Yes he probably was. But he was czar when the country lost two wars, the Russo-Japanese war and even worse WWI.
One of my professors, was an economic historian who studied Russia pre-1914. It was not a backward country as many leftists would have one believe. The industrialization of the country had begun. The country had fine colleges of engineering, a transcontinental railroad, a shipbuilding industry, and an emerging middle class. Russia 1914 was about where the US was in about 1880 and Japan about 1900.
How history might have been different if Germany had not packed Lenin and his comrades into a train and sent them back to Russia.
Excellent points.
Or if GHW Bush had killed Saddam during Desert Storm.