined to be disappointed.

At the start of his reign,
Alexander embraced the word

that'll be familiar to everybody who
remembers the end of the Cold War.

"Glasnost." It means "openness."

He eased up on censorship, he allowed
people to have a voice in reform.

It sounds like a good idea, but you can
argue that it was a terrible mistake,

because it raised expectations.

As it gradually became clear
that the reforms were compromised,

a new disillusioned generation emerged,
the student radicals.

They wanted a revolution to overthrow
tsarism altogether,

and some of them would use violence
to achieve this.

The story of modern political terrorism
starts here.

In 1866, there was the first-ever attempt
on the Tsar's life

by a member of the public.

A student radical tried to shoot Alexander
as he was walking in St. Petersburg.

I've come to the European University
at St. Petersburg,

to meet Alexey Miller,
Professor of History,

to find out who these radicals were,
and why it was the reforming Alexander

who became their target.

Why did some of the radicals
turn to violence?

Were they frustrated?

Desperation, disenchantment,

because on the one hand they were
talking about political violence,

but they were not doing much.

Still, sentences, court sentences to
these people, were extremely harsh.

So you might as well commit violence.

If you're going to Siberia for 25 years,
you might as well throw a bomb.

That is one thing.

The second thing, this...

The liberal part
of the society feels, well,

not full solidarity with the terrorists,

but it doesn't feel full solidarity
with the government,

it doesn't want to support the government.

Vera Zasulich,

who shot the Governor of St. Petersburg
in his office,

was tried by the jury

and acquitted, because they believed
that she had a moral right to do so.

- That's quite surprising.
- That is not surprising, that is very sad.

And that is a powerful message

on the side of the society,
"Go ahead, you can continue,

"we are on your side."

And then they want
destabilization of the situation.

And how you destabilize the situation?

You start hunting the Tsar.

Hunting the Tsar
would become the obsession

of a revolutionary group named
People's Will,

who've been called the first
modern terrorist organization.

In August 1879, at a fateful meeting,

they condemned Alexander to death.

For maximum secrecy, they held the meeting
in a forest outside St. Petersburg,

and here they decided
that they'd be wasting their time

if they went after middle-ranking
government officials.

What they needed to do was strike a blow
at the heart of the tsarist regime.

They decided to go for the Tsar himself,
Alexander II.

And this was to be no "ordinary"
murder as they put it,

it needed drama and spectacle
to wake up the peasants

and start a revolution.

People's Will relentlessly
pursued Alexander,

launching a series of attacks on his life.

In 1880, one of their number detonated
a bomb that destroyed the dining room

of the Winter Palace.

Eleven people died, but Alexander,
who was late for supper, survived.

Security was increased,

while Alexander belatedly tried to restart
his reformist program.

Plans were drawn up to introduce a new
consultative assembly to advise the Tsar.

These were just days
away from being enacted,

when People's Will
finally caught up with Alexander

on the streets of St. Petersburg.

Trying to wrong-foot the terrorists,
his carriage had taken a detour

alongside this canal.

But People's Will were prepared.

One of their members
was a brilliant young scientist

and he'd created a special bomb.

A bit like a hand grenade,
it contained vials of nitroglycerin.

When these shattered, it would explode.

As Alexander's carriage
came round that corner,

a member of People's Will was standing by
and lobbed a grenade right at him.

(EXPLOSION)

Several onlookers were wounded,

but Alexander was fine,
his carriage was bomb-proof.

He should have stayed inside
and driven off but no, he got out.

He wanted to talk to his
would-be assassin.

And this gave the opportunity
to another member of People's Will

with another grenade.

(EXPLOSION)

When the smoke cleared,
20 people had been hurt,

and the lower half of Alexander's body
was shattered.

They scooped him up barely alive,

and carried him back to the Winter Palace.

At the Winter Palace, the dying Tsar
was surrounded by his stunned family.

