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Abstract
This article is the first detailed examination of the relationship between the political parties of the ‘broad centrist coalition’ and the first Provisional Government. It challenges the historiography that issues from P. N. Miliukov and A. I. Guchkov that the Provisional Government could not rule because of dual power, in which the executive lacked any support and was a prisoner of the Petrograd Soviet. The evidence presented here demonstrates that the policy of support for the Provisional Government ‘in so far as … ’ the executive pursued a progressive programme was (a) quite common at the time and (b) did not exclude recognition of the Provisional Government as the legitimate and sole power. The article details the range of interaction between the political parties and the Provisional Government, focusing on the ways in which the parties promoted the Provisional Government and acted as a critical friend over policy. Finally, the article argues that in this early period the parties changed from having no influence over the formation of the Provisional Government to being key players in the outcome of the first reshuffle of the executive following Guchkov’s resignation, which marked the triumph of a more left policy backed by existing ministers and the political parties.
Acknowledgement
For helpful comments on previous versions of this article thanks are due to the editors and to an anonymous reader, and to Murray Frame, Steve Smith, Rex A. Wade and James D. White.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes on the contributor
Ian D. Thatcher is Professor of History and Research Director in the School of Arts and Humanities at Ulster University. The author of several books and articles on Russia in the revolutionary period, he is currently working on a study of the Provisional Government.
Notes
1 Wade, Russian Revolution, 52.
2 See, for example, Basil, Mensheviks, 26–72; Melancon, ‘From Rhapsody to Threnody,’ 27–41; Petrov, ed., Rossiiskaia revolutsiia, Part VI; Radkey, Agrarian Foes, 127–84; Rosenberg, Liberals, 67–111; Shelokhaev, Konstitutsionno-demokraticheskaia partiia, 504–75; Shelokhaev, ‘Liberaly i sotsialisty,’ 226–37; Urilov, Istoriia rossiiskoi sotsial-demoktratii (men’shevizma), 95–162; Smirnova, Na ternistom puti.
3 Hasegawa, February Revolution, 569–70.
4 Buldakov, ‘Politicheskie partii,’ 790–3.
5 In the first volume of his history, for example, Miliukov writes of pressure from the Petrograd Soviet that was ‘paralyzing the work of the government’; Miliukov, Russian Revolution, 80.
6 Guchkov, ‘Iz vospominanii’; Startsev, ‘Aleksandr Ivanovich Guchkov rasskazyvaet’. It is interesting to note that most summaries of Guchkov’s view of 1917 cite his memoirs of the 1930s rather than his writings of the time; see, for example, Kowalski, Russian Revolution, 56–7.
7 Lezhneva, ed., Sâ€ezdy i konferentsii konstitutsionno-demokraticheskoi partii, 465. Indeed, subsequent historians have traced suggestions of a Miliukov-Guchkov-Kerensky cabinet to as early as September 1915; see, for example, White, ‘Lenin, the Germans, and the February Revolution’.
8 For an excellent summary of the relations between the Temporary Duma Committee and the Petrograd Soviet Executive Committee see Nikolaev, ‘Iz istorii’.
9 The PG is described by some historians as ‘democratic’. This is not so if one thinks of democratic governments as elected by popular voting. It may qualify as a regime intent on ‘democratization’, but it is a simplification and inaccurate to read in pre-1991 historical writing that the PG was ‘the only truly democratic government which Russia has ever had’ (Dailey, ‘Russian Provisional Government,’ 1).
10 The 8-point programme was: a political amnesty; freedom of speech and association; the elimination of all national and estate restrictions; the speedy convocation of a Constituent Assembly on a four-tail suffrage; the replacement of the police with an elected people’s militia under the control of democratically-elected local authorities; to prepare elections to local government under the four-tail suffrage; to keep within the capital the army units that participated in the revolution and not to disarm them; while retaining discipline, to grant soldiers their full civil rights. See Lenin, Vremennoe narodnoe pravitel’stvo, 5–6.
