Assured of the support of the Petrograd Soviet, the Provisional Government first devoted its attention to the question of the Romanov dynasty. On March 2, without the knowledge of the Soviet, it dispatched A. I. Guchkov and V. V. Shulgin to the tsar in Pskov. After their departure, at about 3 p.m., Milyukov announced the formation of the government at a meeting in the hall of the Taurida Palace. Milyukov’s speech was greeted with approval, but voices of protest were heard amidst the applause. The speaker was interrupted by cries of, “Who elected you?” When Milyukov referred to Prince Lvov as the “representative of organised public opinion,” several members of the audience shouted, “Of the propertied classes!” i.e., of bourgeois public opinion. Milyukov had to go into long praises of Guchkov, and even to resort to an obvious falsehood in order to silence objection. “At the moment that I am addressing you here in this hall, Guchkov is organising our victory in the streets of the capital,” said Milyukov, whereas in fact Guchkov was at that moment travelling post-haste to the tsar. Cries from all parts of the huge hall demanded: “What about the dynasty?” Taking his courage into his hands, Milyukov at last made a cautious attempt to reveal his cards:
“I know beforehand that my reply will not satisfy all of you, but I shall tell you nevertheless. The old despot, who has brought Russia to the verge of ruin, will voluntarily abdicate, or will be dethroned. The power will pass to a regent, Grand Duke Michael. Alexei will be the heir to the throne.”(1)
This statement provoked an uproar. “That is the old dynasty!” was shouted from the body of the hall. When the uproar subsided, Milyukov endeavoured to mitigate the effect of his statement:
“Yes, gentlemen, that is the old dynasty which you, perhaps, do not love and which I, perhaps, do not love either. But the point now is not whom we love. We cannot leave the question of the form of government unanswered and unsettled. We picture it as a parliamentary, constitutional monarchy. Others perhaps picture it differently. But if we begin to quarrel over that now, instead of deciding immediately, Russia will be plunged into a state of civil war and the régime just destroyed will be restored. . . . As soon as the danger passes and order is securely established, we shall proceed to make preparations for convening a Constituent Assembly . . . on the basis of universal, direct and equal suffrage and secret ballot. The freely-elected representatives of the people will decide who more faithfully expresses the general opinion of Russia—we or our opponents.”(2)
Milyukov’s speech evoked intense feeling in the factories and regiments. That evening a group of officers came to the Taurida Palace. They declared that they dared not return to their regiment until Milyukov withdrew his words. The members of the government gathered in alarm. “In order to pacify the people,” it was decided to announce that Milyukov “had expressed his personal opinion.”
While Petrograd was stormily protesting against the attempt to impose a new tsar on the people, Guchkov and Shulgin arrived at Pskov and reported the government’s plan to transfer the throne to Alexei. Nicholas II announced that he had thought the matter over and now abdicated the throne in the name both of himself and of his son in favour of his brother Michael. The ex-tsar spoke of his paternal feelings: “I cannot part with my son.”(3) The fact is that Nicholas was guided by motives of policy: he did not want to subject his son to risk, and preferred to temporise. Guchkov and Shulgin transmitted the text of the abdication to the Provisional Government by direct wire and left for Petrograd. In view of the state of feeling in the capital, the government decided not to publish the abdication. They managed to warn Shulgin in time by telephone, but Guchkov on his arrival went straight from the train to a meeting of railwaymen at the station, read the Manifesto and concluded with the words: “Long live the Emperor Michael!”(4) Cries of “Down with the tsar!” were shouted in response. The excited workers demanded that Guchkov should be immediately arrested and searched. “Horse-radish is no sweeter than radish,” was the comment of the indignant soldiers when they heard of the proposal to replace Nicholas II by Michael II.
The Provisional Government, faced with the mood of the masses, realised that the preservation of the monarchy was out of the question. In the early morning of March 3, Rodzyanko, Milyukov, Guchkov, Nekrasov, Kerensky and other members of the government went to visit Grand Duke Michael. The majority of the delegation tried to persuade him to abdicate the throne in his turn. The only members of the delegation opposed to this were Milyukov and Guchkov who promised the Grand Duke to gather an armed force outside Petrograd for the defence of the monarchy. Michael himself realised that he would be unable to retain the throne. The day before he had asked for a train to take him to Petrograd from Gatchina, but the reply he got from the Soviet was that “Citizen Romanov” could go to the station, buy a ticket, and travel in the ordinary train. Michael Romanov thought the matter over for a while, spoke to Rodzyanko in private, and declared that he renounced the throne. Milyukov relates that thereupon Kerensky shook the Grand Duke’s hand and said, “You are a noble man, Your Highness.”(5)
The monarchy could not be saved, but the bourgeoisie strove to lend the government as legitimate an appearance as possible. Guchkov and Shulgin got the tsar to appoint Prince Lvov President of the Council. It was intended to create the impression that the head of the new government had been legitimately endorsed by the former Emperor. Rodzyanko frequently stressed the fact that Prince Lvov—
“embodied continuity of power, which had been delegated to him by the still undeposed supreme ruler.”(6)
But in point of fact, when Nicholas signed the order for Lvov’s appointment he was no longer tsar. In his act of abdication Michael called upon the people to obey the
“Provisional Government, which has arisen at the instance of the State Duma and which is endowed with plenary power.”(7)
Even the new Commander of the Petrograd Military Area was appointed with the consent of the old government. General L. G. Kornilov was proposed in place of General Khabalov. General Kornilov was in the good graces of the court and had even “been honoured with the attention” of Nicholas II on his return to Russia after his escape from Austria, where he had been a prisoner of war. On March 5 Prince Lvov sent a telegram dismissing all Governors and Vice-Governors of provinces and entrusting their functions to the chairman of the provincial Zemstvos. But many of these Chairmen had been appointed by the old régime, and even those who had been elected belonged to extreme reactionary groups.
