Miliukov, who was in charge of foreign policy, went his own way. He did not share the socialists’ optimism about the peace movement in Germany, and believed that their appeal would evoke no response. From Trepov’s revelations the preceding December, it was known that the Allies had promised Russia Constantinople and the Straits. Miliukov did not wish to renounce these claims for two reasons: such renunciation would raise doubts in the West about Russia’s commitment to stay in the war, and it would open the floodgates to German peace propaganda. His insistence on Russia’s adhering to its territorial claims led to the first clash between the government and the Soviet.
At a press conference on March 22, Miliukov outlined the Government’s war aims. These included “liberation” of the Slavic peoples of Austria-Hungary, the “fusion” of the Ukrainian territories of Austria-Hungary (i.e., Galicia) with Russia, and acquisition of Constantinople and the Straits.189 Socialist intellectuals interpreted Miliukov’s views as a challenge to their “Appeal,” which demanded the renunciation of “rapacious” acquisitions. Under pressure from the Soviet, and at the insistence of several cabinet members, especially Kerensky, the government agreed to issue an official statement of war aims more in line with the position of the Ispolkom. Approved by the latter with some revisions, it was released on March 27.190 The statement asserted that Russia had no desire to “lord it over other nations, to deprive them of their national property, to seize by force territories belonging to others”: her objective was a “lasting peace on the basis of national self-determination.” This formula represented a capitulation to the socialists, although Miliukov would later argue that it could have been interpreted to mean Russia’s right to claim enemy territories.191 One month later the controversy over war aims would flare up again, this time causing a major political crisis.
From February 23 until February 28, the Revolution was confined to Petrograd. The country went about its business, as if unaware that anything unusual had occurred. The chronicle of these days192 indicates that the first city to react was Moscow, which had strikes and demonstrations on February 28 and the following day elected a workers’ soviet. On March 1, meetings took place in several provincial towns, including Tver, Nizhnii Novgorod, Samara, and Saratov. On March 2, other cities followed suit. There was no violence: when the Communist chronicler says that the inhabitants of various cities “joined the Revolution,” he means that crowds held peaceful celebrations in support of the Provisional Government. The slow pace at which the Revolution spread indicates the extent to which its origins were connected with the specific conditions in the capital city—namely, exceptionally severe shortages of food and fuel and grievances of the military garrison. It helps explain why as late as March 2 the generals and politicians could still believe that the Tsar’s abdication would keep the Revolution confined to Petrograd. As it turned out, however, it was the news of Nicholas’s abdication, published on March 3, that made the nation realize it had had a revolution: the result was a rapid breakdown of authority.
In the course of March there emerged in all the cities soviets modeled on that of Petrograd, the executives of which were taken over by socialist intellectuals. In early April, the provincial soviets sent representatives to Petrograd where they entered the Petrograd Ispolkom to form an All-Russian Ispolkom (VTsIK, or CEC).
The Revolution spread across the country peacefully: in the phrase of W. H. Chamberlin, it was “made by telegraph.”193 The change of regimes was everywhere accepted as an accomplished fact: no resistance was encountered and therefore no force used. As yet, neither class nor ethnic hostilities emerged to disturb the nearly unanimous relief at the end of the old regime. In some localities, celebrations in honor of the Provisional Government were joined by army officers and ex-tsarist officials.
One of the unanticipated effects of the Revolution and the ideal of democracy which it promoted was the emergence of nationalist movements in areas where the population was predominantly non-Russian. They were led by the indigenous intelligentsia which, in addition to the usual socialist or liberal demands, claimed for their regions some degree of autonomy. The first to be heard from were the Ukrainians, who on March 2 formed in Kiev a soviet called Rada: its initial demands on the government were cultural, but it soon also asked for political powers. Other nationalities followed suit, among them Russia’s scattered Muslims, who in May held an All-Russian Congress.194
Vasilii Rozanov said of Nicholas’s abdication that the Tsar let it be known he “disowned such a base people.”195