CHARLOTTE ZEEPVAT: He knew he was dying.
They knew he was dying.

It's all very bloody and very horrible,

and there standing watching is his son,
Alexander,

who is going to be Alexander III.

And he's standing there looking at

what happens when you try and offer
people reform, that's how he viewed it.

So, the death of Alexander II
stops reform in its tracks.

The constitutional decrees
which would have come forward,

which would have introduced
another level of government in Russia,

are put aside.

Alexander III will have nothing of them.

He takes the line that Russia
needs strong government.

Alexander III presented himself
as a strong man,

and he certainly looks the part.

A mixture of beard and muscle
poured into a uniform.

He was an enormous man, 6'3",
and built like a great big bear.

His party trick was to get an iron bar
and to bend it with his bare hands.

Alexander has had himself painted
greeting a collection of peasant leaders.

He's resolute, standing firm,

the weight of Russia
on his broad shoulders.

And they're completely overwhelmed
by the experience.

Some of them are swooning away,
and others are shielding their eyes

from the magnificent sight of him.

Alexander III wasn't exactly
an intellectual giant,

but he held his autocratic
regime together,

almost through force of will.

Alexander introduced a new
"Era of Reaction."

He gave the authorities
extensive powers to jail people

and to close down newspapers.

There was a new secret police,

and he was determined to stamp
out all revolutionary movements,

starting with People's Will.

In the years following 1881,
dozens of revolutionaries

made this boat trip to that
rather terrifying-looking castle.

Known as the "Russian Bastille,"

the Schlisselburg Fortress
was where political prisoners were sent

to be forgotten.

Schlisselburg was built
in the 14th century.

But in the 1880s, Alexander III
oversaw the construction of a new prison,

for those associated
with his father's murder.

Thank you.

In the first 20 years after it was built,

68 men and women were interred
at His Majesty's pleasure.

Fifteen were executed.

Fifteen died of disease.

Three committed suicide
and eight went insane.

On the surface, Alexander III's
Era of Reaction was working well.

But every time he struck down
a revolutionary,

another one popped up as a replacement.

In 1887, five prisoners were brought
out of the fortress' execution block,

and hanged on a gallows
just where the white tree is.

Their crime? Plotting to murder the Tsar.

One of them was a 21-year-old
called Aleksandr Ulyanov.

That's his gray memorial up there.

Now you might not have heard of Aleksandr,

but you will have heard
of his younger brother.

On the day of Aleksandr's execution,

this brother was at school
doing his geometry exam.

His brother's death radicalized him.

He got involved in student protests

and starting producing
revolutionary literature

under a pseudonym

that would become one of
the 20th century's best known names.

Lenin.

Contemporaries saw danger.

The novelist Tolstoy wrote to the Tsar
urging him to show love for his enemies.

But Alexander wanted
to take the fight further,

and he used the very site of his father's
assassination in St. Petersburg,

to make a powerful statement.

This city had killed his father,

and here Alexander would champion
the traditions of the motherland,

over the bankrupt modernity of the west.

Peter the Great
had conceived of St. Petersburg

as a model for a new Russia.

Here Russia was going to
embrace western ideals.

The city was even going to look
like it belonged to Europe,

being largely in the classical style.

And yet, bang in the middle of this city
full of Renaissance-style palazzi,

Alexander III has plonked down
this building.

It's like a declaration of war
on Peter's ideal.

A bit like a ghost at a feast.

This building revives the old Russia
that Peter the Great tried to obliterate.

For Alexander III, Russia had gone wrong
when it had tried to copy the west.

When it had tried to modernize itself.

Western ideas clearly led to tsars
getting blown up.

Russia could only thrive
by embracing Russian culture.

And that traditional Russian
form of government...

Autocracy.

Alexander III wasn't at the opening
of the chillingly named

Church of the Savior
on the Spilled Blood.

He died of kidney disease in 1894,
aged only 49.

