The strong authority required to reestablish order calls for support from a symbol of authority to which the masses are accustomed. Without a monarch, the Provisional Government alone becomes an unseaworthy vessel [
Kerensky broke in:
P. N. Miliukov is wrong. By accepting the throne you will not save Russia! Quite the contrary. I know the mood of the masses … the monarchy now is powerfully resented … The question will cause bloody discord. I beg of you, in the name of Russia, to make this sacrifice.142
In an attempt to reconcile the opposing parties and save something of the monarchic principle, Guchkov proposed that Michael assume the title of Regent.143
Around 1:00 p.m., Michael, who had listened to these disagreements with growing impatience, expressed a wish to retire for a private talk with Rodzianko. Everyone assented, but Kerensky wanted assurances that the Grand Duke would not communicate with his wife, who had a reputation as a political intriguer. Smiling, Michael assured Kerensky that his wife was at their residence at Gatchina. According to Rodzianko, the main question which Michael posed to him when they were alone was whether the Duma could guarantee his personal safety: Rodzianko’s negative answer decided the issue.144
When he returned Michael told the ministers that he had made the unalterable decision to abide by the will of the government majority and refuse the crown unless and until the Constituent Assembly were to offer it to him. Then he burst into tears. Kerensky exclaimed: “Your Highness! You are a most noble person. From now on, I shall say this everywhere!”145
Two jurists, Vladimir Nabokov and Boris Nolde, were sent for to draft Michael’s manifesto renouncing the crown. They spent the afternoon on the task, with occasional assistance from the Grand Duke, who insisted that they stress his desire to abide by the will of the Constituent Assembly. At 6 p.m. the handwritten document was submitted for his signature:
A heavy burden has been placed on Me by the will of My Brother, who has handed Me the Imperial Throne at a time of unprecedented war and popular disturbances.
Inspired by the same thought that permeates the nation, that the well-being of our Fatherland is the supreme good, I have taken the firm decision to accept Sovereign Authority only in the event that such will be the desire of our great nation, which, by means of a national referendum, through its representatives in the Constituent Assembly, is to determine the form of government and the new constitution of the Russian State.
For this reason, calling on the Lord to give us His blessing, I request all Russian citizens to submit to the Provisional Government, created on the initiative of the State Duma and endowed with full authority until such time as the Constituent Assembly, convened with the greatest possible speed on the basis of universal, direct, equal, and secret vote, shall, with its decision concerning the form of government, give expression to the people’s will.146
Michael signed the document and handed it to Rodzianko, who embraced him and called him the “noblest of men.”
The following day, March 4, the two abdication manifestos—the one from Nicholas in his and his son’s name, the other from Michael—were published on the same broadsheet. According to eyewitnesses, their appearance was joyfully welcomed by the population.147
Was Miliukov right? Could Michael have saved the country from bloodshed and anarchy had he followed his counsel rather than that of the majority? This is doubtful. The argument that the Russian masses understood statehood only in association with the person of the Tsar was indubitably valid. But this theoretical consideration had been temporarily eclipsed by the mood of the masses, their sense of having been betrayed by the monarchy, to which no one had contributed more than Miliukov himself with his November 1, 1916, Duma speech. Russia would be again ready for the monarchy only after a year of anarchy and Bolshevik terror.
Like the rest of the Imperial family, Michael now withdrew into private life.
The intellectuals who formed Russia’s government had been preparing themselves for this task for many years. It is quite incorrect to say, therefore, as does Kerensky in one version of his memoirs, that the Provisional Government found itself “unexpectedly” at the helm;148 its members had been clamoring for, indeed demanding, the power to form a cabinet since 1905. Nearly all of them belonged to the Progressive Bloc, and their names had appeared on various unofficial cabinet lists published in Russian newspapers for years. They were familiar to the educated public as the leading opponents of the tsarist regime, and they assumed power almost as if by natural right.