11 See, for example, ‘the Soviet proceeded to declare that its support for the government was conditional (its formula ‘in so far as’ clearly implying mistrust)’; White, ‘Provisional Government,’ 394.
12 Lezhneva, ed., Sâ€ezdy i konferentsii konstitutsionno-demokraticheskoi partii, 362.
13 Pavlov, ed., Protokoly tsentral’nogo komiteta konstitutsionno-demokraticheskoi partii, 358, 369–70.
14 Despite the fact that the second PG was in composition very different from the first PG, it is a misnomer to talk of the second PG as the first coalition as right from the outset the PG was a coalition ministry of ministers of various allegiances and outlooks. Lenin also made this point very early on; see, for example, Lenin, Polnoe sobranie sochinenii, 1–2. The Soviet historian V. I. Startsev also pointed out that the original PG was far from a Kadet hegemony and contained competing groups; Startsev, Vnutrenniaia politika, 117. For an appreciation of Startsev as a historian of the PG, see Thatcher, ‘Historiography,’ 108–32.
15 Lezhneva, ed., Sâ€ezdy i konferentsii konstitutsionno-demokraticheskoi partii, 455–7.
16 Pavlov, ed., Protokoly tsentral’nogo komiteta konstitutsionno-demokraticheskoi partii, 366–7.
17 Galili, Nenarokov and Haimson, eds., Men’sheviki, 153.
18 Erofeev, ed., Partiia sotsialistov-revoliutsionerov, 45; Galili, Nenarokov and Haimson, eds., Men’sheviki, 141, 146–7.
19 Galili, Nenarokov and Haimson, eds., Men’sheviki, 154.
20 Erofeev, ed., Partiia sotsialistov-revoliutsionerov, 35–6, 57–9; Galili, Nenarokov and Haimson, eds., Men’sheviki, 173.
21 Lezhneva., Sâ€ezdy i konferentsii konstitutsionno-demokraticheskoi partii, 466.
22 Pavlov, ed., Protokoly tsentral’nogo komiteta konstitutsionno-demokraticheskoi partii, 363.
23 Erofeev, ed., Partiia sotsialistov-revoliutsionerov, 49–50; Galili, Nenarokov and Haimson, eds., Men’sheviki, 144, 175–6, 189ff.
24 It is not the case that the Bolsheviks came out in open hostility to the PG only after the April Theses. Even before Lenin’s intervention, some Bolsheviks were calling for revolutionary opposition to the PG and to the war; see, for example, White, Russian Revolution, 85–8.
25 ‘The Provisional Government that replaced the fallen autocracy was weak to the point of impotence. It was conspicuously lacking in all the means by which a state normally enforces its authority’; Chamberlin, Russian Revolution, 100. Chamberlain’s book, originally published in 1935, still stands as a summary of the standard view of the PG.
26 Only the Kadet press, for example, carried a multi-part series such as: P. Arzub’ov, ‘Na sluzhbe u novago rezhima’, Rech’ no. 61, 12 March 1917, 2–3; no. 64, 16 March 1917, 2; no. 66, 18 March 1917, 4; no. 68, 21 March 1917, 2; no. 70, 23 March 1917, 1–2; no. 72, 26 March 1917, 3.
27 ‘U Glavy Vremennago Pravitel’stva kn. G. E. L’vova’, Rech’ no. 57, 8 March 1917, 5; ‘Beseda s kniazem G. E. L’vovym’, Rech’ no. 67, 19 March 1917, 3; ‘Beseda s kniazem L’vovym’, Delo naroda no. 5, 19 March 1917, 3.
28 ‘Beseda s ministrom iustitsii A. F. Kerenskim’, Delo naroda no. 7, 22 March 1917, 3; ‘Beseda s ministrom iustitsii’, Rech’ no. 69, 22 March 1917, 2.
29 See, for example, the series of articles by P. Miliukov, ‘Konstantinopol i prolivy’, Vestnik evropy no. 1 (1917), 354–81; no. 2 (1917), 227–59; nos. 4–6 (1917), 525–47.
