... These difficult and critical choices would again help to become a contributory factor for the collapse of Tsarism in February 1917. Towards the end of 1613, a young Mikhail Romanov was elected Tsar, thus starting the dynasty that would remain at the head of Russia until 1917. The early Romanov rulers put back into place a system of autocratic government, which included the enserfment of the peasants. When Alexander 1 (1801-1825) died in 1825, he died heirless, thus his youngest brother Nicholas1 became Tsar. Reform was stifled under Nicholas, the course that Russia should take was the subject of considerable if suppressed debate. The arguments of the "Westernisers" and "Slavophiles" clashed, the former wishing Russia to adopt European ideas, the latter promoting what they saw as traditional Russian values. Before Nicholas 1 died in 1855, he had overseen Russia's drift into the costly Crimean War against Turkey, France and Britain, which ...

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