The vigorous protest of the workers and soldiers against the attempts to save the monarchy made it clear to the leaders of the government that the bourgeoisie could not establish its undivided power by force. Open coercion irritated the masses, provoked resistance and only helped to spread the revolution. Only one thing remained, viz., to make concessions, to wriggle, to make unstinted promises, in order to gain time, to muster strength—and then to suppress the revolution. One of these concessions was the inclusion of Kerensky in the government. In the negotiations with the representatives of the Soviet on the night of March 1, Kerensky had not been mentioned as a prospective Minister. V. V. Shulgin recounts in his memoirs that Shingaryov, Constitutional Democrat and Minister of Agriculture in the Provisional Government, had said on the eve of the revolution:
“‘If the power falls on us we shall have to seek support by extending the Progressive Bloc to the Left. . . .’
“‘How do you conceive this?’
“‘I would summon Kerensky.’
“‘Kerensky? In what capacity?’
“‘In the capacity of Minister of Justice, let us say. . . . This post has no significance just now, but we must deprive the revolution of its ringleaders. . . . Among them Kerensky is after all unique. . . . It would be far more advantageous to have him with us than against.’”(8)
The Provisional Government tried to avoid tying its hands. On March 6 it addressed an appeal to the people in which it vaguely declared that it
“regards it as its sacred and responsible duty to accomplish the desires of the people and to lead the country into the bright path of a free civil system.”(9)
What exactly the “desires of the people” and the “sacred duty” of the government were, it was impossible to gather from this florid and prolix appeal. It promised that a Constituent Assembly would be convened to settle all fundamental questions, but the date of its convocation was not stated. It was behind the Constituent Assembly that Milyukov took refuge when at the meeting he was flooded by protests against the monarchy. It was to the Constituent Assembly that the government referred those who demanded the settlement of the questions of land, bread and peace.
The appeal of March 6, like the first announcement of the Provisional Government of March 2, said absolutely nothing about transferring the land to the peasants. A. I. Shingaryov, a rural doctor, a Cadet, and member of the Fourth Duma, was appointed Minister of Agriculture. His appointment was solely due to the fact that he had constantly spoken on the food question in the Duma. In the eyes of the Provisional Government the Minister of Agriculture was primarily a Minister of Food. The revolution began with “food riots”; “riots” also threatened the newly-formed government. But the peasantry had not yet raised its voice in demand of land. While saying nothing about the land question, the Provisional Government decided on March 9 to institute criminal proceedings against the peasants of the Kazan Province for attacks on the landlords.
But scarcely two weeks had elapsed before the peasants began to show evidence of themselves. “The peasants . . . attacked and partially plundered the Alexandrovka estate,” it was reported from the Kursk Province.(10) The steward of the Trubetskoi estate in the Ryazan Province complained that the peasants were demanding that the estate should be handed over to them. On March 16 Shingaryov received a telegram reporting a peasant riot in the Moscow Province. Similar reports were arriving from all parts of Russia.
The Provisional Government at first attempted to repress the peasant movement by the old and tried method. In the early part of March troops were sent to “pacify” the peasants. Detachments were dispatched to the provinces of Kursk, Mogilev and Perm. But the Lvov-Milyukov-Shingaryov government soon learnt that the peasants could no longer be pacified by the old method. Mere suppression was now impossible. In one way or another, concessions would have to be made. On March 12, the government announced that the lands belonging to Nicholas II were to be handed over to the treasury, and on March 16 this decision was extended to the lands of all members of the Romanov family.
On March 17 the Lvov government issued a declaration to the peasants.
“Land reform . . . will undoubtedly be discussed by the Constituent Assembly which is about to be summoned,” the Provisional Government promised. “The land question cannot be settled by seizure,” it went on to declare. “Violence and robbery are extremely pernicious and dangerous methods to use in the sphere of economic relations.”(11)
This preaching of abstention from violence was intended only for the peasants; the government reserved violence for its own use. On April 8, Prince Lvov, the Prime Minister, who was at the same time Minister of the Interior, instructed the provincial commissars to suppress unrest among the peasants by every means at their disposal, “even to the extent of calling out the troops.” The commissars of the Provincial Government and the representatives of the State Duma appointed to the provinces obeyed the instructions of the Prime Minister with great zeal.
The Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks condoned the punitive measures of the government. On March 16 a Petrograd regional conference of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party expressed its opposition to the agrarian movement and declared that
“every attempt at the immediate seizure of privately owned land may have disastrous effects on the course of agricultural life. . . . The confiscation of cultivated land belonging to the tsar and the royal family and to private landlords may be effected only in a legislative way through the Constituent Assembly, which will confer land and freedom on the people.”(12)
The Socialist-Revolutionaries proved to be more reactionary than the bourgeoisie, for only a few days before the Provisional Government had confiscated the lands of the tsar and the tsar’s family. On April 3 the All-Russian Conference of Soviets of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies, on the motion of the Mensheviks, adopted a resolution which stated:
“. . . Agrarian disorders can benefit only the counter-revolution and not the peasants. It must be remembered that the power is now in the hands of the people, and the people will themselves settle the land question in the Constituent Assembly. . . .”(13)
Neither threats nor violence could halt the agrarian movement.
“In April there appeared the first symptoms of a change in the attitude of the peasants towards the legal settlement of the land question, and parallel with this change corresponding news began to arrive in the form of telegrams from various localities,”(14)
the Minister of the Interior reported in an arid, official style to the Provisional Government. The landlords decided that new tactics would have to be adopted against the peasantry.
“The landlords have come to understand,” Lenin wrote in this connection, “that they cannot rule by the whip any longer. They understand that very well now and are adopting a method of ruling which is a novelty for Russia, but which has long prevailed in Western Europe. . . . Revolutions serve as lessons to the landlords and capitalists; they teach them that the people must be ruled by deceit and flattery; they teach them that they must adapt themselves, attach a red badge to their coats, and although they may be parasites, declare: ‘We are revolutionary democrats; just wait a little, please, and we shall do everything for you.’”(15)
On April 11 the government passed a law entitled “On the Protection of Crops,” which virtually guaranteed the landlords their lands, rents and “the expenses incurred by them in sowing the crops, in the event of ‘popular riots.’”(16)
Shingaryov attempted to calm the peasants by setting up conciliation boards, in which the landlords were to enjoy a predominant influence. Lenin characterised this attempt to reconcile the landlords and peasants as follows:
“One landowner having two thousand desyatins of land—and three hundred peasant families having two thousand desyatins of land. This is how the matter stands in Russia as a whole. Three hundred peasants must wait for ‘the voluntary agreement’ of one landlord!!”(17)
But this suited the landlords very well. Shingaryov decided to exploit the idea of a “voluntary agreement” of this kind.
On April 21 regulations governing the Land Committees were issued. Shingaryov’s biographer, A. G. Khrushchov, a Cadet, tells how the Minister of Agriculture conceived the functions of the Land Committees:
“A.I.’s [Shingaryov’s—Ed.] original idea was that the Land Committees should be set up exclusively for the purpose of collecting and examining material on the land question. . . . According to the draft originally drawn up by A.I., the committees were not to be invested with any executive functions nor allowed to interfere in agrarian relations.”(18)
At the first meeting of the Chief Land Committee, Khrushchov himself, who was Assistant Minister of Agriculture, explained the necessity for this measure in the following way:
“The agrarian movement is growing and assuming forms which threaten to disrupt the whole economic life of the country. Urgent measures must be taken to organise local Land Committees.”(19)
In accordance with Shingaryov’s regulations, a Chief Land Committee was set up in the capital, and provincial and Uyezd (district) Land Committees in the localities. The creation of Volost (rural area) Land Committees was not obligatory under the regulations. Lenin called the regulations governing the Land Committees a “fraudulent law written by the landlords.”
“. . . The Committees are, in accordance with the fraudulent law written by the landlords,” Lenin wrote, “so constituted that the Uyezd Committees are less democratic than the Volost Committees, the Provincial Committees are less democratic than the Uyezd Committees, and the Chief Committee less democratic than the Provincial Committees.”(20)
The actual organisation of the Committees, however, proceeded along somewhat different lines. The first to arise were the Volost Committees: they arose long before the regulations of April 21 were issued. They began to increase very rapidly in number in April. The Provincial and Uyezd Committees, the organisation of which was entrusted to the Commissars of the Provisional Government, were set up very slowly, as though on the heels of the Volost Committees and imposing their control on the latter.
The policy of the Chief Land Committee was completely determined by its composition. The Provisional Government appointed twenty-five of the members—the overwhelming majority of them Cadets: six members represented the Peasant Alliance and the All-Russian Peasant Soviet, three represented the Provisional Committee of the State Duma, while the political parties were represented by one member each, the Cadets and the parties more to the Right receiving six more seats in this way. A. S. Posnikov, a professor of political economy and member of the fourth Duma, a Progressive belonging to the same party as Minister Konovalov, was appointed Chairman of the Chief Land Committee.
