His scheme was a moderate one, based largely on Witte's earlier suggestions. Its essence was the creation of a prosperous and conservative element in the countryside. On the whole, Stolypin succeeded with some improvements in the civic status of the peasantry, but did not erase the barriers separating it from "privilege Russia". A revolutionary assassinated Stolypin in 1911. .
In 1916, Nicholas II and his wife, Alexandria, were so separated from the ruling circle that a palace overthrow was freely advocated. Before this, Alexandria had brought Rasputin, a faith healer, to live with them in the Winter Palace at Petrograd. Alexandria believed he was holy and could save her son, Alexander, from dying of haemophilia. Rasputin ate into the woodwork of the Russian aristocracy, and Alexandria made sure that the members of the Duma did not tarnish him, and that they met his requests. Two revolutionaries murdered Rasputin in December of 1916, after being poisoned, shot, and drowned. .
Socially, Russia was in just about as much of as mess as they were politically. In .
1900, the Czar and his government had not decided how to treat its peasants. It kept all the peasants legally and socially isolated from the other social groups. There were essentially two sides to Russian society at this time. On one side stood the peasants, and on the other were nobles and bureaucrats.
Most Russians were dissatisfied with their country's "cultural barrier" between .
Russia and Europe. They had an inferiority complex, thinking of them selves as less civilized, and in doing so created a lack of respect among Russia's European counterparts. During World War I, when the Allies bullied Russia to get back into the war after their first retreat, they seemed to think of Russia as cowards. Germany made Russia soon to sign a treaty with Germany ran away from strong German defences. If losing a war isn't enough to give people of a nation an inferiority complex, nothing is.