Responsibility for this and
nearly everything else in Russia,

landed suddenly in the lap of
his 26-year-old son,

Nicholas.

Outwardly, Nicholas II
was a polite cosmopolitan gentleman,

but under the surface,
was a ruler who felt deeply Russian.

His coronation revealed a vision
of Russia rooted in tradition.

That most modern of technologies,
moving film,

was used to capture a ceremony
replete with 17th century costumes.

After Nicholas and his wife, Alexandra,
were crowned,

the new Tsar took the coronation oath,

and vowed to uphold autocracy.

The royal couple were bound together
by their intense religious devotion.

Near their favorite royal retreat,
they built this.

A cathedral that stands above Nicholas
and Alexandra's private crypt church.

A visit is like a journey
into Nicholas' own soul.

This is the family's
private, personal entrance

to their private, personal chapel, buried
beneath the main body of the church.

It feels like you're going into
the inner sanctum of the Romanovs.

Nicholas was a fatalist.

He believed that whatever happened
was ultimately God's will.

Misfortune would lead him to declare,

"God knows what is good for us.

"We must bow down our heads
and repeat the sacred words,

"Thy will be done."

Nicholas was a man of deep, deep piety.

With some other rulers, religion is for
ceremony or show, not so with Nicholas.

During his reign more churches
were built in Russia

than during the preceding century.

And his first response to disaster
wasn't what I'd call practical,

it wasn't, "How can I help?"

He would spend several hours in prayer.

He felt that he had
a very personal relationship with God.

This communion with the divine,
defined Nicholas' rule.

He never forgot
that he was a vessel of God.

Nicholas tried to be a genuinely
absolute monarch,

but perversely this made him
a pretty ineffective one.

The trouble was that he believed
that the will of the Almighty

ought to flow directly through him to

his 170,000,000 subjects.

He found it very hard to delegate,
he didn't even have a secretary,

so his desk would be piled high
with papers.

He was meticulous about
dealing with correspondence,

on topics like the appointment
of rural midwives,

and whether or not a particular soldier
ought to go on leave.

But while he was bogged
down in these trivia,

big decisions about
the future of his empire,

were getting away from him.

Inside Nicholas' head, the Russian Empire
was still a medieval one.

Peasants toiling in their fields,
loyal to their "little father", the Tsar.

But Russia was undergoing a belated
and very rapid Industrial Revolution.

Famine had drawn hundreds and thousands
of newly-liberated peasants to the cities,

and to factory work.

St. Petersburg had doubled in size
in 15 years.

As peasants became factory workers,
they began to demand better conditions

and respect from their employers.

Everything came to a head
on the 9th of January, 1905,

"Bloody Sunday."

A hundred and fifty thousand striking
protestors planned to march on

the Winter Palace, in the hope that
the Tsar would listen to their grievances.

Many of those who turned out, believed
that when they got to the Winter Palace,

the Tsar would be pleased to see them,
would welcome them in.

Stories went round that
he would put on a parade for them,

and offer them refreshments.

Nicholas wasn't at home
at the Winter Palace,

but 12,000 troops had been posted
around the city,

with orders to prevent the marchers
from reaching it.

It was at the Narva Gate

that the largest brigade of protestors
found themselves face-to-face

with two companies of
the 93rd Irkutsk Infantry Regiment.

One of the thousands out on the streets
that day was the writer and Communist,

Maxim Gorky.

Within hours, Gorky wrote this letter

describing exactly what happened next
to the protestors.

"At the Narva Gate, they were met
by the troops who fired nine rounds.

"After the first shots
some of the workers began to shout,

"'Don't be frightened, they're blanks.'
But this wasn't true.

"Already a dozen or so people
had fallen to the ground.

"The front ranks were mown down,

"and the soldiers fired again at anybody
who tried to stand up and get away."

Forty people died at this spot, and across
the city more than 100 were killed,

and hundreds more wounded.