The professor was both manager of the Peasants’ Bank and manager of the Nobles’ Bank, and it was this combination of functions, apparently, which rendered Posnikov in the eyes of the bourgeoisie a fit person to “reconcile” the peasants and the landlords. Defining the functions of the Chief Land Committee at its first meeting, the Chairman spoke
“of the necessity of removing a misconception which is very widespread at the present time, namely, that with the forthcoming agrarian reform all land will be taken from the owners without compensation. The Committee must declare that this will not be the case.”(21)
The Chief Land Committee was only intended as a screen from the peasants. The real business of the landlords and the bourgeoisie was done without this organisation. The Chief Land Committee held endless debates over various drafts for an agrarian reform, delaying the final decision in every possible way. In this manner the Provisional Government manœuvred, passing from threats and punitive expeditions to conciliation boards and temporising until the moment came when it could take the whole power into its own hands.
In relation to other questions the Provisional Government pursued these same tactics—conceding small matters in order to forestall more serious demands. On March 11 the manufacturers of Petrograd signed an agreement with the Petrograd Soviet providing for the introduction of an eight-hour working day, but on March 16, at a conference with Konovalov, Minister of Commerce and Industry, Efron, a representative of the Petrograd Society of Mill Owners and Manufacturers, declared that “the agreement arrived at in Petrograd . . . is a temporary concession.”(22)
With regard to the food question, the government at first took no measures at all. Food lines were not diminished as a result of the transfer of the Ministry of Agriculture from the charge of the tsarist dignitary Rittich to that of the Cadet Minister Shingaryov. On March 4 the Food Commission of the Petrograd Soviet had established a fixed scale of prices for articles of general consumption in the city of Petrograd. In response, the baker shops began to conceal bread. The workers in the factories demanded that grain should be taken from the wealthy. On March 14 the Food Commission of the Soviet proposed that grain should be requisitioned from all landlords owning not less than 70 hectares of land. The Provisional Government decided to take food affairs into its own hands. On March 21 the Food Commission of the Soviet turned over its powers to the State Food Committee. On March 25 the Provisional Government was obliged to ratify a grain monopoly order, in accordance with which grain surpluses belonging to the landlords were placed at the disposal of the State. Every member of the family of a landlord and every one of his servants and workers was allowed 50 pounds of grain per month for food until the new harvest. Definite quotas were assigned for fodder and for sowing purposes. Over and above this, 10 per cent of all the quotas was left at the disposal of the owners “in case of emergency.” Shingaryov explained this act of the government as being due to the fact that the war was obliging the State to intervene in all phases of economic life. The increased demand for grain, he asserted, accompanied as it was by increased difficulty in securing it, demanded the abolition of free and unrestricted trade in grain. Shingaryov, however, did not mention the chief reason for this decree, namely, the pressure exercised by the revolutionary masses on the government. The bourgeois and landlords at first vigorously opposed the grain monopoly. Even before the decree was published, the First All-Russian Congress of Commerce and Industry, held in Moscow on March 19-23, protested against “the dangerous project for the introduction of a grain monopoly” and rejected the proposal for a monopoly by a majority vote. Rodzyanko, the chief pleader of the landlords in the fight against the grain monopoly, wrote to Kerensky of the necessity of annulling the “risky measure.”(23) A solid opposition to the grain monopoly was put up by the Grain Merchants’ Alliances, the Commodity Exchange Committees in a number of large cities, etc. But this was only a temporary outburst, due to the unexpectedness of the measure; it was an instinctive act of self-defence, a precautionary counter-blow. And the sponsors of the law themselves soon explained that it was in fact passed as an insurance against attacks by the working population, and that nobody had any intention of carrying it into effect. At the Seventh Congress of the Cadet Party, Shingaryov assured his colleagues that this was “an incomplete grain monopoly.”(24) He referred to it as a “bitter necessity.” At the Third Extraordinary Congress of representatives of the Council of Congress of commodity exchange and Agriculture, held April 16-29, 1917, Shingaryov reassured the bourgeois and landlords, explaining that they had nothing very much to fear.
“This is not a finished grain monopoly,” he argued. “We are touching neither the production of grain nor its final distribution through the distributing machinery; this is only the right to dispose of grain taken after the harvest.”(25)
In a private conversation with Senator Shidlovsky, who complained of the smallness of the grain quotas left to the landlords, Shingaryov reassured him, and all the landlords through him, by declaring: “You just ignore them [the quotas—Ed.]; who is going to keep a check on you?”(26) Thus the Ministers of the Provisional Government came before the masses with “revolutionary” laws, but behind the backs of the people recommended the landlords to sabotage them.
