without delay. There seemed no contradiction.
The Duma was the one institution that provided
continuity and embodied constitutional author-
ity. Under the pressure of striking workers and
increasing anarchy in Petrograd, the Duma at-
tempted to gain control over the situation. Its
leaders advised the tsar to abdicate. The tsar,
lacking all support, hesitated only a short while
before giving up his throne. His brother declined
the poisoned chalice when offered the crown.
Once the decisive break of the tsar’s abdication
had been achieved there could be no saving of the
dynasty. The Duma also gave up meeting, hand-
ing over authority to a small group of men who
became the provisional government, composed of
mainly moderate liberals and presided over by a
benign figure of the old school, Prince Lvov. The
new government contained one Socialist Revolu-
tionary, Alexander Kerensky, whose cooperation,
however, was sincere and who set himself the goal
of revitalising the war effort by winning over the
Russian people with a programme of broad reform
and freedom.
From the start, the provisional government did
not enjoy undisputed authority. In Petrograd, as
in 1905, the Council of Soviets, of Workers’ and
Soldiers’ Deputies sprang up, claiming to speak on
behalf of the workers and soldiers throughout
Russia. They were not ready to rule but they
asserted the right to watch over the provisional
government and to act as they pleased in the inter-
ests of ‘political freedom and popular govern-
ment’. The provisional government sought the
cooperation of the Petrograd Soviet and had to
agree to permit the garrison troops, who had
taken the side of the revolution, to remain in
Petrograd. Henceforth, this disaffected force was
under the control of the Petrograd Soviet, and
could not be moved. The provisional government
also agreed to the establishment of soldiers’ coun-
cils throughout the army, and the Soviet pub-
lished their famous ‘Order number one’ decreeing
that they should be set up in every army unit
by election. But the Soviet, dominated by
Mensheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries, was
quite incapable of providing for the coherent gov-
ernment of Russia and had no intention either of
replacing the provisional government or of seek-
ing an early end to the war other than through a
Russian victory. Two leading Bolsheviks at this
time, Lev Kamenev and Joseph Stalin, were ready
to cooperate with the ‘bourgeois’ revolution.
The Soviets of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies
and the Soviets of Peasant Deputies were domin-
ated by the Socialist Revolutionaries and had no
thought of ruling the country. However, the pro-
visional government also found it increasingly dif-
ficult to prevent the country sinking into anarchy.
Only the army at the war-fronts stood firm. At
home the provisional government spoke of agrar-
ian reform, order, freedom and victory. A new,
freely elected parliament would be called to
decide on Russia’s future and provide a govern-
ment based on the democratic wishes of the
people. But meanwhile the provisional govern-
ment lacked the power and the means to improve
the conditions of the people. In the worsening
situation in May 1917, the provisional govern-
ment insisted that rivalry with the Soviets must
cease and that socialist representatives of the
Soviets enter the ‘bourgeois’ government. The
Soviets agreed to share power in a coalition and
the fusion seemed to be consummated when
Alexander Kerensky, as war minister, became its
leading member.
These developments were anathema to Lenin.
With the assistance of the German high com-
mand, who naturally wished to further the disin-
tegration of Russia, Lenin reached Petrograd in
April, having travelled from Switzerland by way
of Germany. Lenin had no scruples about accept-
ing the aid of the German class enemy. Soon, he
believed, revolution would engulf Germany too.
What mattered now was to win back the Russian
socialists to the correct revolutionary path, even
though he led the minority Bolsheviks. The
socialist revolution, Lenin believed, could be
thwarted by the collaboration of socialists and the
bourgeois government. With relentless energy,
overcoming what proved to be temporary failures,
he changed the revolutionary tide.
For Lenin the mass upheaval taking place in
Russia was more than a ‘bourgeois’ revolution.
He believed the revolutionary upsurge would pass
beyond the bourgeois to the socialist stage
without pause. In his ‘April theses’ Lenin argued
1
WAR AND REVOLUTION IN THE EAST, 1917 105
