Tsar Nicholas II Russia 1917-1939 Unit 4 GCSE History Controlled assessment

Tsar Nicholas II- Personality

To those around him, he was kind, sensitive and generous.
He was clever; a quick learner.
He was deeply religious and well meaning, and seemed to generally want happiness and prosperity for his people.
He was an autocrat-born in to the role of dictatorship over Russia, with no democracy. He thought democracy would collapse Russia.
He could be cruel and merciless and would not stand for opposition-is answer was always violence.
He was Anti-Jewish.
He was ignorant to governmental matters.
He has only been trained as a soldier; he had never been taught statemanship, although he should have.
He never visited factories, villages or went on tours; information about what was going on came from a small number of people who were keen to protect him from the realities of life in Russia.
He was a bad listener than ignored advice, and was also a bad decision-maker.
Peasants saw him as second to God, as taught by the Church.

1 of 3

He was very family orientated.
His wife was German.
The Tsarina, his wife, Alexandra was shy but strongwilled and would demand that he spend family time in the evenings, and encouraged him to withdraw from public events to a private family world.
She was very in love with Nicholas.
She was determined that the Tsar did not share any of his powers.
Nicholas' family always came first.

2 of 3

The Tsar had little idea as to how much peasants and workers suffered.
He had no idea how to rule Russia properly.
His wife controlled him, making him spend family time, neglecting governmental issues and was determined he should not share his powers, which means that he ignored a lot of advice.
Therefore, the Tsar was not ruling Russia properly.

3 of 3