Читать книгу Comrade Kerensky - Boris Kolonitskii - Страница 14

In the first issues of the Petrograd newspapers produced after the overthrow of the monarchy, a greeting to Kerensky was published from the Socialist Revolutionaries: ‘The Conference of Petrograd Socialist Revolutionaries sends greetings to you, Alexander Fyodorovich, as a steadfast, tireless fighter for a government of the people, a Leader of the revolutionary people who has joined the Provisional Government to defend the rights and freedom of the toiling masses.’¹³⁹

The authors of the address approved of Kerensky’s becoming a member of the government and, unlike most of the leaders of the Petrograd Soviet, gave him a mandate to join it. Such trust stemmed from his personal prestige based on his reputation as a steadfast and tireless fighter, and he was singled out from other fighters as a ‘Leader of the revolutionary people’. The awarding of such a title was a considerable rarity at that time and resulted from the great appreciation of Kerensky’s role in the February Revolution. The first legally convened forum of a party which was to play a major role in subsequent events proclaimed him a revolutionary Leader, substantially enhancing his status in the eyes of all the Socialist Revolutionaries’ supporters.

The speeches Kerensky delivered on the eve of the revolution were of great importance for his image as a steadfast fighter and leader, and were much quoted. In retrospect the speeches were perceived as bold and accurate prophecies. Journalists favourably inclined towards him wrote of the Leader’s inspired and accurate predictions and of the sense of the impending revolutionary storm which his speeches had conveyed.

Different writers used similar words.¹⁴⁰ The gift of ‘foresight’, even of ‘clairvoyance’, which journalists attributed to Kerensky marked him out as a unique Leader. One speech, banned by the tsarist censorship, was published during the revolution under the title ‘The prophetic words of A. F. Kerensky, pronounced on 19 July 1915 in the State Duma’.¹⁴¹ The foreword to another edition of his speeches declared: ‘We can see that his last speeches in the Duma were prophetic, and that the first socialist minister of free Russia showed himself to be one of our most far-sighted statesmen.’ His prophetic speeches were evidence that the minister was endowed with the ‘ardent heart of a revolutionary patriot and the sage foresight of a statesman’ – small wonder that Kerensky’s political allies published them after the February Revolution. His allies drew the attention of readers to the exclamations and remarks of the Duma’s chairman, Mikhail Rodzyanko, and of other liberal deputies who formed the Provisional Government, in which these moderate politicians interrupted the speeches of the ‘revolutionary deputy’ as he foretold the destruction of tsarism.¹⁴² Readers were given to understand that, in the Duma, Kerensky alone had possessed the gift of political foresight and the fortitude of a revolutionary. Accordingly, his was a special place in the government.

The selection of texts for publication is also instructive, with Kerensky’s speeches of late 1916 and early 1917 much republished and talked about. The opposition’s attack on the regime had intensified in the autumn. On 1 November a famous speech by the leader of the Constitutional Democrats, Milyukov, with its refrain of ‘stupidity or treason?’, had resounded in the State Duma. This sensational speech eclipsed an even more radical speech by Kerensky, who that same day attacked the government so vehemently that the chairman deprived him of the floor. Not, however, before he had managed to brand the tsar’s ministers ‘traitors to the country’s interests’ and effectively called for overthrow of the government.

Three days later Kerensky went even further, declaring that the state had been taken over ‘by an enemy power’ and a regime of occupation installed. This time it was the head of state himself who was accused of treason: ‘Ties of family and kinship take priority over the interests of the state…. The interests of the old regime are closer to people living abroad than to those inside Russia.’ Kerensky called for destruction of the regime, ‘this dreadful ulcer of the state’. On 16 December he repeated that compromise with the government was impossible and called on liberals to take decisive action; a professional lawyer, he argued that, under the circumstances, the duty of a citizen was not to obey the law. For that he was deprived of the floor. A speech he made on 15 February became particularly famous: Kerensky denounced ‘state anarchy’ and demanded ‘surgical methods’, calling for the physical removal of ‘violators of the law’. The orator declared that he shared the views of the party ‘which has openly inscribed on its banner the possibility of terror, the possibility of armed struggle with those representing the government, the party which has openly acknowledged the necessity of tyrannicides.’ In the forum of the Duma he acknowledged his support of the terrorist tactics of the illegal Socialist Revolutionary Party. He excoriated a ‘system of unaccountable despotism’ and demanded the destruction of a ‘medieval regime’. Responding to the chairman’s remark that such language was inadmissible, Kerensky went even further and made absolutely clear that he was ‘talking about what the citizen Brutus did in classical times.’ This was perceived as a public call for regicide. Kerensky’s friends were sure that after such statements he would be arrested, and they expressed their sympathy in advance. He himself did not believe that parliamentary immunity would save him and told friends that, if the Duma was dissolved, he would be arrested.¹⁴³ It was a mood which may have influenced how Kerensky behaved in February 1917: he had burned his bridges, and only a swift replacement of the regime could keep him out of prison.