30 ‘Beseda s ministrom inostrannykh del’, Rech’ no. 59, 10 March 1917, 2; ‘Beseda s ministrom inostrannykh del’, Rech’ no. 70, 23 March 1917, 2.
31 ‘Beseda s ministrom finansov M. I. Tereshchenko’, Delo naroda no. 9, 25 March 1917, 3; ‘Beseda s ministrom finansov’, Rech’ no. 71, 25 March 1917, 6. For the details of and reaction to the ‘liberty loan’, see Browder and Kerensky, eds., Russian Provisional Government, II, 485–92.
32 For the details of the grain monopoly, see Browder and Kerensky, eds., Russian Provisional Government, II, 618–21.
33 Lezhneva, ed., Sâ€ezdy i konferentsii konstitutsionno-demokraticheskoi partii, 467–70. Shingarev’s balanced assessment of the grain monopoly and how he had to adapt his natural support of free trade to war time circumstances offers a corrective to some presentations of him as a consistent advocate of a grain monopoly since the late summer of 1916; see, for example, Holquist, Making War, 94; Lih, Bread and Authority, 29, 84.
34 Lezhneva, ed., Sâ€ezdy i konferentsii konstitutsionno-demokraticheskoi partii, 471–8.
35 Lezhneva, ed., Sâ€ezdy i konferentsii konstitutsionno-demokraticheskoi partii, 471, 478.
36 Erofeev, ed., Partiia sotsialistov-revoliutsionerov, 27.
37 Erofeev, ed., Partiia sotsialistov-revoliutsionerov, 42–3.
38 Erofeev, ed., Partiia sotsialistov-revoliutsionerov, 82.
39 ‘Pokushenie na A. F. Kerenskago’, Delo naroda no. 36, 29 April 1917, 3.
40 V-ii, Kerenskii.
41 Chego khotiat sotsialisty-revoliutsionery.
42 The amount of PG laws and appeals reproduced in the party press are too numerous to mention. Examples plucked at random include: ‘Postanovlenie Vremennago pravitel’stva’ and ‘Telegrafnoe obrasshchenie Vremennago pravitel’stva k rabochim namennougol’nikh predpriiatii Donetskago basseina’, Delo naroda no. 6, 21 March 1917, 3; ‘Na kogo rasprostraniaetsia amnistiia?’, Rabochaia gazeta no. 4, 10 March 1917, 2; ‘Zakon o soiuzakh i sobraniiakh’, ‘Zakon o militsii’, ‘Prikaz po voennomu vedomstvu’, Rech’ no. 91, 20 April 1917, 5.
43 See, for example, ‘V ministerstvo inostrannykh del’, ‘Voennoe ministerstvo’, ‘V ministerstvo iustitsii’, ‘V ministerstvo zemledeliia’, ‘V ministerstvo torgovli’, Rech’ no. 55, 6 March 1917, 2–3.
44 See, for example, ‘V voennom ministerstve’, ‘V ministerstve inostrannykh del’, ‘V ministerstve iustitsii’, ‘V ministerstve putei soobshcheniia’, ‘V ministerstve narodnago prosveshcheniia’, Rech’ no. 64, 16 March 1917, 4–5.
45 See, for example, ‘Vozzvaniia voennago ministra’, Rech’ no. 60, 11 March 1917, 2; ‘Poezdka voennago i morskogo ministra A. I. Guchkova na front’, Rech’ no. 62, 14 March 1917, 3; ‘Prebyvanie voennago ministra na front’, Rech’ no. 68, 21 March 1917, 5; ‘Rech’ voennago ministra’, Rech’ no. 79, 6 April 1917, 7; ‘Vozvrashchenie voennago ministra’, Rech’ no. 85, 13 April 1917, 4; ‘Samoupravlenie v armii’, Rech’ no. 89, 17 April 1917, 4.
