The Last Tsar: The Abdication of Nicholas II and the Fall of the Romanovs 

(Basic Books 2024).

Tsuyoshi Hasegawa, PhD

Tsuyoshi Hasegawa is known as one of the foremost Western historians of the Russian Revolution.  Educated in Tokyo and the United States, the trilingual Hasegawa’s work in the field has long been regarded as the ne plus ultra in Revolutionary studies.  Dr. Hasegawa was, until his retirement, head of the Cold War Studies program at the University of California at Santa Barbara, and has a constellation of distinctions, including Fulbright, NEH, SSRC, and Rockefeller Fellowships. 

It is a pleasure to read new work by an eminent historian when the field of Russian Imperial and Revolutionary studies has become plagued with self-appointed experts, popular and amateur historians, bloggers, and social media phenomena. “Independent researchers” (1) cut and paste tendentious Google- and Yandex-translated articles online, filling the internet with opinions rather than facts. Hasegawa, in contrast, is a true scholar with impeccable bona fides.

Hasegawa’s first major work in the area, The February Revolution: Petrograd 1917 was published in 1980, and has long been regarded as the seminal work on the subject in English. Hasegawa later revised the work to highlight the role of liberals in the revolution, and to utilize Russian sources which had become available after the fall of the Soviet Union. The updated edition, The February Revolution, Petrograd, 1917: The End of the Tsarist Regime and the Birth of Dual Power, was released in 2017. In the same year, he explored the Russian Revolution's social history in Crime and Punishment in the Russian Revolution: Mob Justice and Police in Petrograd. His long list of distinguished books and articles spans more than half a century.

His lifelong focus on the February Revolution has culminated in his latest work: The Last Tsar: The Abdication of Nicholas II and the Fall of the Romanovs (2024), which completes what is essentially his trilogy of works on the February Revolution, examining the “February Days” from every angle.

This magisterial work is eminently readable, and has already inspired many reviews, some of which focus on the negative portrayal of Emperor Nicholas II and Empress Alexandra Feodorovna.  This is not a new position, because various other historians have long denounced Nicholas as “weak” and “indecisive” or “foolish”. For those of us who are monarchists, legitimists, or simply devotés of imperial history, this is not a novel approach. Many more recent histories of the period of Nicholas II have focused on positive aspects of the reign of the last Tsar, but even those works grow silent on Nicholas’ decisions during the February days. Some reviewers have noted that the work appears to rehash information already published years ago by Richard Pipes (Russia under the Old Regime, The Russian Revolution), Dominic Lieven (Nicholas II: Emperor of all the Russias, Nicholas II: Twilight of the Empire, The End of Tsarist Russia), but they appear to be missing the point. In The Last Tsar: The Abdication of Nicholas II and the Fall of the Romanovs, Hasegawa presents a masterful analysis of the February Revolution using the two “abdications” as the fulcrum around which he examines the entire February Revolution as it was experienced from within the military, court, and imperial family circles. This is a  notable departure from previous works, which argue that the revolution was inevitable and that external forces (liberals and revolutionaries, the First World War, the weighty imperial system) caused the collapse of the Empire.

Hasegawa’s book is important because it lays bare the fact that the February Revolution and the dual abdications of Nicholas II and his brother Michael were not inevitable at all. He raises compelling arguments that decisions made by Nicholas and Alexandra forced many to turn against them who would, under normal circumstances, have been their staunchest allies. Hasegawa charts, in riveting and superbly sourced detail, that the “inevitable” February Revolution was far from that. His profound and compelling thesis is that no one, from Nicholas II himself to the lowest worker in Petrograd, woke up on the morning of 1 March 1917 with the idea that in seven days the entire Imperial government and the Romanovs themselves would be swept away.

The book is divided into two parts.  Part one is a survey of Nicholas’ personal history and relationship to autocracy, the milieu in which he was raised, and the family members in his circle who formed his ideas about how he would one day reign.  This early section is followed by another that details either his refusal or his inability to form a wartime government which commanded the respect and trust of the public.  Guided by Orthodox ideals of autocracy, the advice of his wife, and numerous unscrupulous advisors, Nicholas was unable (or unwilling) to make the compromises necessary to establish a “Ministry of Confidence” which would draw support to the institution of the Crown, and the imperial family itself.  Hasegawa then outlines a year-by-year, month-by-month, week-by-week, and finally, an hour-by-hour trajectory in which Nicholas and Alexandra alienated their closest family members (the Dowager Empress, the Grand Duke Nicholas Nikolaevich, and the Empress’ sister Grand Duchess Serge), then more distant family members (the Vladimirovich, Pavlovich, Mikhailovich, Nikolaevich, and Konstantinovich branches of the Romanov family), their generals, their courtiers, and ultimately the public.  By the height of the war in 1916, Nicholas and Alexandra commanded the full support of only a few devoted equerries, impassioned clerics, marginal governmental and military figures, and the odious Grigorii Rasputin.

