For the majority of the Soviet leaders there was a special factor making the negotiation of a Duma government a matter of the utmost urgency. On 1 March the leftwing minority of the Soviet Executive (3 Bolsheviks, 2 Left SRs and 1 member of the Inter-District group) demanded the formation of a ‘provisional revolutionary government’ based on the Soviets. This resolution was supported by the Bolshevik Committee in the Vyborg district, the most proletarian in Petrograd. There was thus a real threat that, unless the Soviet majority imposed a government on the Duma leaders, the streets might impose a government on them.
At around midnight on 1 March a Soviet delegation (Sukhanov, Chkheidze, Sokolov and Steklov) crossed from the left to the right wing of the Tauride Palace to begin negotiations for a government with the Temporary Committee of the Duma. ‘There was not the same chaos and confusion here as with us,’ Sukhanov recalled, ‘but the room nevertheless gave an impression of disorder: it was smoke-filled and dirty, and cigarette butts, bottles, and dirty glasses were scattered about. There were also innumerable plates, both empty and holding foods of all kinds, which made our eyes glitter and our mouths water.’ Sukhanov and Miliukov, ‘the boss of the right wing’, did most of the talking. The enormous Rodzianko, President of the Duma, sulked in a corner drinking soda. Neither Lvov nor Kerensky, the first and the last Prime Minister of the Provisional Government respectively, had a single word to say on its establishment.
Both the Duma and the Soviet sides were pleasantly surprised by the common ground between them. Each had come prepared for a major battle. But in fact there was only one real point of conflict. Miliukov wanted the monarchy retained, albeit with Alexis as Tsar and the Grand Duke Mikhail acting as Regent. Chkheidze pointed out that the idea was ‘not only unacceptable, but also utopian, in view of the general hatred of the monarchy amongst the masses of the people’. But Miliukov did not push his point — for which there was little support among the rest of the Duma leaders — and in the end it was agreed to leave the form of government undecided until the convocation of a Constituent Assembly. Other than that there was little to discuss. Everyone agreed on the need to restore order, and on the need to form a Duma government.
The negotiations were completed in the early hours of the morning. The ‘bourgeois groups’, as Sukhanov put it, would be left to form a government ‘on the view that this followed from the general situation and suited the interests of the revolution’. But the Soviet, ‘as the only organ wielding any real power’, set as the conditions for its support the following principles of government:
1 an immediate amnesty for all political prisoners;
2 the immediate granting of freedom of speech, press and assembly;
3 the immediate abolition of all restrictions based on class, religion and nationality;
4 immediate preparations for the convocation of a Constituent Assembly, elected on the four-tail suffrage (universal, direct, secret and equal), to determine the form of government and the constitution of the country;
5 the abolition of all the police bodies and, in their place, the creation of a people’s militia with elected officers responsible to the organs of local self-government;
6 elections to these organs on the four-tail suffrage;
7 a guarantee that the military units having taken part in the revolution would neither be disarmed nor sent to the Front;
8 recognition of full civil rights for the soldiers off-duty.39
No mention was made of the two basic issues (the war and the land) where the aims of the Soviet leaders clashed directly with those of the Duma. Given the bitter political conflicts that later emerged on these two issues (leading to the downfall of the first three cabinets), perhaps this was a crucial mistake.
This, then, was the framework of the dual power system. The Soviet would support the Provisional Government only ‘in so far as’ (postol’ku poskol’ku), to cite the famous phrase, it adhered to these Soviet principles; and it would act as the government’s ‘watchman’ to make sure it did. The effect was to paralyse the Provisional Government. For it could do nothing without the support of the Soviet. Yet at the same time the Soviet’s conditions created a climate of such uncontrolled freedom that there was a crying need for stronger government. As Lenin put it, Russia had become the ‘freest country in the world’ — and he was the first to exploit it.
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