But according to Gorky,
there was another casualty.

"The Tsar's prestige has been killed here,
that is the meaning of this day."

For a year, revolution raged
across the Empire.

And it was only brought to an end when
Nicholas caved in and made concessions.

He promised a free press,
right of assembly and above all,

a constitution.

And Russia was to have
an elected assembly,

the Duma, whose approval would be
needed to pass legislation.

Nicholas insisted that the state opening
of the Duma be on home ground,

at the Winter Palace.

And so in April 1906,

Russia's elite found themselves

face-to-face with the people
for the first time.

On this side of the room stood Nicholas'
existing government,

his state councilors,
in their uniforms with gold lace.

On the other side,
stood the members of the new Duma.

They were wearing the clothing
of workers and peasants,

that's red shirts and big rough boots,

and the two sides looked at each other
with suspicion and hostility.

If there were ever a moment for Nicholas
to reach across the divide

and bring people together, this was it.

But no, he made a speech recommitting
himself to the principle of autocracy.

He was going to hold onto it, he said,
with unwavering firmness.

At the end of the speech,
the state councilors let out a big cheer,

they were delighted.

But the members of the new Duma,

stood and listened in stony silence.

In the end, Nicholas' first Duma
didn't last 10 weeks.

He dissolved it, and ultimately fixed
the elections to get a more compliant one.

For now, autocracy had won the day.

After the 1905 revolution, Nicholas and
Alexandra were spending more and more time

in the safety of this
neo-classical palace.

Here the Tsar was able to be something
that he was actually good at.

A husband and a father.

We're only 15 miles away
from the center of St. Petersburg,

but the secluded Alexander Palace,

in its beautiful park,
seems like a completely different world.

It was here that Nicholas and his family
found an escape

from sycophantic courtiers
and the unkind gossip of the court.

But it was also here at the center
of their happy domestic life,

that a crisis was unfolding,
with grave consequences for the dynasty.

Nicholas II had four daughters.

As seen here, Olga, Tatiana,
Maria and Anastasia.

But with the birth of his fifth child,
Alexis in 1904,

he finally had an heir.

The royal children played
in the palace's vast park.

A favorite den was this playhouse,
built for the children of Nicholas I.

But a handful of people knew that Alexis

had inherited the condition
of hemophilia,

through his maternal great-grandmother,
Queen Victoria.

At the start of the 20th century,
this was a death sentence.

In 1907, the 3-year-old Alexis
had been playing when he fell over

and hurt his leg.

When he was carried to the palace,

it was clear that something
was very wrong.

Poor Alexis had a hemorrhage in his leg.

It had swollen up
and it was giving him excruciating pain.

His body was twisted
and he had dark shadows under his eyes.

For three days,
the boy's condition deteriorated,

and he came closer and closer to death.

The doctors couldn't even ease his pain.

With nothing to lose, Alexandra
and Nicholas turned to Grigory Rasputin,

a mystic and a holy man, who,
it was said, had healing powers.

Rasputin was brought into the palace
through a side entrance,

and he was taken up to Alexis' bedroom.

There, he made the sign of the cross

and he prayed over the little boy
for 10 minutes.

And then he said,
"Your pain is leaving you,

"you must thank God for healing you.

"Now go to sleep."

And that was it.

Rasputin's words appeared to
make Alexis instantly better.

Those present felt that
they'd witnessed a miracle.

To Nicholas and Alexandra
the message was clear,

Rasputin was the only man in Russia
who could save their son.

Rasputin could stop Alexis' bleeding.

Even when he wasn't there in person,
when he was talking on the telephone,

he could make the bleeding stop.

It's a very hard one for us to understand.

Russians can explain it.

The nearest I could come to it is to say,

that perhaps it's the calming
effect that he has.

LUCY: With Alexandra's anxiety,
her son's fragile health,

talk of revolution
and the threat of assassination,

the Alexander Palace turned
into a place of even greater seclusion.

