Babbling Botkin: Last Leadership Memo to the President - Part Two

 Good morning!

For people who have forgotten, Geoffrey Botkin was a member of a conservative think tank and lobbying group in Washington, DC. in the 1990's.   I'm assuming that this conspiracy filled memo that he sent to President Trump is a holdover from that period of time.  Otherwise, maybe he's been writing these memos for decades and sending them to the President weekly.

Honestly, I don't know which would be weirder - but I can't rule either out.

The first section of the memo demonstrated Geoffrey Botkin's lack of understanding about the Constitutional transition of power for the President, an inability to keep up with national news about the state of the election, and a disturbing level of credulousness towards conspiracy theories.  

As my husband succinctly noted, "He reads government documents the same way he reads the Bible.  He combines reading to support a predetermined opinion with shoddy comprehension."  

Scathing - yes.  Accurate - yes.

Next in his video memo titled "My Last Leadership Memo to the President.  Maybe." Botkin makes a transition from political mentor to history teacher.     He has a succinct style of communicating information that is both relaxing and easy to follow. 

Unfortunately, nearly every word out of his mouth is wrong.   

I don't mean that Botkin advances an unusual interpretation of events in Russian history.  No, he creates lists of facts are easily shown to be wrong - and tops it off with a weird interpretation. 

Here - even the first 30 seconds about Nicholas II is a mishmash of wrong facts and bizarre interpretation: 

Nicholas II was a reform minded leader.  He was a conservative.  He was a nationalist.  But he had never been confronted with the simultaneous crises of world war and world revolution and famine and national blockades and insurrection and it all hit at the very same time. [00:01:53]

No, Nicholas II was not a reform minded leader.  Nicholas II was the son of an absolute monarch who focused on remaining an absolute monarch.   He bristled at any hint of reforms to improve the lives of the poor in Russia and tolerated the Duma as long as the Duma did not impinge on his authority.

Yes, Nicholas II was a conservative - but only in the broad term meaning "he wanted the status quo to remain unchanged".   Geoffrey Botkin's et al., views on very limited local government, a Bible-based theocracy and everyone being able to carry as many weapons as they wanted would be as foreign and unpalatable to Nicholas II as the doctrine of absolute monarchy is to Botkin.     

Yes, Nicholas II was a nationalist - but that stopped being a revolutionary viewpoint 200 years previously.  

The last rambling sentence of that quote makes me laugh.  Botkin makes it sound like Nicholas II was having a great day on Wednesday and wham!  Thursday brought a world war, famine, national blockades, insurrection and even world revolution all at once!  Oh, the horrors!

More realistically, Nicholas II inherited a nation in 1894 that was in the process of modernizing many areas while being saddled with an absolute monarch.   European monarchies had survived (so far) by allowing governmental reforms that granted powers to elected officials while reserving certain powers to the monarchy.   Nicholas's grandfather, Alexander II, was genuinely interested in certain reforms in Russia prior to his assassination.   His son, Alexander III, who succeeded him, on the other hand, was not interested in reformation and his views on continuing the absolute powers of the monarch were shared by his son.

Domestically, Nicholas II was presented with requests for reforms as soon as he was crowned - and he reacted to most of them with irritation and refusal.   While ignoring these requests was personally satisfying to Nicholas II, it did nothing to improve the living and working conditions of rural or industrial workers.   Workers had been striking throughout the 1890's and the lack of substantial reform increased anger at the Tsar.

In terms of foreign affairs, Russia chose to negotiate aggressively with Japan about division of powers in the East in 1903.  When talks broke down, Japan declared war in 1904 and immediately attacked the Russian navy in Port Arthur.  Within two months, the Russian Pacific fleet had been decimated and Russia was struggling to move army and navy reinforcements the massive distance required to reach the battlefield.   The war, which Russia was losing badly, became extremely unpopular domestically.  The war ended a bit over a year later with the Treaty of Portsmouth.  

The combination of miserable domestic conditions and fighting a losing war increased domestic tensions in 1905.  The Tsar's popularity plunged after his forces shot and killed members of a planned, peaceful march who were going to present the Tsar with a list of requested reforms.  Soon, much larger strikes and work-stoppages appeared in cities and spread to the countryside.  

