Provisional Government on war aims

On 9 April 1917 (27 March in the Julian calendar) the Russian Provisional Government approved the text of a declaration on war aims. It was published the next day as an address to the citizens, signed by the prime minister, Prince Georgy Lvov. Its key sentence read: “the aim of free Russia is not domination over other nations, nor the seizure of their national possessions, nor the forcible occupation of foreign territories, but the establishment of a stable peace on the basis of the self-determination of peoples.” The declaration was the first compromise between the government and the Petrograd Soviet on the issue that divided them most.

The dispute over Constantinople

As early as 27 March the Soviet, in its manifesto “To the Peoples of the Whole World”, had called for a struggle against the annexationist aims of all governments, including its own. Meanwhile the foreign minister, Pavel Milyukov, made no secret of wanting the agreements concluded by tsarism to be carried out. At the beginning of April, talking to journalists, he listed the tasks of a future peace congress: the liberation of the Slav peoples of Austria-Hungary, the creation of a Czechoslovak and a Serbo-Croatian state, and the union with Russia of the Ukrainian lands of the Habsburg monarchy. Russia was also to receive Constantinople and the Straits, promised to her by the Allies in 1915. Possession of Tsargrad, he said, had always been regarded as Russia’s age-old national task, and neutralisation of the Straits would be harmful to her.

The statement caused a storm. The Executive Committee of the Soviet demanded that the government publicly renounce the annexationist plans of tsarism. On 6 April, at a conference of delegates from the front and from provincial towns, a representative of the Soviet accused Milyukov of interpreting the meaning of the revolution as the old government had understood it. The negotiations with the cabinet were conducted on the Soviet’s side by the Menshevik Irakli Tsereteli, recently returned from exile in Siberia, a spokesman for so-called revolutionary defencism: Russia was to defend herself against Germany but strive for a peace without annexations. Within the government itself Milyukov’s views were not shared by the justice minister, Alexander Kerensky, the only socialist in the cabinet. According to historians, Milyukov agreed to the declaration on condition that it be addressed to the citizens of Russia, not to the Allies in the form of a diplomatic note.

What the government promised

The address began with a warning. The overthrown regime had left the country’s defences in a grave, disordered state, and the enemy, who had occupied whole regions of the state, was threatening a new onslaught in the days when Russian freedom was being born. The defence of the native land at any cost and the liberation of the country from the invader were therefore the soldiers’ first task. The final settlement of questions connected with the war and its ending the government left to the will of the people, “in close unity with our allies”. Immediately afterwards came the sentence about the aims of free Russia. The Russian people did not seek to strengthen their power at the expense of other nations, nor to subjugate and humiliate them. In the name of the higher principles of justice they had struck the chains from the Polish people. They would not, however, allow their homeland to emerge from the great struggle humiliated and sapped in its vital forces. These principles were to be the basis of the government’s foreign policy, conducted “while fully observing the obligations undertaken towards our allies”. The address ended with the words: “The state is in danger. All forces must be strained to save it.”

The text was deliberately vague. It did not contain the formula “peace without annexations or indemnities” demanded by the left, and the assurance of observing obligations to the Allies could be read as confirming the secret agreements, including the promise of the Straits. That is exactly how Milyukov understood it. The Soviet, however, accepted the declaration as its own success. The All-Russian Conference of Soviets, meeting in Petrograd from 11 to 16 April, called it “an important step” towards a democratic foreign policy and urged the government to induce the Allies to renounce conquests jointly.

That same day, 9 April, Vladimir Lenin, who considered the compromise with the government a betrayal of the revolution, set out from Zurich on his journey to Russia. The dispute over war aims soon returned. When, under pressure from the Soviet, the government agreed to pass the declaration on to the Allies, Milyukov attached to it on 1 May a note assuring them that Russia would wage the war to a victorious end. This set off the April Crisis, which in May cost him his post.