The Empress and the children
simply locked themselves away.

And just as the public were unable
to see into this private world,

so the Romanovs found it increasingly hard

to see out to the changing nation
beyond their gates.

A rare public appearance occurred in 1913,

the 300 year anniversary
of the Romanovs gaining power.

When the family emerged,
they were presented with

the stage-managed Russia
of their imagination.

Nicholas relived the moment
when Mikhail Romanov

was greeted at the Kremlin,
on the way to be crowned.

And the highlight was a journey
around the ancient Russian cities,

including Kostroma,

where the Romanov story
had begun three centuries before.

During the trip along the Volga,
not as many as expected

turned out to see the royal steamer.

But when they got here to Kostroma,
the weather warmed up

and so did the crowds.

People were throwing themselves
at the Tsar's feet.

They were even kissing the ground
where his shadow had fallen.

This was a true spiritual homecoming.

This adulation made Alexandra cock-a-hoop.

"We need merely to show ourselves,"
she said,

"and at once their hearts are ours."

What no one knew

was that this was to be Imperial Russia's
final golden summer.

(GUNFIRE)

In 1914, Nicholas led his people
into the First World War.

Workers rallied to the Tsar
"As to our emblem."

Twelve million men would be mobilized

and Nicholas made a stirring speech
from the Winter Palace,

likening the fight
to Alexander I's war against Napoleon.

But the war would force Nicholas
to make a fateful decision.

In 1915, Nicholas was praying to an icon
of the Protectress of the Romanovs

and then, as he described it,
an inner voice spoke

and told him that he should
take personal command of the army.

Afterwards, he experienced a feeling
like after Holy Communion.

God was flowing directly through him.

But by taking personal control
of the army,

Nicholas shackled himself
and his dynasty to the success of the war.

"The Tsar directs the war

"not from the distance
of hundreds of miles," said Nicholas,

"He appears in the midst of battle,
he feels the mood of his armies."

With the Tsar away at the front,
a power vacuum was created.

One eagerly filled by Rasputin.

Because of Alexandra's reliance upon him,

many believed that a malign power
was working behind the throne.

And Rasputin didn't help himself.

He drank heavily,
enjoyed the flattery of society ladies

and, well, other sorts of ladies, too.

He was known to visit prostitutes.

We don't know quite what he did with them,

that there's some suggestion he may
have been testing himself spiritually,

or that he also had the belief

that, um, the more you sin,
the more you can be forgiven,

so you should get on
and do plenty of sinning.

LUCY: Rasputin's continuing reputation
as "Russia's greatest love machine"

is a relic from this time.

The rumors damaged Alexandra,
who was tainted by association.

The fact that they were close to him
and refused to speak about it

just exacerbated relations
with the rest of the family

and with the wider aristocracy.

Certainly calling into question
their judgment

and increasing this sense of
"us and them."

LUCY: A plot was hatched to kill Rasputin.

It centered around the man who lived here,
Prince Felix Yusupov,

who was married
to Tsar Nicholas' beautiful niece, Irina.

On the night of December the 16th, 1916,

Felix lured Rasputin to his palace

with the promise
of a midnight assignation with Irina.

Upstairs they could hear
the sounds of a party,

a gramophone was playing.

Felix explained that his wife had guests

and that she would come down
when they'd left.

Prince Felix said, "While we're waiting,
let's have some cakes and some wine."

The cakes were rose-flavored,
Rasputin's favorite

and both were laced with cyanide.

He ate and he drank, but there
seemed to be nothing wrong with him.

He asked Prince Felix
to play some songs on his guitar.

An hour later, Felix is getting impatient.

So, he got his pistol,
he distracted Rasputin

by asking him to look at a crucifix
and he shot him in the side.

Now, the conspirators
started talking about

what to do with Rasputin's clothes,
his overcoat,

but, unnoticed by them,
Rasputin was still alive!