Part two is a tour de force of exceptionally sourced historical narrative which tracks, almost by the minute, the events of 27 February through 3 March. Systematically, Hasegawa charts several independent narratives over the course of those days: that of Nicholas and Alexandra, the Emperor’s brother Grand Duke Michael Alexandrovich, members of the other various branches of the House of Romanov, the military high command in Petrograd and at Stavka, the Naval Command, and the members of the Duma and Duma committee.  Relying on primary sources and relatively few secondary sources, Hasegawa builds a compelling narrative that appears to prove his primary thesis: that at several times during the days between 27 February and 3 March, Nicholas might have made decisions that would have altered the course of the dynasty and the empire, but that hefailed to do so.

Along the way, Hasegawa presents much new information and dismisses old chestnuts. The “Palace Coup” which has long been attributed to the Vladimirovichi branch of the House of Romanov is emphatically proven to have been the brainchild of General Alexeev and Prince Lvov, who attempted to overthrow Nicholas and place Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich on the throne. The latter’s  involvement in this plot is outlined, though, in the “Supreme Commander’s" defense, he appears to have backed away from the idea, which sent the plotters to try to force Nicholas II into abdicating in favor of his son, with Grand Duke Michael as Regent.

Another critical moment in the book comes when Hasegawa outlines the full story of the “Manifesto of the Grand Dukes”: a  genuine good faith attempt by Grand Duke Paul Alexandrovich, Grand Duke Michael Alexandrovich, and Grand Duke Kirill Vladimirovich to encourage the Emperor to grant concessions and form a government of confidence which would allow Nicholas II to remain on his throne.  Hasegawa shows unequivocally how this attempt failed, and the circumstances which led to Grand Duke Kirill appearing at the Duma on 1 March.  Long denounced as a treasonous and independent act on Kirill’s part, this book is the first in which Kirill’s presence at the Duma is seen within the larger context: Grand Duke Kirill and Grand Duke Michael were supposed to arrive together at the Duma to present the Emperor’s signed concessions to leaders of the Duma – but the deliberate intervention of the Duma committee to keep the Emperor from the capital by deliberately delaying and rerouting of his train made the execution of this plan impossible.  Grand Duke Paul was unable to meet the Emperor at the Tsarskoye Selo station and instead went to the Empress who dismissed his plan and refused to help. Duma Chair Mikhail Rodzianko deliberately manipulated Grand Duke Michael Alexandrovich away from supporting and participating in this plan, and in the end, the only Romanov who appeared to fulfill his duty at this critical moment was Kirill, who was left to hang in the wind and bear the blame for the optics of the situation. Hasegawa states finally:

“Kirill’s arrival at the Duma, allegedly ‘wearing a red rosette on his chest’ resulted in a widespread story that he led his troops to swear allegiance to the Provisional Government; he was praised by some and blamed by others for being the first member of the royal family to support the revolution. But these stories are patently false. Kirill went to the Duma, as agreed with Grand Dukes Pavel and Mikhail, to persuade Rodzyanko to implement the Grand Dukes’ draft manifesto, preserving Nicholas’s position as Tsar and saving the monarchy.  He did not arrive at the Tauride Palace wearing a red rosette on his chest. He could not have sworn allegiance to the Provisional Government, since on that day there was not a Provisional Government.” (Hasegawa, p. 253)

Quod erat demonstrandrum.

Hasegawa’s work stands in stark contrast to much of tendentious contemporary Russian historiography, and it presents a point of view that will disturb and upset those who believe that Nicholas II was entirely without fault.  In his humility, Nicholas was himself was the first to admit that he was unprepared and without sufficient good advice from those around him in a critical time, and it appears that he was either unwilling or unable to seek it. 

In the end, Hasegawa’s book points out a fatal truth of the February Revolution and the departure of the Romanovs from power. The Romanovs’ authority and that of the Imperial governmental system over which they reigned were built on the solid foundation of the fundamental laws. With his abdication for himself and for his son, Nicholas broke those laws and undermined the dynasty, setting the stage for Michael’s deferral. This deferral placed the dynasty in exactly the position the Duma Committee wanted: that the Imperial House would need the consent of the Duma to continue to reign. This broke the chain which had tethered the House of Romanov to the State and spelled the end of Imperial Russia.

1.

The term“independent researcher” is a very specific one.  It applies only to scholars who hold master's or doctoral degrees in the required field that are currently unaffiliated with a University or Academic institution.  It does not apply to amateur historians who look things up online