The Russian Revolution полностью

Later on March 2, Iurii Steklov, a Mezhraionets, presented on behalf of the Ispolkom the eight-point accord to the Soviet for approval. It was agreed that the Soviet would appoint a “supervisory committee” (nabliudatel’nyi komitet) to keep an eye on the government. After the changes had been renegotiated, the Provisional Committee announced its assumption of power.* At Miliukov’s request, the Ispolkom appealed to the nation to support the new government. The statement was lukewarm in tone and hedged with conditions: democracy should support the new authority “to the extent” that it carried out its obligations and decisively fought the old regime.⁸⁵

Thus, from the moment of its creation, Russia’s democratic government owed its legitimacy to and functioned at the sufferance of a body of radical intellectuals who, by seizing control of the Soviet executive, had arrogated to themselves the right to speak on behalf of “democracy.” Although this dependence was in some measure conditioned by the need to gain the Soviet’s help in calming the insurgent mobs, the liberals and conservatives who formed the first Provisional Government saw nothing wrong with the arrangement. It is they, after all, who requested from the Ispolkom a declaration in support of the government. They also had few objections to the terms on the basis of which the Ispolkom had consented to back them. According to Miliukov, apart from the two points that had been dropped or revised and Point 7, everything in the declaration drafted by the Ispolkom was not only fully acceptable to the Duma committee or allowed an acceptable interpretation but “flowed directly from the newly formed government’s personal views of its tasks.”⁸⁶ Indeed, the demands that the Ispolkom draft formulated under Points 1, 5, and 6 the Kadets had presented to Stolypin as early as 1906.⁸⁷

The new cabinet was hand-picked by Miliukov. Its composition, agreed upon in the evening of March 2, was as follows:

Chairman of the Council of Ministers and Minister of the Interior: Prince G. E. Lvov Minister of Foreign Affairs: P. N. Miliukov Minister of Justice: A. F. Kerensky Minister of Transport: N. V. Nekrasov Minister of Trade: A. I. Konovalov Minister of Public Instruction: A. A. Manuilov Minister of War: A. I. Guchkov Minister of Agriculture: A. I. Shingarov Minister of Finance: M. I. Tereshchenko Controller of State Accounts: I. V. Godnev Procurator of the Holy Synod: V. N. Lvov

All these roles had long been rehearsed, and the names had appeared in the press in 1915 and 1916. The Duma representatives showed the roster of the proposed cabinet to the Ispolkom and asked for approval, but the latter preferred to leave this matter to the discretion of the “bourgeoisie.”⁸⁸