He managed to creep his way
right out of the building

and into the courtyard
before they spotted this.

There they shot him again properly,
in the head

and they weighed down his body
with heavy iron chains

and threw it into the river Neva.

The removal of Rasputin

was too little, too late
to save the Romanovs.

The war was dragging on
and conditions were getting worse.

A decisive moment
was reached in February 1917

on the streets of the Russian capital.

Workers, tired
of long hours in the factories

and even longer queues for bread,
came pouring out onto the streets.

The First World War
was a disaster for Russia.

Three out of four Russian soldiers
became casualties.

Workers and farmers
had been taken from their jobs

and then slaughtered by the German army.

And this led to food shortages
and rampant inflation.

Ultimately, the glittering Romanovs
would be brought down by a people

who wanted the basic commodity of bread.

The breaking point came
on International Women's Day.

Thousands of women
flooded the streets to protest,

joining forces with striking workers.

By the next day
a quarter of a million people

were marching down Nevsky Prospekt.

They were smashing up the shops

and carrying banners
that said things like,

"Stop the War", "Feed the children",

and most worryingly to the Romanovs,
"End Autocracy."

Alexandra wrote to Nicholas
of "A hooligan movement in the streets."

Nicholas commanded the local garrison
to put a stop to the protests

and orders were issued
to use all necessary force.

The thousands of people on the streets
were met by soldiers,

who followed their orders
and fired at them.

But that night when the troops
went back to their barracks,

they began to ask themselves
whether they could face

another day of shooting
at their fellow citizens,

who were desperate for food.

The answer to that question
became clear the next morning.

The streets were full again
with the workers,

but also with soldiers
with red ribbons on their bayonets.

The mutinies amongst the armed forces
went on all day.

They broke into weapons factories,
they set fire to police stations.

By sunset,
the revolution was well underway.

By now, Nicholas
had been abandoned by his generals,

who believed he was completely useless,
an obstacle to victory.

Traveling home from the front,
Nicholas' train was forced to divert

and he started getting telegrams
from politicians and the military.

They said that in order
to avoid a complete collapse of order,

he would have to go.

Now, for all of his failures,
Nicholas was a patriot.

To avoid civil war, he agreed to abdicate.

And here's the document
where Nicholas renounces an empire,

effectively bringing an end
to 300 years of Romanov rule.

I can't help noticing
that he signed it very lightly in pencil,

as if he didn't really mean it.

People present were struck by the calmness

with which Nicholas
signed away his throne.

One of the generals present later said,

"He was such a fatalist.
I couldn't believe it.

"He signed as simply as one hands over
a cavalry squadron to its new commander."

Nicholas handed the throne to his brother,
who refused it.

Instead, the mighty power of the Tsar

flowed to Russia's
new Provisional Government.

Three hundred years of Romanov rule
had come to an end.

The new Provisional Government
immediately faced demands

for the ex-Tsar's arrest.

On the 7th of March
they ordered that Nicholas and Alexandra,

be deprived of their freedom.

The family found themselves captive
back at the Alexander Palace.

But even here
the world was turned upside down.

The soldiers
moved freely through the palace,

coming into
the family's rooms unannounced

and outside the park
railing crowds gathered,

the "gapers" as Nicholas called them,

come to see the once-great Romanovs
brought so low.

The guards liked to humiliate Nicholas
for a joke.

One day he was riding along on his bicycle

and one of the soldiers thrust his bayonet
through the spokes of the wheel,

then laughed uproariously
as the ex-Tsar went over the handlebars.

The new Provisional Government
were still at war with the Germans

and so the Germans
gave them a special present, Lenin.

The exiled revolutionary
was transported across Germany

in a sealed train to Russia.

Lenin stirred up a more militant mood

and pressure was put
on the Provisional Government

to be harder on the royal family.