46 One indication of Kerensky’s popularity is the fact that more communications from within and without Russia were addressed to Kerensky than to any other minister. For examples of this see: ‘Otkrytoe pis’mo tov. A. F. Kerenskomu’, Delo naroda no. 1, 15 March 1917, 3; ‘Telegrammy A. F. Kerenskomu’, Delo naroda no. 6, 21 March 1917, 4; ‘Telegrammy na imia A. F. Kerenskago’, Delo naroda no. 21, 11 April 1917, 3; ‘Privet A. F. Kerenskomu ot datskikh sotisial-demokratov’, Delo naroda no. 24, 14 April 1917, 3; ‘Telegrammy na imia A. F. Kerenskago’, Delo naroda no. 36, 29 April 1917, 3; ‘Telegramma frantsuzskikh sotsialistov A. F. Kerenskomu’, Rech’ no. 58, 9 March 1917, 5.
47 See, for example, ‘Ministr iustitsii A. F. Kerenskii v tsarskom sele’, Delo naroda no. 8, 23 March 1917, 3; ‘Zaiavlenie A. F. Kerenskago po povodu rechi deputata Davida v germanskom reikhstage’, Delo naroda no. 9, 25 March 1917, 3; ‘Doklad A. F. Kerenskago v polozhenie v Kronshtadt’, Delo naroda no. 13, 30 March 1917, 3; ‘Soobshchenie A. F. Kerenskago’, Delo naroda no. 14, 31 March 1917, 3; ‘Otkrytie finliandskago seima v prisutstvii A. F. Kerenskago’, Delo naroda no. 15, 1 April 1917, 3; ‘A. F. Kerenskii v Moskve’, Rech’ no. 57, 8 March 1917, 4; ‘Prebivanie A. F. Kerenskago’, Rech’ no. 58, 9 March 1917, 4; ‘Ministr iustitsii A. F. Kerenskii v Tsarskom sele’, Rech’ no. 70, 23 March 1917, 3.
48 See, for example, ‘A. F. Kerenskii na front’, Delo naroda no. 7, 22 March 1917, 2; ‘A. F. Kerenskii v sovet sold. deputatov’, Delo naroda no. 11, 28 March 1917, 3; ‘Deputatsiia osoboi armii u A. F. Kerenskago’, Delo naroda, no. 12, 29 March 1917, 3; ‘Rech’ A. F. Kerenskago predstaviteliam 7-i armii’, Delo naroda no. 23, 13 April 1917, 3; ‘A. F. Kerenskii v Sovet rabochikh i soldatskikh deputatov’, Rech’ no. 73, 28 March 1917, 7; ‘Ministr iustitsii o Baltiiskom flote’, ‘Rech’ A. F. Kerenskago’, Rech’ no. 85, 13 April 1917, 4.
49 See, for example, ‘Politicheskaia programmema vremennago pravitel’stva’, Delo naroda no. 1, 15 March 1917, 1; P. Sorokin, ‘Velikoe osvobozhdenie’, Delo naroda no. 7, 22 March 1917, 1; Erofeev, ed., Partiia sotsialistov-revoliutsionerov, 71.
50 Erofeev, ed., Partiia sotsialistov-revoliutsionerov, 107.
51 ‘Finlandskaia avtonomiia i natsional’noe ravnopravie’, Rabochaia gazeta no. 5, 11 March 1917, 1. Subsequent further acts of national liberation were warmly welcomed in the press. See, for example, ‘K otmene natsional’nykh ogrannchenii’, Rech’ no. 70, 23 March 1917, 3; ‘Otkliki na akt o Pol’she’, Rech’ no. 71, 25 March 1917, 6.
52 ‘O Militsii’, Rabochaia gazeta no. 2, 8 March 1917, 2. Several studies argue that the fragmentation of law and order post-February was never adequately resolved by the PG. Indeed, this was a fundamental aspect of the crisis of central governmental power that fatally undermined the PG. See, for example, Hasegawa, Crime and Punishment, 109ff; and Wade, Red Guards and Workers’ Militias, 58–79.
