History Lesson

Tsar Nicholas II:   I know what will make them happy. They're children, and they need a Tsar!  They need tradition.  Not this!  They're the victims of agitators.  A Duma would make them bewildered and discontented.  And don't tell me about London and Berlin. God save us from the mess they're in!

Count Witte:   I see. So they talk, pray, march, plead, petition and what do they get? Cossacks, prison, flogging, police, spies, and now, after today, they will be shot.

Is this God's will?  Are these His methods?  Make war on your own people?   How long do you think they're going to stand there and let you shoot them?  YOU ask ME who's responsible?  YOU ask?

Tsar Nicholas II:   The English have a parliament.   Our British cousins gave their rights away.   The Hapsburgs, and the Hoehenzollerns too.  The Romanovs will not. What I was given, I will give my son.

"People of privilege will always risk their complete destruction rather than surrender any material part of their advantage. Intellectual myopia, often called stupidity, is no doubt a reason. But the privileged also feel that their privileges, however egregious they may seem to others, are a solemn, basic, God-given right. The sensitivity of the poor to injustice is a trivial thing compared with that of the rich."

John Kenneth Galbraith