Kerensky becomes prime minister of Russia

On 21 July 1917 (8 July by the Julian calendar) Alexander Kerensky became prime minister, or more precisely minister-chairman, of the Provisional Government. The day before, Prince Georgy Lvov, who had headed the government since the February Revolution, had resigned. Kerensky kept the ministry of war and the navy. A British chronology of the war records this change under 19 July. According to Russian and Western sources Lvov stepped down on 20 July (7 July O.S.) and Kerensky took office the following day.

Lvov’s resignation

The first coalition government fell apart in mid-July. On 15 July four ministers from the Kadet party left the cabinet in protest against concessions to the Ukrainian Central Rada, and the next day the July Days broke out in Petrograd. When the disturbances had been put down, the government was left mainly with socialists. On 20 July (7 July O.S.) the ministers adopted a series of repressive measures against those who had taken part in the disturbances, but the socialist members of the cabinet, taking advantage of the Kadets’ absence, also proposed that the government adopt the programme of the June congress of soviets. For Lvov this was too much. This landowner and liberal, during the war chairman of the All-Russian Zemstvo Union, accused his colleagues of undermining the people’s sense of law with their agrarian policy, especially the actions of the SR minister of agriculture Viktor Chernov, and of confronting the future Constituent Assembly with faits accomplis. The minister of justice Pavel Pereverzev, who a few days earlier had allowed the accusations against Lenin to be published, also left.

Lvov saw no place for himself in a government that was moving to the left. Speaking to the press, he explained that at this moment it was precisely Kerensky who should stand at the head of the government. The remaining ministers decided that Kerensky would take over the leadership of the government while keeping the military portfolios. The ministry of the interior, until then in Lvov’s hands, went to the Menshevik Irakli Tsereteli. It was he who from then on was to defend in the soviets the decision to arrest the Bolsheviks.

The most popular man in Russia

Kerensky was 36. He was a lawyer, known even before the war as a defender in political trials, and a deputy to the Duma for the Trudovik group, and after the February Revolution he joined the Socialist Revolutionary party. In March he entered the first Provisional Government as its only socialist, as minister of justice, while also serving as vice-chairman of the Petrograd Soviet. In May he took over the ministry of war and the navy. For the fiery speeches at front-line meetings with which he tried to fire the soldiers up to fight, he was ironically called the “persuader-in-chief” (Russian glavnougovarivayushchiy). He was the only politician acceptable both to the moderate socialists of the soviets and to the liberals, officers and industrialists. The American journalist and historian of the revolution William Chamberlin called him the indispensable keystone of every government of the time.

He took power at the worst possible moment. The offensive begun on 1 July, with which he had linked his name, had already collapsed, and on 19 July the Germans and Austrians went over to the counter-attack near Złoczów. Russian units were fleeing the front, ignoring orders. In Petrograd an armed rising had only just been put down, and in the countryside the peasants were seizing manorial land ever more boldly. He returned from the front on 19 July demanding firm action against the Bolsheviks.

A government to save the revolution

On 21 July the truncated government issued a programme declaration. It began with the words: “Citizens! A grave hour has struck. The troops of the German emperor have broken the front of the Russian people’s revolutionary army.” The government declared its first task to be the straining of all forces for the struggle against the external enemy and for the defence of the new order against anarchy and counter-revolution, “not shrinking from the most resolute measures”. It announced that it would propose to the Allies that a conference on war aims be convened in August, that elections to the Constituent Assembly would be held on the appointed date, 30 September (17 September O.S.), that estates, civil ranks and orders would be abolished, except those awarded for bravery in battle, and that it would prepare laws on labour protection and the eight-hour working day. Land reform was to give the land “into the hands of the working people”, but it was to be settled only by the Constituent Assembly, and the government intended to stop arbitrary seizures of land. The Kadets found the declaration unacceptable. The next day, 22 July (9 July O.S.), a joint session of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of the workers’ and soldiers’ soviets and the executive committee of the peasants’ soviets resolved that the country and the revolution were in danger, and that the Provisional Government was a “government for the salvation of the revolution” and was granted unlimited powers. According to Trotsky, 253 delegates voted in favour and 47, including the Bolsheviks present in the hall, abstained. In practice the soviets thus gave up the control over the government that they had exercised since March.

Kerensky quickly made use of his new powers. Under his rule the mutinous regiments of the capital’s garrison were disbanded and their soldiers sent to the front, some of the workers were disarmed and the Bolshevik press was shut down. On 25 July (12 July O.S.) the government, under pressure from the generals, restored the death penalty at the front for the gravest military crimes. Soon the government moved from the Mariinsky Palace to the Winter Palace, where Kerensky also took up residence.

What came next

The new prime minister wanted to rebuild the coalition with the Kadets, but they set tough conditions: a government responsible only to its own conscience and not to the soviets, full unity with the Allies, the restoration of discipline in the army and no social reforms before the Constituent Assembly. The negotiations went so badly that on 3 August Kerensky resigned. He came back when the leaders of all the parties allowed him to choose his ministers as he saw fit. The second coalition government was formed on 6 August. The socialists had a slight majority in it, but the Kadets returned to the cabinet. Kerensky headed the government until November 1917, when the Bolsheviks overthrew him.