The Provisional Government's Crisis
Two Authorities, Same Building
When Nicholas II abdicated on 2 March 1917 (Old Style), Russia had no obvious successor government. Two improvisations stepped into the gap. In one wing of the Tauride Palace, the Provisional Committee of the Duma announced itself as the Provisional Government, with the liberal landowner Prince Lvov as Prime Minister and Pavel Milyukov as Foreign Minister. The Kadet party dominated. In another wing, factory delegates and soldiers had reconstituted the soviet of 1905. The Petrograd Soviet’s Executive Committee, mostly Mensheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries, claimed to speak for the workers and the army. The arrangement was nicknamed Dual Power — two authorities in the same building, neither willing to overrule the other.
The Provisional Government formed in March 1917 was self-appointed from the old Duma; it was never elected and kept postponing the Constituent Assembly elections that would have given it a mandate. Its authority was permanently shared with the Petrograd Soviet under an unstable Dual Power arrangement.
Order Number 1
On 14 March (1 March, OS) the Petrograd Soviet issued Order Number 1 to the army. Soldiers were to elect committees that would control all weapons in their unit. They were to salute officers only on duty. They were to obey the Provisional Government only when its orders did not contradict those of the Soviet. The decree was meant to protect the revolution from a military coup. The unintended effect was to dissolve the discipline of the Russian army at the front, where soldiers immediately formed committees, refused to attack and began voting on whether to obey orders. Officers found themselves stripped of authority and, at the front, sometimes shot.
Continuing the War
The single greatest political question of 1917 was whether Russia should stay in the First World War. The Provisional Government, dominated by Kadets, said yes. They were liberals who believed Russia’s honour and Western alliances required victory; they also wanted the war aims of Tsarist diplomacy — control of Constantinople and the Straits. In April Milyukov sent a secret note to the Allies promising to fight until total victory. When it leaked, mass demonstrations broke out in Petrograd. Milyukov was forced to resign. Six socialists, including Alexander Kerensky, joined a coalition government in May. The change of personnel did not change the policy: Russia stayed in the war.
In June, Kerensky — now War Minister — launched a final offensive in Galicia to redeem Russian arms. The June Offensive collapsed within ten days. Whole units melted away; fraternisation with German troops became routine. By July half the Provisional Government’s authority over its own army had evaporated.
The Provisional Government’s second fatal hesitation was over land. The peasantry — 80% of the population — wanted noble estates broken up and redistributed. The Kadets believed this could only be done after the Constituent Assembly met, with full legal procedure and compensation for landlords. So they postponed it. Peasants did not wait. By the summer of 1917 they were seizing manor estates, burning records and dividing the land themselves. Soldiers at the front, hearing that their villages were getting land, began deserting in large numbers to claim their share. By October the front had effectively dissolved.
The July Days
In early July anti-government demonstrations in Petrograd, partly stoked by Bolshevik agitators, turned into something close to an armed uprising. The Bolsheviks were caught between encouraging a rising they did not feel ready for, and stepping back. Lenin appeared, hesitated, and then declined to take leadership. Loyal troops, brought in from the front, restored order. The Provisional Government published documents alleging that Lenin was a German agent (he had returned to Russia in April through Germany on a sealed train). Trotsky and other Bolshevik leaders were arrested. Lenin fled to Finland.
For about six weeks the Bolsheviks looked finished. By late August they would be back in business — rescued, paradoxically, by their enemies on the right.
The Kornilov Affair
Kerensky, who became Prime Minister in July, appointed General Lavr Kornilov as Commander-in-Chief in the hope of restoring military discipline. Kornilov, a tough Cossack soldier, believed the only solution was to crush the Petrograd Soviet entirely. In late August he ordered loyal troops to march on the capital. Whether Kerensky originally agreed and then panicked, or whether Kornilov acted on his own authority, remains disputed. What is clear is that on 27 August Kerensky publicly denounced Kornilov as a counter-revolutionary, dismissed him, and called on the Petrograd Soviet to defend the city.
The Soviet armed Bolshevik Red Guards from its arsenals; railway workers blocked Kornilov’s troop trains; agitators turned his soldiers against him. The march on Petrograd dissolved without a shot. Kornilov was arrested. Kerensky had defeated his own appointed commander. But the Bolsheviks emerged with weapons, prestige and a story to tell: only they had really stood up to counter-revolution. By September they had majorities in both the Petrograd and Moscow Soviets for the first time.
Bolshevik party membership grew from about 24,000 in February 1917 to perhaps 350,000 by October. Three things drove it. First, ‘Peace, Land, Bread’ said in three words what the Provisional Government would not say at all. Second, the soldiers’ committees set up by Order Number 1 became Bolshevik recruiting grounds once it was clear the war would continue. Third, the Kornilov Affair gave the party its breakthrough among workers and rank-and-file soldiers, who saw the Bolsheviks as the only force willing to fight counter-revolution. By September, factory workers in Petrograd were electing Bolshevik delegates; sailors at Kronstadt were already openly Bolshevik. Other socialist parties — Mensheviks, Socialist Revolutionaries — had all spent 1917 in coalition with the Provisional Government and were tarnished by its failures.
The Kornilov Affair of August 1917 was the political turning point of the year. By arming the Bolshevik Red Guards to defeat a perceived right-wing coup, Kerensky strengthened the very party that would overthrow him in October. Bolshevik membership of the Soviets had grown from a minority in July to a clear majority by September.
A Government with Nothing Left
By October 1917 the Provisional Government had no friends left. Liberals had been alienated by the leftward coalition; conservatives by Kerensky’s denunciation of Kornilov; soldiers by the failed June Offensive; peasants by the postponed land reform; workers by inflation and bread queues no different from those that had toppled Nicholas. The Constituent Assembly had been promised, postponed, then promised for November. The body that had stepped into the wreckage of the Romanov regime was now waiting, exhausted, for someone to push it over. The next chapter is about the small, disciplined party that did so.