The work of counteracting economic disruption passed into the hands of Konovalov, a big textile manufacturer and an active figure in a number of capitalist organisations. Konovalov appealed to the bourgeoisie to combat profiteering, he even spoke of interference by the State in private trade and industrial affairs, but in practice all he did was to remove every restriction on the formation of joint stock companies. It was not without good reason that Konovalov, Guchkov and Tereshchenko were spoken of at the meeting of the Central War Industry Committee in the following terms:
“We representatives of commerce and industry regard you three with especial pride, because in our eyes you are not only valorous Russian citizens, but also fine and worthy sons of commercial and industrial Russia.”(27)
Those “worthy sons of commercial and industrial Russia” dexterously and systematically hoodwinked the Russian people.
There was one question, however, which could not be deferred until the Constituent Assembly. This was the question of war. Every possible measure was taken to protect the army from the influence of revolutionary Petrograd. News of the development of the revolution was intercepted and the soldiers were not allowed to receive newspapers. On the night of March 3, General Alexeyev, Chief of Staff of the Supreme Commander, sent the following secret telegram to the various fronts:
“In connection with a telegram received from the Chief of Staff of the Commander-in-Chief of the armies on the Western Front, reporting that a deputation of fifty persons from the new government had left Velikiye Luki for Polotsk and was disarming the gendarmes, an inquiry was made on this subject of the President of the State Duma, who replied that no deputation had been sent. It therefore appears that purely revolutionary and unbridled bands are beginning to arrive from Petrograd and are trying to disarm the gendarmes on the railways; they will, of course, next try to seize power both on the railways and in the rear of the army, and most likely will endeavour to penetrate into the army itself. Most energetic measures must be taken; a watch must be kept on the railway junctions and garrisons must be maintained at these junctions consisting of reliable units under firm command. On the appearance of such self-appointed delegations anywhere, it is desirable that they should not be dispersed, but that an attempt should be made to seize them and, if possible, to court-martial them on the spot and to carry out the sentences immediately.”(28)
The Commander-in-Chief of the South-eastern Front, General Brusilov, sent telegrams demanding the adoption of the most vigorous measures to prevent the penetration of “disorganisation and anarchy” into the army.
The tsarist generals were preparing to greet revolution in the army with cold steel and courts-martial. Order No. 1 was withdrawn from circulation just as peremptorily as the old police used to destroy revolutionary leaflets.
On March 6, simultaneously with its general appeal to the population, the Provisional Government published an appeal to the army. The question of the war was referred to more or less cautiously. All the appeal said on the subject was that the army would maintain unity, solidarity and firm order. The soldiers were called upon to obey their officers unreservedly while the Provisional Government, for its part, would supply the army “with everything necessary to fight the war to a victorious finish.”(29)
The next day Guchkov issued a new ordinance abolishing Order No. 1.
The leaders of the Soviet, including those who, like Sokolov, had drawn up Order No. 1 five days earlier, helped Guchkov to abolish this order. General Denikin, relating what was told him by General Potapov, speaks of this as follows:
“On the evening of March 6 a delegation from the Soviet, consisting of Sokolov, Nakhamkes, Filippovsky (a lieutenant), Skobelev, Gvozdyev, Paderin, a soldier, and Kudryavtsev (engineer), visited Guchkov at his apartment to discuss the question of reforms in the army. The meeting was a very stormy one. Guchkov declared that it was impossible for him to accept the demands of the delegation, and he left the room several times, declaring that he would resign the Ministry. When he went out, I [Potapov—Ed.] acted as chairman. Agreements were drafted, Guchkov was again invited in, and the meeting ended by the adoption of an appeal which was signed by Skobelev in the name of the Soviet, by myself in the name of the Committee of the State Duma and by Guchkov in the name of the government. The appeal rescinded Orders Nos. 1 and 2 [Order No. 2, issued by the Soviet, explained that Order No. 1 did not institute the election of officers but empowered the committees to object to the appointment of commanders—Ed.], but the Minister of War promised to introduce in the army more effective reforms than he had at first proposed, establishing new rules governing the relations between commanders and soldiers.”(30)
On March 9, the Provisional Government issued an appeal to the army signed by the Minister of War and Marine attacking the Petrograd Soviet, although in very cautious terms:
“Rally round the Provisional Government, confident that it will devote every effort to your defence. In the capital certain groups are continuing to show discord, impeding the decisions of the Provisional Government and hampering their realisation. . . . Do not listen to the trouble-makers. Many German spies, disguised in soldier’s uniform, are sowing discord and disharmony in your midst.”(31)
Guchkov was in too great a hurry. The appeal of the Ministry of War betrayed the true character of the government. On March 11, the Bolshevik newspaper Pravda, which had begun to appear on March 5, declared that the Provisional Government’s appeal was nothing but an attack on the Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies. Protest meetings were held in the garrison of the capital. Delegates from the soldiers at the front began to visit the Petrograd Soviet and insistently demanded that measures be taken against the offensive of the generals.
