The bench marks of tsarist policy from the early XIX century are highlighted, at which it was possible to avoid the revolutionary overthrow of 1917. However, persistent missing the opportunities to prevent the revolution made it inevitable. The personality of the last Russian emperor had a negative role in the fate of the dynasty and the regime on the whole. At the same time, A.V. Kolchak, the typological and psychological antipode of Nicholas II, proved powerless to turn the tide of the Civil War, which determined both his own demise and the defeat of the White movement.