14. The Rasputin Scandal Gave the Tsar’s Opponents Plenty of Ammunition to Use Against Him
Rasputin’s influence ranged from appointing high-ranking members of the church hierarchy, to selecting cabinet members and high-ranking officials, many of them incompetent opportunists. At times, he intervened in the conduct of the war by writing the Tsar, offering him advice on this or that general or this or that plan, based on religious visions and holy dreams. Rasputin’s malign influence on the Russian government was exploited to challenge Tsar Nicholas’s competence, the integrity of the ruling dynasty, and the very concept of absolutist rule.
Rasputin made things worse by conducting his life as a nonstop scandal visible for all to see. In addition to his dissoluteness and licentiousness, Rasputin got in drunken public brawls with church officials, and bragged about his influence. While drunk, he even boasted of having slept with Tsarina Alexandra. Nonetheless, Alexandra continued to fiercely defend Rasputin. She insisted that he remain by her side, and made her husband resist all calls for his banishment. That undermined public respect for Tsardom, and prepared the ground for its overthrow in the Russian Revolution of 1917. Tsar Nicholas was forced to abdicate, and the following year he, along with Tsarina Alexandria and their family, were executed by the Bolsheviks.
