Bookshops traded heavily in popular histories of the French Revolution. There was a fit of francophilia. France, after all, was Russia’s nearest Western ally against Germany — the last bastion of autocracy — and the founding member of the European club of democratic nations which Russia was now entering. Lvov’s visiting card was even printed in French — PRINCE GEORGES LWOFF. MINISTRE-PRESIDENT DU GOUVERNEMENT PROVISOIRE — as if to symbolize this graduation to the civilized Western world.6
Yet Russia could not be another France. The constitutional phase of the Russian Revolution — in the classic European tradition of 1789 and 1848 — had already been played out during 1905–14. Political reform had nothing left to offer. Only a fundamental social revolution — one without precedents in European history — was capable of resolving the power questions thrown up by the downfall of the old regime. This was the basic mistake of the Men of February: intoxicated by their own self-image as the heirs of 1789, they were deluded into believing that they could resolve the problems of 1917 by importing Western constitutional practices and policies for which there were no real precedents, nor the necessary cultural base, in Russia.
As if to prove himself the heir of Lafayette, Prince Lvov presided over the passing of a dazzling series of political reforms during the first weeks of the Provisional Government. Russia overnight was effectively transformed into ‘the freest country in the world’. Freedoms of assembly, press and speech were granted. Legal restrictions of religion, class and race were removed. There was a general amnesty. Universal adult suffrage was introduced. The police were made accountable to local government. The courts and the penal system were overhauled. Capital punishment was abolished. Democratic organs of local self-government were established. Preparations were made for the election of a Constituent Assembly. The laws followed upon each other in such rapid succession that it was hard for Russia’s new citizens to keep up with them. One day in the second half of March a delegation of women suffragettes came to Lvov’s office to campaign for the right of women to vote in local government elections. They were obviously expecting a hard battle. Some of the women had prepared long and passionate speeches. It seemed to them that the fate of half of Russia depended on the success of their mission. But as soon as they met Lvov it became clear that they were pushing at an open door. ‘Why shouldn’t women vote?’ he asked them with candid surprise. ‘I don’t see what’s the problem. Surely, with universal suffrage there can be no reason to exclude women.’7
These reforms helped to create a new culture of democracy. It became politically correct to call oneself a ‘democrat’ — sometimes literally: there was a peasant called Durakov (‘Idiot’) who changed his surname to Demokratov. Yet in Russia the word ‘democracy’ was not just a political label. It was also a social one. The Left, in particular, used it to describe the ‘common people’ as opposed to ‘the bourgeoisie’. The language of 1789, once it entered Russia in 1917, soon became translated into the language of class. This was not just a question of semantics. It showed that for the vast mass of the people the ideals of ‘democracy’ were expressed in terms of a social revolution rather than in terms of political reform. The peasants and the workers were used to seeing power based on social domination and coercion rather than on the exercise of law. They saw the revolution mainly as a chance to gain autonomy and turn the tables on their former masters rather than as a chance to reconstruct the power system on universal legal principles. Retribution, not a constitution: that was the people’s first priority.
The revolution of 1917 should really be conceived of as a general crisis of authority. There was a rejection of not just the state but of all figures of authority: judges, policemen, Civil Servants, army and navy officers, priests, teachers, employers, foremen, landowners, village elders, patriarchal fathers and husbands. It was often said at the time — and historians have emphasized this — that only the Soviet had any real authority. Guchkov wrote to Alexeev on 9 March:
The Provisional Government has no real power of any kind and its orders are carried out only to the extent that is permitted by the Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies. The latter controls the most essential levers of power, insofar as the troops, the railways, and the postal and telegraph services are in its hands. One can assert bluntly that the Provisional Government exists only as long as it is allowed to do so by the Soviet.8
