Actually, based on what I read in the book "Nicholas and Alexandra," he was a wimpy mama's boy. Did you know he actually brought his mother along on his honeymoon with Alexandra?! Who the hell does that?! The problem is, Imperial Russia was only as strong as its leaders, and the only Czars that lasted long were the ones who were strong-willed and didn't take crap from anybody. Nicholas, unfortunately, was raised to rule like a British Monarch, a style ill-suited to Russian politics. The British Monarchs of the 19th and early 20th centuries could get away with being soft and well-mannered with little military experience, because their homeland was safe. Imperial Russia had no such guarantee.
Oh sure, he was very affectionate towards his family. That's a very old Russian tradition, one that still continues today. His match with Princess Alix was a rare true love match. And he loved all of his children, even the girls.
If he made any brutal orders towards his people, it was at the behest of his advisors, who were not very good either. It looked especially bad when Alexandra leaned heavily on Rasputin for emotional support and political advice, when the guy did not have hers or the country's best interests in mind. You can read into it if you want; they still sell that book on Amazon. However, keep in mind that the Communists didn't take over until after his family was arrested and assassinated.
It will also please you to know that this film and any relating to this story, can now be confirmed as myths and actual "fairy-tales," because just a few years ago, they finally found the remains of Alexi and Anastasia.
Part of what spawned this myth was when people went to investigate the site where the family was buried. See, first, the Bolsheviks shot them all dead in The House of Special Purpose, threw the bodies down a mine shaft out in the Siberian wilderness, and threw explosives in, just to make sure the Czar and his family were dead. In later years, people went to the site, and were able to dig up the skeletons of the Czar, his wife, and 3 of his 4 daughters, and brought them back to be Buried in State and made Saints in the 90s. Sadly, the skeletons of Nicholas's son and one of the younger Grand Duchesses were nowhere to be found, and it led to speculation that one of the Grand Duchesses possibly survived the Revolution and was in hiding, or escaped Russia. Turns out, the skeletons of Alexi and one of his sisters was found just a few yards outside the mine shaft, where nobody would have looked, and were brought back to be buried in State. So Grand Duchess Anastasia did not survive and was dead all this time.
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