“It’s the morning of December 29, 19l6,” I told
“Ohmigosh! That’s a very important time, Steve. You have no idea how important.”
“Merry Christmas,” I guessed.
“No-no! I don’t mean—”
“Now don’t be a Scrooge, Putnam. Merry Christmas.”
“Bah! Humbug!” he said Scrooge-ishly. “You don’t understand. That’s the day before -”
“Happy New Year!” I tried again.
“Victor, will you listen!” Putnam barked the words out and I subsided. “On the evening of December 29, 1916, Rasputin was assassinated. Do you understand how important that is to world history?”
“Nope,” I admitted.
“According to some of our own State Department experts and many reputable historians, there might never have been a Russian Revolution if Rasputin had lived. Now do you see?”
“I’m beginning to get a glimmer.”
“This is no exaggeration, Victor. If you study that period of Russian history, you come to appreciate the importance of Rasputin in terms of where the world is at today. If he had lived, there might not be any Soviet Union today. There might not be a cold war. It’s not too much to say that there might not be a Communist China without the example of Russia to copy. Victor, if Rasputin’s assassination could be prevented-—”
“I think you’d better fill me in on the whole picture.” I told Putnam.
He did. It was a fantastic story. It began in the autumn of 1905.
At that time a 35-year-old Serbian faith healer named Grigori Efimovich arrived in St. Petersburg from Siberia. He brought with him a dual reputation. The St. Petersburg nobility accepted him as a starets (holy pilgrim) possessed of miraculous powers in healing the sick. Cynics repeated tales of an erotic monster who had ravished his way through Siberia from one end of that frozen wasteland to another, leaving nary a virgin in his wake. The combination proved irresistible to the royal ladies of fashion in St. Petersburg and consultations with Rasputin soon became all the rage.
At this time Czar Nicholas and his Czarina, Alexandra, rulers of all of the vast lands of Russia, had more than their fair share of royal tsouris. For one thing, the Russian fleet had just been trounced by the Japanese and Russia had to acknowledge defeat in the Russo-Japanese War. For another thing, the peasants had revolted and the only way all-out revolution had been prevented was by the establishment of a Duma-—parliament-—which was quite an indignity to one of the most autocratic Czars in Russian history. Worst of all, the Czarevitch, Alexis, heir to the throne, had inherited the royal family curse—hemophilia—-and the royal physicians all agreed that he was doomed.
Shortly after this prognosis, a noblewoman friend of the Czarina’s, who had fallen under Rasputin’s spell, suggested that Alexandra call in the starets to minister to little Alexis. Desperate, the Czarina summoned the faith healer. To the amazement of the royal physicians and the puzzlement of the medical profession in general ever since, under Rasputin’s ministrations the boy showed noticeable improvement.
Rasputin stroked the boy’s brow and said that his fever would go down-—and the fever did go down! Rasputin hypnotized him and said that the headaches would stop-—and the headaches stopped! Rasputin made mystic signs over the boy’s body and told him that both the interior and exterior bleeding would cease—and the bleeding ceased!
The Czarevitch, under Rasputin’s care, was as close to being cured of hemophilia as anyone has ever been. It was a medical miracle even by today’s standards. Doubtless , Rasputin exercised a profound psychological effect on the boy which relieved his physical symptoms. But the peculiar thing is that from all accounts, little Alexis loathed the starets and became hysterical almost every time Rasputin came to treat him.
His mother, the Czarina, was more grateful. Indeed, her gratitude knew no bounds. There can be no doubt that over the next ten years, she and the Mad Monk carried on a love affair that ranks as the most torrid and scandalous in modern Russian history.
The Czarina put it in writing: “I only wish one thing: to fall asleep, forever, on your shoulders and in your arms. . . . I am tormenting myself for you. . . . I love you forever.” So reads one of the less intimate letters she wrote to Rasputin. Other eyes than his saw these billets doux. Rasputin used them as a lever for political power and soon St. Petersburg society was quoting them freely. The affair between the Czarina and the Mad Monk was an open scandal.
Yet it was said, and seemingly truly, that the one man in Russia who didn’t know about it was Czar Nicholas. Not only was he fooled by Alexandra and Rasputin, he was ruled by them as well. Starting with gratitude for “curing” his son, Nicholas progressed to accepting the mystic’s advice on matters of state, and finally got to the point where he delegated authority to the starets, giving him the right to formulate, and then control, the policies of Russia. Both he and the Czarina referred to Rasputin as “Our Friend,” and he called them “Papa” and “Mama” respectively. Nobody else in Russia was on such intimate terms with the royal couple; nobody else in Russia wielded such power. In reality, Rasputin was the ruler of Imperial Russia.
During the ten years between his arrival and mine, Rasputin also made his fair share of enemies. Some were due to his ultra-sexual behavior. Hundreds of letters of complaint were sent to the Czar by parents complaining that Rasputin had deflowered their daughters. They were ignored.
Other enemies were not so easily ignored. These were the highly placed nobles in the Czarist government who rightfully pegged Rasputin as a threat to their power. But he consistently prevailed over them. One after another they were removed and replaced by men friendly to Rasputin—or, frequently, men whom Rasputin could control because he had compiled damaging dossiers on them.
By the time World War One broke out, Rasputin was firmly entrenched. Due to his influence, exercised directly and also through the Czarina, the Czar went to the front to personally lead his armies in defense of Mother Russia. He and the Czarina exchanged long, loving letters all throughout 1915 and 1916. Little did he guess that she and Rasputin were the sizzling scandal of St. Petersburg in his absence. On the contrary, the Czar counted himself lucky to leave the running of his government in such good hands-—and, as he firmly believed, divine. He repeatedly wrote Rasputin to this effect, and backed up his judgment by scuttling one cabinet officer after another on the starets’ say-so.
Peculiarly enough, historians agree that Rasputin probably was a wiser ruler than the Czar would have been. He had tried to stop Russia’s entry into a war which would prove disastrous, but previous policies made the country’s involvement inevitable. One after another, Rasputin predicted the defeats of the Russian Anny. Secretly, he set up communication with the Germans to try to extricate Russia from the war.
More important, Rasputin recognized the threat of Revolution which hung over the country. A peasant himself, he knew exactly to what extent the peasants could be exploited before they would revolt. Serfdom was the rule in Russia, but serfdom was stretched to the breaking point. Rasputin repeatedly counseled reforms as the only alternative to Revolution. In many cases, Czar Nicholas heeded this advice and-—albeit unwillingly--he did cut the ground out from under the Bolsheviks by coming to grips with some of the greater evils of the Royal Russian system.
If Rasputin had lived to continue his program of reform, if he had lived to extricate Russia from the war with Germany, the Russian Revolution might never have taken place. True, the Czarist regime undoubtedly would have been toppled sooner or later. But if it had been more pliable, the odds are that a more democratic group such as the Mensheviks would have managed to replace it and maintain control. There are three reasons why this didn’t happen, and all three involve Rasputin.