Rasputin was the outsider who helped speed up the decline of the czar's government at the beginning of World War I.
Grigori Yefimovich Rasputin was a Russian mystic and self-proclaimed holy man who was friend of the family of Tsar Nicholas II, the last monarch of Russia, and had important influence in late imperial Russia.
Rasputin's terrible reputation is believed to have helped discredit the tsarist government, and consequently, helped speed up the overthrow of the Romanov dynasty.