by Cheryl Rofer
A while back, before I even started thinking about reading Nicholas and Alexandra, I was at a dinner with a noted diplomat. One of the other attendees was almost totally focused on what might have happened, had the Tsar and Tsarina not become so dependent on Rasputin. Or perhaps her turning point was the Tsarevich’s hemophilia. I didn’t listen closely, because I found her monopolization of the guest of honor with this stuff annoying. I had some things I would have liked to ask him.
The Russian Revolution certainly looks like a turning point, and it can look like the problems with Rasputin, which probably would not have happened had the Tsarevich not had hemophilia, were “the” trigger. But there were problems even before Nicholas became Tsar, long before he married Alexandra, long before Tsarevich Alexei was born.
Nicholas and Alexandra were not particularly skilled at autocracy, as we’ve noted. And, as Mark has agreed with Alexandra, you can’t have a limited autocracy, which Russia tried from 1905 until things came so badly apart. So we might ask whether it was the formation of the Duma which was the problem. Or the assassination of Nicholas’s grandfather, Alexander II, which encouraged the imperial family to remove itself further from the people. Or the malign machinations of the anarchists and, later, the Bolsheviks.
It’s hard to pick out a single turning point. As the Russian Revolution proceeded, it was not at all clear who would win and how, and the war between the Whites and the Reds, the wars of separation of parts of the empire, continued into the 1920s, with much instability through that decade.
If Lenin had had a cell phone
And, of course, if there had been a network for him to use to check up on events in Russia, so that he could have gotten back more quickly. And he probably could have managed his network of operatives better. Would the revolution have been wrapped up more quickly? But if he had had a cell phone, then perhaps the crowds would have had phones too, and maybe even Twitter.
There’s no end to this sort of speculation, of course, but the sheer number of possible turning points suggests that history doesn’t turn on single pivots. A popular revolt or resistance grows out of a leadership that ignores people’s needs. Some sort of organizing principle or central grievance emerges. The neocons would like to believe that a desire for democracy is always that organizing principle, and much of the commentary on the events in Iran, even by those outside the neocon orbit, has tended to assume this. But other principles are possible. In Nicholas’s Russia, food and much more basic needs were a big part of the dissatisfaction. In today’s Iran, the dissatisfaction has to do with an oppressive religion and its damage to various aspects of society, including the economy. The appearance of manipulation by the religious leaders in the election was the central grievance that provoked the demonstrations.
But those demonstrations are unlikely to become a turning point by themselves. Much as many commentators would like to believe that the death of Neda Agha Soltan would be a turning point, an insult not to be tolerated, it appears that this will not be the case. More is needed for a turning point: the police, the basiji, and eventually the military must come over to the side of the demonstrators, or at least hold back from suppressing them.
And the government must then feel simultaneously threatened enough and secure enough to back off, to allow some of the demonstrators’ demands. The demonstrators must also articulate their demands clearly enough to negotiate or to take their goals by force or by endurance. Neither seems to be the case in Iran.
We know so little about what is happening there. I said “appearance of manipulation” because we don’t know what was done, although the appearance is quite clear. My own theory is that the religious leaders wanted to calm things down after that fiery last week before the election, so they announced an Ahmadinejad victory prematurely. It is entirely possible that he did win, but the appearance of manipulation has damaged the government and is likely to continue to do so.
Knowing so little, it is hard to predict what may happen in Iran. It looks like the protests are subsiding, but the grievances live on. Mousavi is a highly flawed person to lead the opposition; his past works against him, and he remains a creature of the establishment while having led the protests rather weakly.
Demonstrations and grievances leading up to the Russian Revolution spanned decades. The formation of the Duma in 1905 drained away some of the Tsar’s power without clearly remedying the problems. A weakened and divided government stumbled along until a draining war with Germany and disarray in the Tsar’s household ended the monarchy. Lenin’s group took power late in the game.
It could be a long slog in Iran, or something could blow up suddenly. A long slog that gives a principled opposition time to plan how it might govern could be the best outcome. But there’s a long way to go yet.