Several times already since the petty-bourgeois leaders to the Soviet had surrendered the power to the bourgeoisie they had protected the latter from the blows of the agitated masses, for which there were many provocations. On March 7 the Executive Committee of the Soviet had set up a “Contact Commission” consisting of Chkheidze, Steklov, Sukhanov, Filippovsky and Skobelev. The Executive Committee defined the purpose of the Commission as being
“to keep the Soviet informed of the intentions and actions of the Provisional Government, to keep the latter informed of the demands of the revolutionary people, to bring influence to bear on the government to have these demands satisfied, and to exercise constant control over their fulfilment.”(32)
As a matter of fact, the “Constant Commission” assisted the Provisional Government in its efforts to pacify the incensed masses. Such was the case in respect to the arrest of Nicholas and his family. The Provisional Government allowed the tsar to leave Pskov for General Headquarters, where he met the army generals and where Grand Dukes visited him freely. This aroused tremendous indignation among the soldiers and workers. The Executive Committee of the Soviet was obliged to demand the arrest of the tsar, and on March 7, the Provisional Government too decided to keep Nicholas Romanov and his family under restraint.
On March 7 the Provisional Government drafted the text of an oath to be taken by the army and by all public servants. The oath made no mention of the revolution, and, furthermore, took over the sign of the cross and the reference to God from the old tsarist oath. This provoked a new outburst of indignation. On March 12 the Soviet informed the Provisional Government that it considered the wording of the oath unsuitable, and began negotiations for the drafting of a new form of oath. At the same time it was made clear that the rejection of the form of oath proposed was not a call to disobey the Provisional Government.
Such also was the case with regard to the war question. The protest against Guchkov’s action steadily grew. The soldiers and workers demanded peace. On March 11 a meeting of 1,500 persons was held on the Petrograd Side, which decided to call upon the Soviet to appeal to the peoples of the world, and especially to the people of Germany and Austria, to compel their governments to conclude peace. On March 12 a huge meeting at the Izhory Works, situated not far from Petrograd, demanded that the Soviet should appeal to the working class of the belligerent countries to revolt against their government and to conclude peace. On that same day a huge demonstration was held in Moscow under the slogans “Long Live the Constituent Assembly!” and “Peace and the Brotherhood of Nations!”(33)
Under pressure of the mass movement, the compromising leaders of the Executive Committee of the Soviet decided to issue a declaration in response to the numerous resolutions and demands. On March 14, the Petrograd Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies published an appeal addressed to all the nations of the world. Announcing that the tsar had been dethroned, that Russia was now a democratic country, and that it was time for the peoples themselves to settle the question of war and peace, the Soviet declared:
“Realising its revolutionary strength, the Russian democracy declares that it will by every means in its power resist the annexationist policy of its ruling classes, and it appeals to the peoples of Europe to take joint and resolute action on behalf of peace.”(34)
The appeal of the Soviet did not indicate what specific measures should be taken to secure peace. It did not even promise to undertake peace negotiations in the near future. On the contrary, the appeal stressed the point that:
“We shall staunchly defend our own freedom from all reactionary attempts both from within and from without. The Russian revolution will not retreat before the bayonets of conquerors and will not allow itself to be crushed by foreign military force.”(35)
The leaders of the Soviet continued to demand that the army should continue the war.
The appeal of the Soviet pleased neither the Russian bourgeoisie nor the bourgeoisie of the Allied countries. However indefinite the terms in which it was written, it nevertheless did in a vague way speak of peace and called upon the peoples to combat the annexationist policy of their governments. The Ambassadors of the Allied countries got busy. Paléologue and Buchanan demanded that the Provisional Government should clearly define its position. On March 16, Milyukov, as Minister of Foreign Affairs, sent a telegram to the Russian representatives abroad in which he asserted that it was the aim of the Russian revolution to fight the war to a victorious finish. The telegram sent to the Russian representatives in neutral countries—Switzerland, Norway, Sweden, etc.—made no mention of military aims.