53 Pavlov, ed., Protokoly tsentral’nogo komiteta konstitutsionno-demokraticheskoi partii, 371.
54 N. Kondrat’ev, ‘Khlebnaia monopoliia i novyia tverdiia tseny’, Delo naroda no. 15, 1 April 1917, 1. One can claim that Kondrat’ev was being overly optimistic in his claims. He may also have misunderstood Shingarev’s intentions for the grain monopoly that were to block further land reform (see Rosenberg, Liberals in the Russian Revolution, 78–80).
55 ‘Prodovol’stvennyi krizis v Petrograde’, Rabochaia gazeta no. 20, 30 March 1917, 1.
56 Erofeev, ed., Partiia sotsialistov-revoliutsionerov, 27–31, 95; ‘K sozyvu Uchreditel’nago sobraniia’, Delo naroda no. 1, 15 March 1917, 4; ‘Uchreditel’noe sobranie’, Rabochaia gazeta no. 4, 10 March 1917, 1; ‘O sozyve Uchreditel’nago Sobraniia’, Rabochaia gazeta no. 8, 15 March 1917, 2; Pavlov, ed., Protokoly tsentral’nogo komiteta konstitutsionno-demokraticheskoi partii, 356, 358, 361, 365.
57 Lezhneva, ed., Sâ€ezdy i konferentsii konstitutsionno-demokraticheskoi partii, 405–32.
58 Lezhneva, ed., Sâ€ezdy i konferentsii konstitutsionno-demokraticheskoi partii, 422.
59 Erofeev, ed., Partiia sotsialistov-revoliutsionerov, 43–4, 48; Galili, Nenarokov and Haimson, eds., Men’sheviki v 1917 godu. 1, 147, 210ff; Lezhneva, ed., Sâ€ezdy i konferentsii konstitutsionno-demokraticheskoi partii, 386ff, 433–6; Pavlov, ed., Protokoly tsentral’nogo komiteta konstitutsionno-demokraticheskoi partii, 355–63.
60 For examples of calls for further state intervention and action in agricultural and industrial policy see, for example, A. Peshekhonov, ‘Nuzhny ne soveshchaniia, a destviia’, Delo naroda no. 8, 23 March 1917, 1; S. Postnikov, ‘Organizatsiia proizvodstva’, Delo naroda no. 16, 5 April 1917, 2; S. Maslov, ‘Vremennoe Pravitel’stvo zapazdyvaet’, Delo naroda no. 34, 27 April 1917, 1–2.
61 Pavlov, ed., Protokoly tsentral’nogo komiteta konstitutsionno-demokraticheskoi partii, 369.
62 See, for example, Iu., ‘Demokratizatsiia vneshnei politiki’, Delo naroda no. 7, 22 March 1917, 1; ‘Gde pravda?’, Rabochaia gazeta no. 5, 11 March 1917, 1; ‘O Tsar’grad’, Rabochaia gazeta no. 8, 15 March 1917, 1; ‘Nel’zia molchat’, Rabochaia gazeta no. 16, 25 March 1917, 1; ‘Pervyi shag’, Rabochaia gazeta no. 20, 30 March 1917, 1; ‘Neblagopoluchno’, Rabochaia gazeta no. 32, 15 April 1917, 1.
63 For a detailed account of the April Crisis, see Wade, Russian Search for Peace, 26–50.
64 ‘Zaiavlenie A. F. Kerenskogo po povodu interv’iu s P. N. Miliukovym’, Delo naroda no. 10, 26 March 1917, 3.
65 ‘Argumentum ad hominem’, Delo naroda no. 31, 23 April 1917, 1.
