Quote Originally Posted by kundur View Post
That is correct. There was also a background, including the 1905 skirmish with Japan. Anyway, as a monarch you need to be intelligent not to take political responsibility. You need to show your subjects a kind of Prime Minister or so, whom the folk can unleash its anger upon in times of crises and failures. Nicholas was deposed and ultimately shot by Bolsheviks for failing to set up a system like that.
Pretty much like French King Louis who bore all responsibility for failures and was shot after 1789. German Emperor Wilhelm did the same mistake in WWI, he was leading Germany as dictator and as the war was lost, he was seen as responsible.
Chain of responsibility is a must. Communism tried to include some sort of 'democratic' voting into many of its institutions. When their 'ideas' failed nobody took the responsibility, because "it was collective decision, therefore we are all to blame". Split guilt in communism worked like that, meaning "we're established we're all guilty so lets forget that". That's why monarchy was much more honest and better, even if it didn't always work. Soviets later punished or even killed their smart people because of their brilliancy. Check the stories of Vavilov or Kontradyuk.