In the course of an interview he gave to newspaper reporters on March 23, Milyukov said:
“The fact that we Russians are claiming Constantinople and the Straits in no way implies that we are encroaching on the national rights of Turkey, and nobody can accuse us of annexationist tendencies. The possession of Tsargrad [the Tsar’s City, i.e., Constantinople—Trans.] has for ages been regarded as a Russian national aim.”(36)
Milyukov’s interpretation of the appeal of the Soviet of March 14 was of a frankly imperialist character. This might again incense the masses. The leaders of the Soviet demanded that the question should be discussed in the “Contact Commission.” At this juncture Tsereteli appeared in the Commission. Tsereteli was a Menshevik, a former deputy in the second Duma, who in 1907, under the tsar, had been sentenced to penal servitude. A fiery orator, wearing the halo of a martyr, Tsereteli at once assumed a position of a leader among the Mensheviks. He proposed on this occasion that the government should make a solemn declaration to the army and the population promising firstly, definitely to abandon the policy of annexation and, secondly, to take measures to secure universal peace. V. D. Nabokov, Executive Secretary of the government, a Cadet, relates how Tsereteli tried to persuade the members of the government:
“He argued that if the Provisional Government made such a declaration there would be an unprecedented outburst of enthusiasm in the army and that he and those who shared his views could then with absolute assurance and without any doubt of success proceed to rally the army to the support of the Provisional Government, which would at once acquire tremendous moral authority. ‘Say this,’ he said, ‘and all will follow you like one man.’”(37)
Tsereteli thus directly advised the bourgeoisie to issue a declaration in order to pacify the people. Nabokov recalls that, observing Milyukov’s hesitation, Tsereteli began to persuade him in the most eager terms:
“Tsereteli insisted, and a rather comic impression was caused by his assurances, that if only the basic idea of the instructions were recognised, Milyukov would be able to discover subtle diplomatic methods of carrying these instructions into effect.”(38)
The Provisional Government capitulated to the arguments of the “Contact Commission.” On March 28 a declaration was published, the substance of which was as follows:
“Leaving it to the will of the people, in close unity with our Allies, to settle finally all questions connected with the World War and its cessation, the Provisional Government regards it as its right and duty to announce today that the aim of free Russia is not to exercise mastery over other nations, not to deprive them of their national possessions, and not to seize foreign territories by force, but to achieve lasting peace on the basis of the self-determination of nation.”(39)
The Provisional Government took the advice of the “Contact Commission” and couched its declaration literally in the words of the appeal of the Soviet of March 14. But having paid tribute to the demands of the petty-bourgeois leaders of the Soviet, the government added:
“The Russian people will not permit their native country to emerge from the great struggle humiliated and with its vital forces undermined. These principles will be made the basis of the foreign policy of the Provisional Government, which is unswervingly carrying out the wishes of the people and protecting the rights of our country, at the same time faithfully observing the obligations assumed towards our Allies.”(40)
Following the advice of the Mensheviks, the government skilfully masked the imperialist character of its policy by “democratic” slogans.
The masses, who had made the revolution, who had revolted against the imperialist slaughter and against those who were responsible for it, were being dragged back into the war by the Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks. The predatory war in the interests of the capitalists was justified on the plea of defending the revolution and protecting the revolutionary fatherland. In his pamphlet, The Tasks of the Proletariat in our Revolution, Lenin wrote:
“Revolutionary defencism must be regarded as the most important and striking manifestation of the petty-bourgeois wave that has overwhelmed ‘nearly everything.’ There can be no greater enemy to the progress and success of the Russian revolution.”(41)
The Bolshevik Party drew a clear distinction between the revolutionary defencism of the masses and the defencism of the petty-bourgeois leaders. The defencism of the petty-bourgeois leaders was not due to misunderstanding, but to their class contacts and traditions, to the class position of the social groups whose interests they expressed. The defencism of the masses had entirely different roots. The proletarians and poor peasants had no interest in the seizure of foreign territory and the coercion and plunder of other nations. The defencism of the masses was directly due to the fact that they had been fooled by the bourgeoisie and its servitors. The bourgeoisie, and the Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks even more, played on the masses’ pride in having made the revolution, on the joy and intoxication of the “springtide of revolution.” In newspapers, at meetings, in theatres and cinemas, matters were depicted as though the character of the war had changed with the replacement of the tsar by the bourgeois Provisional Government. Before, it was asserted, the war was a predatory war and was conducted by the tsar; but now the tsar has been overthrown, we have a revolution, and the country must be defended. The mass of the workers and poor peasants did not at first perceive the falsity of this assertion and allowed themselves to be deceived by the bourgeoisie.
The deception had to be explained to the hoodwinked soldiers and workers, they had to be shown that the bourgeoisie favoured the continuation of the war not in the interests of the revolution, but in order to grow rich and to defend their profits. It had to be explained that the character of a war depends on the class which wages the war, and that war is an inevitable continuation of the policy of the ruling class. This had to be explained to millions and millions of people. The workers and poor peasants had to be got to shake off the influence of the bourgeoisie and the petty-bourgeois parties. The selfish purpose of the high-sounding and florid talk of the Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks about the revolution, about defending “free Russia” and about the “great conquests of democracy” had to be exposed. The whole brunt of this difficult fight against the social demagogy of the bourgeoisie fell on the shoulders of the Bolshevik Party.
But this very important fight had certain peculiar features. One could not go to the hoodwinked people and openly advocate the slogan, “Down with the war!” Very often such an appeal would at once dispose an audience against the speaker, and would only cause harm. As Lenin said:
“The slogan ‘Down with the war’ is, of course, a correct one. But it fails to take into account the specific nature of the tasks of the present moment and the necessity of approaching the masses in a different way. It is, in my opinion, similar to the slogan ‘Down with the tsar,’ with which the inexperienced agitators in the ‘good old days’ went simply and directly to the country districts—and received a beating.”(42)
Under Lenin’s leadership, the Bolsheviks resolutely and fearlessly set out to battle the petty-bourgeois wave that had temporarily swept the masses off their feet.
