The Russian Revolution полностью

Initially, however, this was not apparent. In the first weeks after its assumption of power, the Provisional Government enjoyed overwhelming support. The entire country swore allegiance to it, including the grand dukes, the generals, and thousands of junior officers. Even the ultras of the United Gentry, headed by the archreactionary Alexander Samarin, voted in its favor.¹⁵⁵ Foreign powers promptly accorded it diplomatic recognition, beginning with the United States (March 9), followed by Britain, France, Italy, and the other Allies. But this display of support from the population and foreign powers was deceptive, encouraging the new cabinet in the illusion that it was firmly in control, whereas it was floating on thin air. Vladimir Nabokov wrote in his memoirs of the Provisional Government: “I primarily remember an atmosphere in which everything experienced seemed unreal.”¹⁵⁶

One of the difficulties in understanding the course of the February Revolution lies in the ambivalent nature of dvoevlastie, or dual power (dyarchy).

In theory, under dvoevlastie the cabinet functioned as the combined executive and legislative, being in both capacities subject to the veto power of the Soviet as represented by the Ispolkom. But in practice, the Soviet not only controlled the Provisional Government but legislated on its own. With Order No. 1, it assumed effective control over the armed forces. As we shall see, it also dictated Russia’s war aims. Thus the government was not even allowed authority in the realm of military and foreign policy. In more mundane matters, such as food supply and labor relations, transport and communications, the Ispolkom acted as the ultimate authority without bothering to coordinate with the government.

The leaders of the Soviet made no secret of the fact that the Provisional Government existed only at their sufferance. At the All-Russian Consultation of Soviets on March 29, Tsereteli, the Menshevik chairman of the Ispolkom, said that the Provisional Government owed its existence to an agreement which the Petrograd Soviet concluded with “the bourgeois privileged [tsen-zovye] elements of society.”¹⁵⁷ Another member of the Ispolkom, the Trudovik V. B. Stankevich, boasted that the Soviet had the power to dismiss the Provisional Government in fifteen minutes by giving it appropriate orders over the phone.¹⁵⁸ The apologists for the system of “dual power” later claimed that the leaders of the Soviet did all they could to bolster the government: far from subverting it, they are said to have provided it with its principal source of support.¹⁵⁹ The historical record does not bear out this claim. It indicates that even as it intervened to help it suppress disorders, the Ispolkom ceaselessly undermined the government’s authority and prestige.

Its leaders delivered speeches which humiliated the government and lowered its standing in the eyes of a population accustomed to seeing authority treated with respect. A good example is the speech of Chkheidze on March 24 to a delegation of students who came to the Soviet with a banner hailing the Provisional Government. Chkheidze addressed them as follows:

I see on your banner the slogan “Greetings to the Provisional Government,” but for you it can be no secret that many of its members, on the eve of the Revolution, were trembling and lacked faith in the Revolution. You extend greetings to it. You seem to believe that it will carry high the new standard. If this is so, remain in your belief. As for us, we will support it for as long as it realizes democratic principles. We know, however, that our government is not democratic, but bourgeois. Follow carefully its activity. We shall support all of its measures which tend toward the common good, but all else we shall unmask because at stake is the fate of Russia.¹⁶⁰

Such remarks by the second most influential political figure in the Soviet and a leading candidate for President of the Russian Republic give lie to the claims of the apologists for the Soviet that they loyally supported the government. By treating it as an inherently counterrevolutionary institution, kept honest only by the Soviet, they played directly into the hands of their enemies on the left who would argue that if that was the case, then the government should be removed and the Soviet assume full authority.

If the Ispolkom shied away from this logical conclusion of its premise, it was because it lacked the courage of its convictions. The socialists who controlled it wanted the Provisional Government to serve as a lightning rod for popular discontent, while they manipulated affairs from behind the scenes: they wanted to rule without reigning. As Trotsky was later to boast, this gave the Bolsheviks the opportunity to seize power by demanding that the Soviet become de jure what it was de facto.