willing to follow the Bolsheviks. Moreover, the government never wanted real reform, because it remained devoted to the interests of the landlords and, secondly, of the great capitalists. Russia was headed for catastrophe.
The optimists, thus, believe that imperial Russia was ruined by the First World War. The pessimists maintain that the war provided merely the last mighty push to bring the whole rotten structure tumbling down. Certainly it added an enormous burden to the load borne by the Russian people. Human losses were staggering. To cite Golovin's figures, in the course of the war the Russian army mobilized 15,500,000 men and suffered greater casualties than did the armed forces of any other country involved in the titanic struggle: 1,650,000 killed, 3,850,000 wounded, and 2,410,000 taken prisoner. The destruction of property and other civilian losses and displacement escaped count. The Russian army tried to evacuate the popu-
lation as it retreated, adding to the confusion and suffering. It became obvious during the frightful ordeal that the imperial government had again failed in its tasks, as in the Crimean War and the Russo-Japanese War, but on a much larger scale. As mentioned earlier, the Russian minister of war and many other high officials and generals failed miserably in the test of war, Russian weapons turned out to be inferior to the enemies', Russian ammunition in short supply. Transportation was generally bogged down and on numerous occasions it broke down altogether. In addition to the army, the urban population suffered as a result of this, because it experienced serious difficulties obtaining food and fuel. Inflation ran rampant. Worst of all, the government refused to learn any lessons: instead of liberalizing state policies and relying more on the public, which was eager to help, Nicholas II in an anachronistic gesture handed over supreme power to the reactionary empress, and through her to Rasputin, when he assumed command at the front
The imperial regime died with hardly a whimper. Popular revolution, which came suddenly, was totally unprepared. In the course of the momentous days of March 8 to 11, 1917 (February 23 to 26, Old Style) riots and demonstrations in the capital - renamed 'Petrograd' instead of the German 'St. Petersburg' during the war - occasioned by a shortage of bread and coal assumed a more serious character. On March 10 reserve battalions sent to suppress the mutineers fraternized with them instead, and there were no other troops in the city. Resolute action, such as promptly bringing in loyal forces from elsewhere, might have saved the imperial government. Instead, with Nicholas II away at the front, authority simply collapsed and many officials went into hiding. Seemingly with one mind, the population of Petrograd turned to the Duma for leadership.
On March 11 members of the Duma sidestepped an imperial dissolution decree, and the next day they created a Provisional Government, composed of a score of prominent Duma leaders and public figures. Prince George Lvov, formerly chairman of the Union of Zemstva and Towns, assumed the positions of chairman of the Council of Ministers, that is, prime minister, and of minister of the interior. His more important colleagues included the Cadet leader Miliukov as minister of foreign affairs, the Octobrist leader Guchkov as minister of war and of the navy, and Alexander Kerensky, the only socialist in the cabinet - associated with the Socialist Revolutionary party - as minister of justice. The new government closely reflected the composition and views of the Progressive Bloc in the Duma, with the Cadets obtaining the greatest single representation.
Nicholas II bowed to the inevitable and on the fifteenth of March abdicated for himself and his only son, Alexis, in favor of his brother, Michael, who in turn abdicated the next day in favor of the decision of the constituent assembly, or in effect in favor of the Provisional Government pending that decision. Nicholas II, on his side, had appointed Lvov prime minister before renouncing the throne. Thus ended the rule of the Romanovs in Russia.
The Provisional Government was quickly recognized, and hailed, by the United States and other Western democracies. But, in spite of its rapid and general acceptance in Russia and abroad, the new government had to deal from the very beginning with a serious rival: the Petrograd Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies, which was modeled on the 1905 Soviet. The new Soviet was formed on the twelfth of March, established itself in the Duma building, and proceeded to assert its authority. True, dominated by moderate socialists until the autumn of 1917, it did not try to wrest power from the 'bourgeoisie,' for it considered Russia unprepared for a socialist revolution, but it made its weight strongly felt nevertheless. In fact, the Provisional Government had been set up by the Duma in consultation with the Soviet and had to take its unofficial partner into account in all its policies and activities. Moreover, the Soviet acted authoritatively on its own, sometimes in direct contradiction to the efforts of the ministers. Notably, as early as March 14 it issued the famous, or notorious,
The Provisional Government lasted approximately eight months: from March 12 until November 7, 1917. Its record combined remarkable liberalism with an inability to solve pressing, crucial problems. The new regime promoted democracy and liberty in Russia. All citizens achieved equality before the law. Full freedom of religion, speech, press, assembly, unions, and strikes became a reality. Town and country administration was revamped to make it more democratic, with zemstvo institutions finally introduced at the level of the volost, that is, the township or canton. In addition to equal rights, ethnic minorities received autonomy, while Poland was de-
clared independent. Labor legislation included the introduction of an eight-hour day for some categories of workers.
However, although the Provisional Government demonstrated what liberalism might have done for Russia, it failed to overcome the quite extraordinary difficulties that beset the country, and those who ruled it, in 1917. The new government continued the war in spite of the fact that defeatism spread among the people and that the army became daily less able to fight on. While convinced that all available land should belong to the peasants, it made no definitive land settlement, leaving that to the constituent assembly and thus itself failing to satisfy the peasantry. It proved unable to check inflation, restore transportation, or increase industrial production. In fact, Russian economy continued to run rapidly downhill.
A large part of this failure stemmed from the limited authority and power of the new regime. As already mentioned, it had at all times to contend with the Soviet. It had little in the way of an effective administrative apparatus, the tsarist police in particular having largely gone into hiding. While the high command of the army supported the government, enlisted men remained an uncertain quantity; the Petrograd garrison itself was devoted to the Soviet. What is more, the Provisional Government had to promise the Soviet not to remove or disarm that garrison. Kerensky's derisive appellation, 'persuader-in-chief,' was in part a reflection of his unenviable position.
The government also made mistakes. It refused to recognize the catastrophic condition of the country and misjudged the mood of the people. Thus, as mentioned, it continued the war, believing that the Russians, like the French at the time of the great French Revolution, would fight better than ever because they were finally free men. In internal affairs, a moderate and liberal position, generally difficult to maintain in times of upheaval, proved quixotic in a country of desperately poor and largely illiterate peasants who wanted the gentry land above all else. The government's temporary, 'provisional,' nature constituted a special weakness. Its members were deeply conscious of the fact that they had acquired their high authority by chance, that the Duma itself had been elected by the extremely restricted suffrage of 1907, and that the future of Russia must be settled by a fully democratic constituent assembly. Such basic decisions as those involved in the land settlement and in the future status of the national minorities had, therefore, to be left to that assembly. In the suggestive, if controversial, words of a political scientist: 'This lack of a representative and responsible parliament helped greatly to distinguish the course of the Russian Revolution from its English, French and American predecessors.' Yet, if a constituent assembly meant so much to the members of the Provisional Government, they made perhaps their worst mistake in not calling it together soon enough. While some of the best
Russian jurists tried to draw a perfect electoral law, time slipped by. When a constituent assembly finally did