66 Pavlov, ed., Protokoly tsentral’nogo komiteta konstitutsionno-demokraticheskoi partii, 373.
67 Sack, Birth of the Russian Democracy, 274.
68 Guchkov’s apparent glee that order in the army was being restored as Nicholas II abdicated rapidly turned to extreme despair. Compare, for example, the optimistic Guchkov in Mstislavskii, Five Days, 54, and the pessimistic Guchkov cited in Wildman, End of the Russian Imperial Army, 260.
69 For Guchkov’s statements of late April/early May 1917, see Golder, Documents, 396–7; Browder and Kerensky, eds., Russian Provisional Government, III, 1259–61; Sack, Birth of the Russian Democracy, 282–7, 292–7. Guchkov’s claim that real power lay with the Petrograd Soviet and not the PG was reported in the Petrograd Soviet – see, for example, Startsev and Tokarev, eds., Petrogradskii sovet, 271. Guchkov’s post-resignation concern that the inability of the PG to direct peasants would scupper the grain monopoly is noted in Gill, Peasants and Government, 63. It may be that Guchkov’s much later explanation of his resignation with reference only to the PG’s powerlessness may have been motivated to mask other factors at play in 1917; for example, his own disquiet with the development of the revolution. A supporter of the restoration of ‘order’ following the 1905 revolution, Guchkov was unlikely to have welcomed co-operation with the Petrograd Soviet at whose sessions he was described as a reactionary and imperialist (see Startsev and Tokarev, eds., Petrogradskii sovet, 36, 51, 67, 72, 115, 153, 549). If it was clear that the left parties in the Petrograd Soviet were to enter the PG, the war minister may have felt that he would have to resign and jumped ship before he was pushed. Guchkov may also have stepped down in the face of opposition to his perceived failings as Minister of War from within the military elite, especially for the cull of officers, the abolition of the death penalty, the establishment of the Polivanov Commission, and for allowing soldiers to form committees (see, for example, Denikin, Russian Turmoil, 129, 146–9, 153–6, 159–63, 168; and Loukomsky, Memoirs, 75).
70 Browder and Kerensky, eds., Russian Provisional Government, III, 1249–51.
71 Browder and Kerensky, eds., Russian Provisional Government, III, 1267–8.
72 Rech’ no. 101, 2 May 1917, 2.
73 Pavlov, ed., Protokoly tsentral’nogo komiteta konstitutsionno-demokraticheskoi partii, 374.
74 Browder and Kerensky, eds., Russian Provisional Government, III, 1267, 1269.
75 See, for example, ‘Nochnoe zasedanie u kn. L’vova’, Delo naroda no. 39, 3 May 1917, 3; ‘Peremeny v sostav Vremennago Pravitel’stva’, Rech’ no. 102, 3 May 1917, 3.
76 Pavlov, ed., Protokoly tsentral’nogo komiteta konstitutsionno-demokraticheskoi partii, 374.
77 For instances of the anti-Miliukov rhetoric see, for example, V. Chernov, ‘Miliukov zavoevatel’, Delo naroda no. 25, 15 April 1917, 1; Delo naroda no. 28, 20 April 1917, 1. For the stipulation that Miliukov had to resign as minister for foreign affairs in order for the coalition to form, see Erofeev, ed., Partiia sotsialistov-revoliutsionerov, 98.
78 Rech’ no. 99, 29 April 1917, 2.
79 Rech’ no. 104, 5 May 1917, 2.
80 Rech’ no. 103, 4 May 1917, 1.
81 Rech’ no. 102, 3 May 1917, 1–2.
82 ‘Rech’ P. N. Miliukova’, Rech’ no. 104, 5 May 1917, 3. It is interesting to note that Guchkov also threw his support behind the coalition ministry; see, for example, his speech to a Duma session in Sack, Birth of the Russian Democracy, 327–9.
83 Browder and Kerensky, eds., Russian Provisional Government, III, 1279.
84 Smith, Russia in Revolution, 122, 378.
85 Such hopes are evident in, for example, Voitinskii, K chemu. See also the positive editorials from various newspapers welcoming the coalition ministry in Browder and Kerensky, eds., Russian Provisional Government, III, 1280–4.