Faced with the options of political reform or being overthrown, Nicholas II signed the October Manifesto which gave basic human rights to all Russians, allowed all groups to be represented in the Duma, introduced voting rights for all men, and required that all new laws be approved by the Duma.  

Initially, the October Manifesto was accepted as a sign of good faith by Russians and the riots and work stoppages ended.  Quickly, however, the fact that the Tsar retained the right to veto any laws passed by the Duma combined with the Tsar's imposition of martial law quickly showed that Nicholas II was not planning to change much in Russia.

The process of figuring out how universal male suffrage and the new powers of the Duma would work bought Nicholas II a decade of relative internal peace.    After a few rough starts, the Duma figured out how to use their control of the finances of the state of get reforms passed and Nicholas II accepted the input of the Duma in limited amounts.

The final straw that broke the frail truce between the Russian people and the Tsar was World War I.  The same issues that had plagued Russia during the Russo-Japanese War of difficult transportation of troops and equipment existed during this war.  Additionally, Germany had greatly increased their military technology while Russia's had stagnated.   This meant that hungry, threadbare, undertrained Russian conscripts were marching thousands of miles before facing the most modern war technologies.  The casualties on the Russian side were horrific and the only reason that Germany was able to fight the Eastern Front to a stand-still was the willingness of the Russian military to throw thousands of troops at the front despite terrible losses. 

The ongoing deaths combined with the shortages inherent from mobilizing a military by depleting the available workforce caused Russia to be near complete collapse by 1917.

Nicholas II had many points where greater reforms may well have forestalled the fall of the House of Romanov - but he chose to maintain as much personal power as he could for as long as he could - and paid the ultimate price.

TL;DR - Nicholas II had faced two decades of internal calls for reform prior to the collapse of his empire.   There were many moments where he could have made different choices; this was not a sudden or catastrophic change.

And they escalated in 1916 and threw the nation into a state of emergency.  The hard left communists used this crisis to organize a climate of hatred toward Nicholas, a campaign of hatred towards him, making it impossible for him to lead effectively. [00:02:11]

Yeah, things got worse in 1916 - but WWI sent Russia into a precipitous decline in prosperity for the average person starting in 1914.   By 1917, over 1 million Russian soldiers had been killed on the Eastern Front.  Over 15 million were actively in the military which meant that there were 15 million fewer agricultural and industrial workers available to produce goods.  

It was a slow burn that finally exploded - regardless of how poorly that supports Botkin's attempt to mangle history.

The leftist might have had a good propaganda machine - but Nicholas II gave them plenty to work with.  The loss of the Russo-Japanese War embarrassed the Russians.  Despite the promises of the October Manifesto in 1905, reform had stalled out.  Citizens had tried various other forms of rebellion to get increased living conditions - and the Tsar simply wasn't interested in change.   Finally, a massive war of limited interest to the average citizen was crippling the economy and killing men. 

That's not a situation where it is hard to turn people against leader with a history of incompetence.

Importantly, Nicholas had managed to undermine the support of Monarchists at the same time.   The Monarchists felt his reforms had gone too far - but the promotion of Rasputin into power especially soured the monarchists against Nicholas II.   

Honestly, Nicholas II had never been an effective leader; WWI just made everyone miserable enough to finally force him out of power.

They committed criminal acts as concerned citizens took to the streets looking for change.  These were the communists and the socialists coming together, combining together to start this revolution and the nation was reeling from the revolution. [00:02:28] 

Psst!  Botkin!  This is Russia in 1916.  Protesting was a criminal act - you didn't even need to add violence, looting or property damage.

This bit is a great demonstration of how little research Botkin did for this memo.  Which revolution is he talking about?  Because there are actually three revolutions that Botkin may be talking about - but I have no idea if Botkin knows that.

The 1905 Revolution was 11 years in the past.  Russia had been doing well enough for the nine years prior to WWI - so I don't think that the nation could be said to be reeling from that revolution.  

The next option would be the February Revolution in 1917.  This revolution makes sense based on it being the revolution that brought down Nicholas II - but the February Revolution was a spontaneous series of protests by locals that grew until the regime fell.  The problem is that the partial coalescence of various communist and socialist groups happened during the Provisional Government period between the February Revolution of 1917 and the October Revolution of the same year.