[1] “In the Catherine Hall,” Izvestia of the Petrograd Soviet of Workers’ Deputies, No. 4, March 3, 1917.
[2] Ibid.
[3] A. Lukomsky, “Reminiscences,” Arkhiv Russkoi Revolutsii, Vol. II, Berlin, 1921, p. 25.
[4] M. V. Rodzyanko, The State Duma and the Revolution of February 1917, Rostov-on-Don, 1919, pp. 45-6.
[5] P. N. Milyukov, History of the Second Russian Revolution, Vol. I, Book I, Sofia, 1921, p. 33.
[6] M. V. Rodzyanko, The State Duma and the Revolution of February 1917, Rostov-on-Don, 1919, p. 48.
[7] “Abdication of Grand Duke Michael,” Izvestia of the Petrograd Soviet, No. 5, March 4, 1917.
[8] V. Shulgin, “Days,” Russkaya Mysl, Prague, 1922, Book VI-VII, p. 117.
[9] “From the Provisional Government,” Vestnik [Bulletin] of the Provisional Government, No. 2, March 7, 1917.
[10] Central Archives, The Peasant Movement in 1917, Moscow, 1927, p. 3.
[11] “Decision of the Provisional Government,” Vestnik of the Provisional Government, No. 14, March 21, 1917.
[12] “Resolution of the Petrograd Regional Conference of the Socialist-Revolutionaries,” Dyen (Day), No. 2, March 7, 1917.
[13] Central Archives. Verbatim Report of the All-Russian Conference of Soviets of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies, Moscow, 1927, p. 312.
[14] Central Archives of the October Revolution. Records 406, “Department of Militia,” Section II, File No. 15a, Part I, folio 219.
[15] Lenin, “Speech on the Agrarian Question, June 4, 1917,” Selected Works (Eng. ed.), Vol. VI, pp. 362-63.
[16] “Decree of the Provisional Government,” Vestnik of the Provisional Government, No. 31, April 14, 1917.
[17] Lenin, “‘Voluntary Agreement’ Between Landowners and Peasants?” Collected Works (Eng. ed.), Vol. XX. Book I, p. 192.
[18] A. Khrushchov, A.I. Shingaryov, His Life and Work, Moscow, 1918, pp. 98-99.
[19] “The Chief Land Committee,” Dyelo Naroda, (The People’s Cause) , No. 54, May 20, 1917.
[20] Lenin, “A New Fraud Practised on the Peasants by the Socialist-Revolutionary Party,” Selected Works, (Eng. ed.), Vol. VI, p. 392.
[21] “The Chief Land Committee,” Ryech, No. 117, May 20, 1917.
[22] “Conference at the Ministry of Commerce and Industry,” Torgovo-Promyshlennaya Gazeta, (Commercial and Industrial Gazette), No. 56, March 17, 1917.
[23] “Rodzyanko Against the Grain Monopoly,” Novaya Zhizn (New Life), No. 108, August 23, 1917.
[24] “Congress of the National Freedom Party. Shingaryov on the Grain Monopoly,” Russkiye Vedomosti, No. 70, March 29, 1917.
[25] “The Third Extraordinary All-Russian Congress of Representatives of Commodity Exchange Trade and Agriculture,” Torgovo-Promyshlennaya Gazeta, No. 86, April 27, 1917.
[26] S. I. Shidlovsky, Reminiscences, Part II, Berlin, 1923, p. 115.
[27] “Meeting of the Central War Industry Committee,” Torgovo-Promyshlennaya Gazeta, No. 49, March 9, 1917.
[28] “Order by General Alexeyev,” Izvestia of the Petrograd Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies, No. 9, March 8, 1917.
[29] “From the Provisional Government to the Army on Active Service,” Vestnik of the Provisional Government, No. 2, March 7, 1917.
[30] A. I. Denikin, Sketches of the Russian Revolt, Vol. I, Book I, Paris, 1921, p. 67.
[31] “Appeals of the Provisional Government,” Vestnik of the Provisional Government, No. 5, March 10, 1917.
[32] “The Attitude of the Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies to the Government,” Izvestia of the Petrograd Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies, No. 10, March 9, 1917.
[33] “In Moscow,” Russkiye Vedomosti, No. 58, March 14, 1917.
[34] “To All the Nations of the World,” Izvestia of the Petrograd Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies, No. 15, March 15, 1917.
[35] Ibid.
[36] “Interview with P. V. Milyukov, Minister of Foreign Affairs,” Russkiye Vedomosti, No. 66, March 23, 1917.
[37] V. D. Nabokov, The Provisional Government. Reminiscences, Moscow, 1924, pp. 102-03.
[38] Ibid., p. 103.
[39] “Appeal of the Provisional Government to the Citizens of Russia,” Vestnik of the Provisional Government, No. 18, March 28, 1917.
[40] Ibid.
[41] Lenin, Selected Works, (Eng. ed.), Vol. VI.
[42] Ibid., pp. 53-57.
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