By the late summer,
it was decided that the Romanovs

belonged in a cage less gilded.

At dawn, on the 1st of August, 1917,

Tsar Nicholas and his family
left the palace through these doors.

Along with 39 courtiers and retainers,

they were to be taken
under heavy guard to Siberia.

They didn't realize it,
but they were leaving forever.

In spite of this harder line,
the Provisional Government

were out of step with the people
who wanted an end to the war

and who were flocking to Lenin's promise
of "Peace, land and bread."

In October came
the 10 days that shook the world,

when Lenin's Bolsheviks
overthrew the Provisional Government.

The Winter Palace was stormed,

telegraph stations
and government offices, occupied.

With control of the state, the Bolsheviks

now founded their own militia,
the Red Army,

and they would in time have to decide

what to do with Mr. Nicholas Romanov
and family.

The Bolsheviks have a deep loathing
of the Russian Imperial Family.

Lenin describes the last Tsar,
not as Nicholas II,

but as "Nicholas the Bloody."

And they hold the Imperial Family

and the Romanov regime responsible for,

yeah, the events of 1905

where peaceful working people
are shot down by tsarist troops.

And in the spring and summer of 1918,
Lenin and his comrades

are fixed on one thing and one thing only,

it is the maintenance of their own power.

Uh, they understand very clearly
the fragility of their situation

and they're prepared to do almost anything

to hold on to the authority
that they have gained in October 1917.

LUCY: By July 1918,
the family were being held

in a house in Yekaterinburg
in the Ural Mountains.

Civil war was raging.

The guns of the White Army
rumbled just a few miles away.

A decision was made
somewhere in the Soviet bureaucracy

that Nicholas
and his family should be killed

to prevent them from becoming
a rallying point for their enemies.

It's hard to get a clear picture of
what actually happened at Yekaterinburg.

There are so many conflicting stories
about it

and, in any case,
the whole thing was hushed up afterwards.

But most sources do agree
that in the early hours of the morning,

Nicholas, Alexandra
and the children were woken up.

They were told to dress
and to go down to the cellar.

This was for their own safety,
they had to be moved again.

They were accompanied
by some of their servants and their dog.

Meanwhile, outside the cellar,
an execution squad was forming up.

One of its members
was called Mikhail Medvedev

and this is the gun that he carried.

When the squad entered, Nicholas was told
that he and his family were to be killed

and he was actually in the act of going,
"What?" when the first shot was fired.

Medvedev later claimed it as his own.

What happened in the basement
was a massacre.

As well as being shot multiple times,
members of the family were also bayoneted.

One of the solders later remembered that
it had been difficult to bayonet the girls

because, thinking that
the family was on the move once again,

they'd stored their diamonds
and their jewels inside their corsets.

This had acted like armor plating.

After the whole business was over
there was only one survivor.

It was the little dog.

The question I keep coming back to is,
could all of this horror have been avoided

if Nicholas
was a bit more politically astute

and a bit less determined
to cling on to his autocracy.

If Nicholas had heeded the warning
of the Revolution of 1905

and become a constitutional monarch
like in Britain,

then maybe his life,
the lives of his family

and the lives of millions
of ordinary Russians

could have been saved.

But, no, he was determined
that his power should be undiluted.

And if you look back
at the history of his dynasty,

you can sort of see
why he made that decision.

Nicholas' devotion to autocracy
wasn't a fetish.

For him it was a rational response
to how power worked in Russia.

His direct ancestors, Peter the Great
and Catherine the Great

had used their absolute rule
to turn Russia into a world power.

While western-style reforms
led to instability and assassination.

(EXPLOSION)

And even though Nicholas himself

didn't make a good job
of being an autocrat,

the regime that followed him
would in some ways

resemble that of tsarist rule,
with its own "Red Tsars"

around whom the state revolved.

For better or worse,
how the Romanovs governed

paved the way for what was to come.

(BELL TOLLING)