The last option would be the October Revolution - but in that case - Nicholas II was already deposed and under house arrest at that time.

Nicholas volunteered to step aside so the nation could heal. Now, let me repeat that. Nicholas volunteered at the beginning of 1917, he volunteered to step aside so the nation could heal. His younger brother was nominated to rule but then declined the crown when he realized how powerful the communist revolutionaries had become in just a matter of weeks.[00:02:48] 

Nicholas II never volunteered to reduce his personal power ever.  .

He agreed to abdicate only when the army had turned against him.    

His initial abdication would have left his son twelve-year old son Alexei as Tsar.  Alexei, however, was often severely ill from hemophilia and his doctors did not believe he'd survive if separated from his parents and siblings when they were forced into exile.  His second abdication document had both Tsar Nicholas II's abdication and the removal of Alexei from the line of succession.

This meant the next Tsar would be the Grand Duke Michael Alexanderovich - who was Nicholas II's younger brother.  

The bit that Botkin missed somehow is that the Grand Duke had been trying to get kicked out of the line of succession for years.   In 1909, he was having an affair openly with a married woman of common birth.  The Grand Duke fathered a son with Natalia in 1910 before she was legally divorced.  He had the divorce backdated to be certain that his morganatically born son would be claimed as his rather than Natalia's first husband.    Finally, he married her without his brother's knowledge in 1912.  

The Grand Duke claimed two reasons for marrying Natalia.  One was that he loved her.  The second was that he wanted to be removed from the line of succession and creating a morganatic line with a commoner would do that.

Nicholas II was extremely upset.  He banished the Grand Duke and his family and froze his assets soon after the wedding.  

When WWI started, the Grand Duke asked to come home and help out with the war effort.  The Grand Duke was allowed to do so and became an effective and popular military leader.   Personally, however, he was more and more angry at the leaders in Russia - including his brother - for incompetence and greatly admired the soldiers he was working with.

Technically, the Grand Duke did not decline the crown.  If he had, there would have been an uncle or cousin who would have been offered the crown; that's how succession happens in monarchy.   

No, the Grand Duke was smarter than that.  He essentially said that he would take the crown when it was offered to him by a Russian government supported by the people.

A new provisional government was then quickly taken over by Lenin and Trotsky who began to consolidate power by controlling the media, cleansing Russia of all the patriots and re-educating others into voluntary slavery.[00:03:05] 

Oh, Geoffrey, life in Russia would have been easier if anything had been that quick.

The new provisional government formed between the February and October revolutions.  Since the February Revolution was caused by a spontaneous uprising, there wasn't a single party or a coalition of parties ready to form a stable government.  The fall of a government is stressful for a population who is not facing hunger and want; the Russian people were already exhausted, hungry, and fearful. 

To help move the government closer to the people, there was much more local control of government during the provincial government period.   The downside was that there was continual jockeying for power between political and geographic groups.  This is the period where various communist and socialist groups started to coalesce to attempt to control the government - but the initial outcome was the October Revolution. 

The October Revolution was the beginning of Russia becoming a communist government - but that happened after a five-year-long civil war between all of the factions in the government.

Botkin is always one of the people who is worrying about the government controlling the media - but he's managed to start a conservative think tank, spent years running with an obscure religious organization who wanted to take over the government, launched his own family based media company and, most recently, started his own YouTube channel.    

His own life, in fact, contradicts his own scare stories.

Botkin's never spoken out against the effects of involuntary slavery in the USA.   Vision Forum, the cult he ran with, firmly believed in the "slavery was good for slaves" lies of the Lost Cause Myth.

Until he's worried about the effects of our history in our country, I'm not going to listen to him wring his hands about Russian history.

On the other hand, Botkin is never going to read my blog.  I write long posts with obscure topics.   Similarly, Trump is never going to read anything written by Botkin.  He writes shorter posts that outlast the president's attention span.   Finally, Trump is never going to watch a video by Botkin.   Trump only watches videos made by people he views to be powerful, successful, and in favor of Trump.    Botkin is clearly enamored on Trump - but having a few thousand viewers on YouTube means nothing.  

How do I know?  I have a few thousand viewers on my defunct YouTube channel that I used for posting lessons when I taught high school.    Just saying.

In the last post, we get to see Botkin try to explain the horrors of Lenin - and still fail miserably.