Nicholas II didn’t have the power of his predecessors or his followers not because he didn’t want it, but because he couldn’t get it. The Duma and Kerensky were running the show because Nicholas II was powerless to stop them (it was only a few years before that the Czar told the Duma to get lost).
Understand this and understand it well, communism is nothing more than feudalism modified for the industrial world. The political philosophy behind a feudal aristocracy- that the masses work for a government run by select elitists- is the same for a communist regime. When William the Conqueror took over England, he replaced all the Saxon land owners with people loyal to him. When Stalin took over Russia, he replaced all the farm and factory owners with people loyal to him.
Russia was in the process if industrializing, but it was the least industrialized of the major European powers by the time of the October Revolution. Marx & Engels had Great Britain in mind when they came up with the theory behind the proletariate revolution. Ie. Feudalism-Capitalism-Communism was to be the ‘natural’ progression of things. Russia went straight from Feudalism to Communism without passing Go or collecting $200.
Let's add to that. No system of absolute power ever turns out well. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. The end result is destructiveness and mass murder. Man is fundamentally flawed and incapable of constructively wielding absolute power like some kind of god.