Prime Minister Witte quotes from Nicholas & Alexandra (1971)

The people want more schools and health clinics, laws to protect the workers, and the right to vote for an elected Duma. They are angry sir, and they are serious. Imagine sire, imagine if you would, that you are a factory worker living in Vladivostok or Saint Petersburg. You are really poor; meals almost never fill your belly. You freeze eight months out of the year. Your children have no school; no doctors. Your country taxes you, and sends the men a continent away to die for a piece of land on the Pacific Ocean. Imagine all that you have to deal with. You must give your people a little of what they want. Not everything mind you; just a taste.

[The Russian flag officers are all celebrating and congratulating themselves on their war plans and believe their entry into the First World War will be quick and painless for Russia. Witte, now retired, is trying in vain to convince them and the Tsar of the dire consequences of what World War One will do. It seems Witte is prophetic in predicting the rise of the Soviet Union, the rise of Nazi Germany, and the eventual coming of the Second World War]
None if you will be here when this war ends. Everything we worked to build will be destroyed. There is no question another great war will come. The societies and kingdoms of Europe we knew will crumble, and out of the wreckage madmen and lunatics will come to power. And the world will grow old.

Tsar Nicholas II

How many dead?

Sir, we are still counting; but it is estimated to be in the hundreds.

Tsar Nicholas II

Who gave the order to fire upon them?

Your Majesty, nobody ordered it.

Tsar Nicholas II

You run this government. Somebody had to have ordered something!

Would you have gone out to meet them?

Tsar Nicholas II

Of course not.

Would you have given them a Duma? Allowed them to have elections? Had schools and hospitals built for them?

Tsar Nicholas II

How could I?

Then why bother to inform you about this? You would not have done anything!

[The Tsar is meeting with his flag officers to discuss troop movements as the Austrians have engaged in a military exercise near the Russian border. It looks imminent that Russia will be hurtled into the First World War. Retired Prime Minister Witte is trying to convince the Tsar not to agitiate any other nation. He is sending a recieving telegrams to Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany, the so called "Willy & Nicky" correspondences]

"Your Majesty, good news. I have a personal telegram from the Kaiser offering to mediate between us and Austria!"

Tsar Nicholas II

"I knew I could count on Willy! You see?"

"With all due respect to your cousin sire, the Kaiser is a deceitful megalomaniac. If he is offering to help, then it is really time for us to start praying."