Reply #28: In a book I read once

[hobbit709]

It stated that for centuries, the tsars cruelly oppressed the peasants. But the peasants believed that the tsar didn't know how his nobles were treating the peasants. They believed that if they could get to the tsar and tell him, he would stop it. So occasionally the tsar stepped on some of the worst offenders among the nobility and the peasants went away happy thinking that the "Little Father" cared about them. This went on for centuries until the last tsar. He was openly contemptuous of the peasants even when they petitioned him. That is why he was the LAST tsar.