appearance as political interference, as an attempt to put his name behind the Duma and forestall the Soviet’s demands for a ‘democratic republic’. While the Duma men might earn credit for having two Grand Dukes signal their support for them, Michael was a different story: if he turned up, the revolutionaries might well be tempted to keep him there, as hostage for their own necks. In the event, by the time Rodzyanko got round to replying to Michael, to dissuade him from going to the Duma, he knew that Nicholas had abdicated, and that Michael was Regent. That being so, it was not his place to go to the Duma; it was for the Duma to come to him.
SHARING the Tauride Palace, the Duma Committee and the Soviet shared little else. Both were the product of revolution, but both hoped for different outcomes. The Duma was intent upon a constitutional monarchy, the Soviet for a republic. The question was not now whether Nicholas could remain on the throne, but whether the throne itself remained in being.
The struggle for the future of Russia began in the meeting room of the Duma Committee just after midnight and would go on for the next twenty hours of Thursday, March 2, so that it began with the expectation of Nicholas’s abdication, but ended with it being known that he had.
The Soviet executive, led by their chairman, Nikolai Chkheidze, a 53-year-old Georgian schoolmaster and socialist deputy, included many radical members of the intelligentsia, as well as political prisoners just released from the Kresty prison across the Neva. With the exception of Kerensky, none of the Soviet members thought of themselves as sufficiently politically experienced to be thought of as competent ministers in any new government. Nevertheless, they were determined to fashion its agenda.
Political convictions apart, the great difference between the Duma and the Soviet was that the members of the latter had their necks at stake. If the revolution ended in failure, the gallows beckoned for its leaders as well as many of the soldiers who thronged the Catherine Hall. Kerensky would escape, for he had saved the lives of the prominent men taken into ‘protective custody’. The ‘gentlemen of the Duma’ would also emerge unscathed for they would be needed if order was to be restored.
Even if Nicholas abdicated, and they did not know yet that he would, the monarchy with Michael as Regent would want a reckoning with those who had murdered for the revolution. Officers and mutineers who had killed policemen or their fellow soldiers could expect no mercy.
In August 1916, when mutineers in the 2nd Brigade murdered their colonel, 20 men were shot. Three months later, when two regiments, called to a strike at the Renault factory fired on police, 150 men were executed.14
So as part of its deal with the Duma Committee the Soviet demanded a complete amnesty for all revolutionaries, soldiers as well as any others accused of terrorism or murder. The Soviet and the rebel troops both know that if they did not hang together now, they would hang together later.
So, as part of its agenda, the Soviet sought guarantees that the garrison in Petrograd would not be dispersed into the army as a whole, to be picked off later, or disarmed. With these and other measures, the Soviet aim was to continue to hold a loaded pistol at the head of a new government, should it later be tempted to seek revenge. It had already shown that, whatever might be agreed, it knew who was boss. The day before, in its Order No 1, it had stated in its Point 4 that
When the Soviet delegates filed into the Duma Committee with their agenda they found Rodzyanko at a far table, drinking soda water. Facing him, at another table, was the white-haired Pavel Milyukov, sitting behind a pile of papers, notes and telegrams. Across the floor the other Committee members, including Prince Lvov, occupied a row of chairs and armchairs, with other deputies standing around them.15 After desultory conversation, the Soviet executive read out its conditions for supporting the Duma as government. The most difficult over the next 40 hours would be their ‘Point Three’: in effect, the future of the monarchy.
The man who would have nothing to do with their demands for a republic was Milyukov, though he was prepared to yield on the other issues, including an amnesty. ‘He spoke for the entire Duma Committee; everyone considered this a matter of course,’ noted a Soviet member. ‘It was clear that Milyukov here was not only a leader but the boss of the right wing.’ He would not yield on the monarchy and on this the ‘bourgeois leader was irreconcilable’.
Milyukov attempted to make a reformed monarchy appear utterly harmless, without power or influence, a fig leaf for those who did rule. It could not affect the kind of government which Russia would enjoy, and it could not threaten the safety of those who had joined the revolution. There was nothing the Soviet need fear, for Alexis was ‘a sick child’ and Michael if he became Regent was ‘a thoroughly stupid man’.16
This ploy, judged ‘naive’ by one,17 did not impress the three men staring back at him. An army general, twice decorated for gallantry in the battlefield, married to a woman known for her strong political opinions — whatever he was, he was not stupid.
By eight o’ clock on Thursday evening, with all now knowing that Nicholas had abdicated that afternoon, the issue of the monarchy was still not settled. It was then that Milyukov played his trump card, by announcing that if there was no Tsar, then he would not be in government. ‘Now, if I am not here, there is no government at all. And, if there is no government, then… you yourselves can understand…’18
An ultimatum or a bluff? The Soviet could not know which, but if it was a bluff it was one they did not dare call. Reluctantly, and unhappily, the Soviet gave way, grudgingly agreeing that the status of Russia should be decided by a future elected Constituent Assembly, leaving Russia as a monarchy until then. However, it made clear that it would ‘engage without delay in a broad struggle for a democratic republic’.19
The monarchy had been reprieved, but only just. Russia could have its sickly boy Emperor, with Michael as figurehead Regent. And with that, surely, the revolution after six tempestuous days was now all but over. Russia was set on a new course.
That afternoon the shape of the new government had become clear. It comprised many of the same men who would have been in any government designed to have public confidence. Milyukov, perched on a table, had jotted their names down on a sheet of paper and distributed the portfolios with little discussion.
The prime minister was to be Prince Lvov, the man Michael had recommended to his brother on Monday night ‘as the only possible candidate’. Rodzyanko, whom Nicholas thought he had appointed prime minister that morning, was not even in the twelve-man Cabinet, though he continued to head the Duma. Milyukov was foreign minister; Guchkov, then on his way to Pskov, was war minister. Kerensky, the only member of the Soviet included in the Cabinet, was justice minister.
As the meeting with the Soviet came to a close that evening, the name of this self-appointed government was chosen almost casually. Milyukov suggested ‘The Provisional Committee of the Duma’; the Soviet member Nikolai Sukhanov suggested instead that it be called more simply ‘The Provisional Government’. Milyukov nodded, and scratched that name down.20
By 10 p.m., with everything seemingly settled, The Provisional Government was born. However, almost at that same moment, Nicholas in Pskov was to throw everything into turmoil again. There was to be no boy emperor, and no Regent. He had changed his mind.
13. ‘A FATHER’S FEELINGS’
ALEKSANDR Guchkov and Vasily Shulgin, the two delegates sent to Pskov by the Duma Committee, now the Provisional Government, set off from Petrograd before news reached the capital that Nicholas had offered to abdicate— and therefore, in the minds of all those who heard of it, had abdicated.
Before setting off, and as the talks with the Soviet dragged on, Guchkov had set down the need for decisive action, regardless of any agreement with the Soviet:
