First coalition government in Russia

On 18 May 1917 (5 May in the Julian calendar) the first coalition government was formed in Russia. Prince Georgy Lvov remained at the head of the Provisional Government, but six socialists entered the cabinet, among them leaders of the Petrograd Soviet. The former minister of justice, Alexander Kerensky, took over the ministry of war and the navy, and the former minister of finance, Mikhail Tereshchenko, foreign affairs. The next day the government issued a declaration of its programme, in which it rejected a separate peace and set as its war aim a general peace without annexations or indemnities.

The British chronology of the war records the appointments of Kerensky and Tereshchenko under 16 May and the declaration under 19 May. In reality the composition of the cabinet was negotiated until the last moment on 15–18 May and was finally approved on 18 May. The declaration is dated 6 May Old Style, that is, 19 May.

After the April Crisis

The change was brought about by the April Crisis. The demonstrations of 3 and 4 May had shown that Lvov’s cabinet had no force of its own in the capital and governed only thanks to the tolerance of the Soviet. On 9 May (26 April Old Style) the government issued an appeal in which it warned of the spectre of civil war and anarchy and announced that it would renew its efforts to broaden its membership with representatives of those “creative forces of the country” that had not so far taken part in government. A day later Lvov sent a similar letter to the chairman of the Soviet, the Menshevik Nikolay Chkheidze.

The socialists hesitated for a long time. In March the Executive Committee of the Soviet had decided that its members would not join the government of a “bourgeois” revolution, and the Moscow Soviet was still opposed to a coalition. The Bolsheviks were against it too. The change of position was decided by the minister of war, Alexander Guchkov. On 12 May (29 April Old Style), or a day later according to some sources, he resigned, because he saw no way of halting the disintegration of the army. The government publicly reproached him for having, by leaving on his own, cast off responsibility for the fate of Russia. On the evening of 14 May, at an extraordinary meeting of the Executive Committee, Kerensky painted a grim picture of the disorder in the economy and finances and declared that only a coalition government could save the state. He was supported by the Menshevik Irakli Tsereteli, the informal leader of the Soviet since his return from exile in Siberia. In a roll-call vote 44 members of the committee were in favour of a coalition, 19 against, and 2 abstained. The Bolsheviks and the Menshevik-Internationalists voted against.

On 15 May (2 May Old Style) Pavel Milyukov, whose note to the Allies had caused the crisis, left the government. He did not want to give up the ministry of foreign affairs, and the other ministers had no intention of defending him. His party, the Kadets, nevertheless remained in the cabinet. The same day a meeting of the Petrograd Soviet backed the negotiations for a coalition: of more than two thousand delegates, a little over a hundred voted against. The bargaining over portfolios and the programme lasted several days. On 18 May an extraordinary meeting of the Soviet approved the outcome of the negotiations and the candidates for ministerial posts. The Soviet stipulated that its representatives in the government would be answerable to it.

Who joined the government

There were six socialists. Kerensky and the leader of the Socialist Revolutionaries, Viktor Chernov, the new minister of agriculture, represented the SRs. The Mensheviks were represented by Tsereteli, who chose the less demanding ministry of posts and telegraphs so that he could go on directing the work of the Soviet, and by the vice-chairman of the Soviet, Matvey Skobelev, the first minister of labour in Russian history. The Popular Socialist Aleksey Peshekhonov became minister of supply, and the lawyer Pavel Pereverzev, counted as belonging to the same moderate current, succeeded Kerensky as minister of justice.

From the previous cabinet there remained Prime Minister Lvov, who also directed internal affairs, the Kadets Nikolai Nekrasov (communications), Aleksandr Manuilov (education) and Andrei Shingarev, who moved from the ministry of agriculture to finance, as well as the industrialist Alexander Konovalov (trade and industry), the Chief Procurator of the Holy Synod Vladimir Lvov and the State Controller Ivan Godnev. Tereshchenko, a thirty-one-year-old sugar magnate from Kiev, belonged to no party. He was regarded as a man who could reconcile loyalty to the Allies with the slogans of the Soviet. Thus a cabinet was formed in which the socialists held a minority of portfolios, but behind them stood the Soviet, and therefore the garrison of the capital.

The declaration of 19 May

On 19 May (6 May Old Style) the government issued a declaration signed by all the ministers. It began by announcing that the government, “reorganised and strengthened by new representatives of the revolutionary democracy”, would put into effect the ideas of liberty, equality and fraternity. The first point concerned foreign policy. The government, “rejecting, in agreement with the whole people, any thought of a separate peace”, set itself the aim of achieving as soon as possible a general peace that would not aim at domination over other nations or at the seizure of foreign lands: “a peace without annexations and indemnities (PL), on the basis of the self-determination of peoples”. It also announced steps towards reaching an agreement with the Allies on this matter on the basis of the declaration of 9 April. This was the formula that Milyukov had refused to use.

The second point dealt with the army. The defeat of Russia and her allies would be a source of the greatest misfortunes and would put off a general peace, so the revolutionary army could not allow the Germans to crush the Allies in the west and then strike at Russia with all their strength. The government’s most important task was to be the strengthening of democratic principles in the army and of its fighting power, in both defensive and offensive operations. Further points announced state control over production, transport and the distribution of goods, labour protection, the preparation of a land reform, which the Constituent Assembly was to decide, higher taxes on the wealthy, including on war profits, the development of local self-government and the earliest possible convening of the Constituent Assembly. Finally, the government stipulated that it could act effectively only with the “full and unconditional confidence” of the whole revolutionary people, and announced vigorous measures against both counter-revolution and anarchy.

Kerensky at the war ministry

The most important appointment was Kerensky’s portfolio. The thirty-six-year-old lawyer, then the most popular politician in Russia, was taking over an army in which, after Order No. 1, discipline was melting away and fraternisation with the enemy was spreading at the front. It was no accident that the declaration mentioned offensive operations: the Allies were pressing Russia to relieve their front after the April offensives in the west, and Kerensky hoped that a victorious attack would strengthen the revolution and the government. While it was still May he set off for the front, where he addressed soldiers at mass meetings, preparing the attack later known as the Kerensky Offensive.

Significance

The coalition ended the period of open rivalry between the government and the Soviet. The moderate socialists now took on a share of responsibility for power, for the war and for the growing economic difficulties. From the start, however, there was a rift in the government: the liberals wanted to wage the war to victory and to postpone reforms until the Constituent Assembly, while the socialists demanded a peace without annexations and rapid change. The Bolsheviks became the only significant socialist party outside the government. Lenin mocked the “ten capitalist ministers” and could from then on lay the blame for every failure not only on the liberals but also on the SRs and the Mensheviks. The first coalition lasted less than two months. It fell apart in July, after the failure of the offensive and the riots in Petrograd.