Rasputin and the fall of the Romanov Dynasty
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Grigori Yefimovich Rasputin features in Russian history as a malicious and destructive force with a powerful and ultimately highly detrimental influence on the royal family itself and the tsarist regime generally. His role in the fall of the Romanov Dynasty was secondary to more influential factors such as the weaknesses of the autocratic system of government in place and the pressure applied to the regime by World War One. However it is undeniable that Rasputin played some tangible role in the fall of the tsarist regime, mostly through contributing to the negative public perception of the regime and influencing a number of detrimental decisions made by both the tsar and tsarina.
Over the next ten years up until his murder Rasputin used this substantial influence over the royal family, his reputation as a talented 'holy man', and the many people who befriended him with the intention of using him and most often his connections with the royal family for the advancement of their own interests (a group that came to be known as the black bloc or Rasputin circle) to become a powerful figure in Russian politics. In fact his political significance was such that after the revolution of march1917, the Provisional Government established a commission to uncover the reasons for the collapse of Tsarism and one of its main area of inquiry was to determine the significance of Rasputin in the fall of the regime. Rasputin exercised his significant political power at court, within the royal family and within the Petrograd aristocracy generally, in ways unquestionably detrimental to the Tsarist regime and that saw him play some tangible part in the fall of the Romanov dynasty.
The first way Rasputin contributed to the fall of the Romanov dynasty was by embroiling himself in numerous humiliating public scandals. As it was commonly known he had very strong connections with the palace (although the public had no idea of the nature of the Tsarevich's ailment) these scandals often came to involve the tsar or tsarina and made the regime look irresponsible undermining it and contributing to the general population's negative perception of it. An example of this occurred during the latter part of 1911 when a furore erupted after it had been discovered Rasputin had swindled 270,000 roubles from an elderly baroness by posing as her deceased husband. With an accomplice he acted out a scene when Jesus appeared at the baroness's window and commanded her to give all her money to Rasputin...