Kiriakov called his speech on 15 February ‘his first historic and by now manifestly revolutionary speech’.¹⁴⁴ He was referring to the exceptional role Kerensky was to play in the coup. On the very eve of the February Revolution, Kerensky was receiving letters asking him for the text of his speeches which had been banned by the censorship, but of which thousands of typewritten and handwritten copies were disseminated throughout Russia. The speeches were distributed also in the form of leaflets, with many copies reaching the army. The Duma’s right-wingers expostulated that Kerensky was ‘Wilhelm’s aide’. Kerensky’s speeches did not go unnoticed in the imperial residence either: in a letter from the empress to the tsar, dated 24 February, she expresses a characteristic wish: ‘I hope that Duma man Kedrinsky [she means Kerensky] will be hung for his horrible speeches – it is necessary (wartime law) and it will be an example.’¹⁴⁵ However, some members of even the highest levels of society were not unappreciative of the speech: ‘Today … Kerensky said much that was true, and we all think as he does about many things,’ Rodzyanko’s wife remarked in a letter to – Princess Zinaida Yusupova.¹⁴⁶

Kerensky was the best-known and most gifted orator of the left, constantly transgressing the limits of what was permissible. For the radical intelligentsia, he was ‘their man in the Duma’. To many people in Petrograd his face would have been familiar because his portraits were printed in a variety of publications. In a time of crisis, to be recognizable is a political asset. The banning of his Duma speeches only added to his renown, and he found himself hailed as ‘the most popular person’ in town.¹⁴⁷ Many people had no doubt that, in the coming crisis, Kerensky was destined to be centre stage. Indeed, at that time of unrest a number of deputations came to see him and demand that he ‘seize power’. The same demand was made in letters to him.¹⁴⁸ There is nothing surprising about the fact that delegates from the Putilov factory came to Kerensky on 22 February (another group went to Nikolai Chkheidze, the leader of the Social Democratic group). They warned the ‘citizen deputy’ that the strike and lockout at their huge factory might have serious political consequences.¹⁴⁹

The following day Kerensky made the statement of the Putilov workers known in the State Duma, stressing how moderate their demands were. A Duma resolution was amended to include the demand ‘that all dismissed workers of the Putilov factory should be reinstated and operation of the plant immediately resumed.’¹⁵⁰ The resolution had no practical impact because the revolution had already begun that day, but the strikers may have felt heartened that the Duma’s demands and the speeches of the opposition deputies showed support for their actions. More and more enterprises went on strike, and the strikers headed for the city centre. Mobs ransacked food stores and political rallies began.

Kerensky’s speeches now stood him in good stead. His supporters wrote that, ‘long before the revolution, he had said in the Duma that a revolution was the only way of saving Russia from a state of anarchy which was being fomented from the throne. It was Kerensky who prompted the Russian Revolution to take the final step.’¹⁵¹

Kerensky’s subsequent influence was to be due largely to the decisive and effective action he took during the February Revolution. Already on 25 February, at what was to prove the last meeting of the State Duma, he called upon it to lead the movement and create a new government. In the evening, he made a speech at the Petrograd City Duma, protesting at the shooting of demonstrators and demanding establishment of ‘a responsible ministry’. He rejected compromise with the government. During these days Kerensky was present at a number of meetings with clandestine groups. One such was held on the evening of 26 February in his own apartment, to which he had invited activists of the socialist groups. Kerensky was to recall that he participated in setting up an information bureau to coordinate the actions of the socialist groups: the Trudoviks, Mensheviks, Bolsheviks, Interdistrict activists, Socialist Revolutionaries and People’s Socialists. Those assembled were unable, however, to come to any agreement because the rifts between them were just too great, but at least the exchange of views and the move to coordinate the protest movement was a big step forward.¹⁵² Even on that day Kerensky seems himself to have been unaware that the revolution had begun.¹⁵³

Kerensky tried unsuccessfully to persuade Rodzyanko to convene an official session of the Duma on 27 February. He and his allies wanted the Duma to take a tougher line, but the chairman was not to be persuaded: the official meeting was scheduled for 28 February. At an informal meeting of the Council of Elders in Rodzyanko’s office, however, it was agreed to hold a closed meeting of the Duma on 27 February at two in the afternoon.¹⁵⁴

Maintaining contact with the revolutionary underground, Kerensky was receiving information from illegal circles, and this bolstered his status in the eyes of his Duma colleagues who were desperate for up-to-the-minute intelligence on the popular movement. (He went out of his way on 27 February to show them how well informed he was, and may even have exaggerated.)

Kerensky’s role in those days at the end of February became a topic for the rumour mill. It was said that he and Chkheidze, hearing of unrest in the Reserve Battalion of the Volhynia Guards Regiment, had gone there on 26 February and fired up the soldiers, and that this had brought about the regiment’s mutiny the following day.¹⁵⁵ In reality, Kerensky learned of the rebellion of the Volhynians early on 27 February.¹⁵⁶ At about eight o’clock that morning Duma deputy Nikolai Nekrasov, a left-wing Constitutional Democrat and prominent Freemason, phoned him at home to say the Volhynians had mutinied and that the State Duma had been prorogued by royal decree. Kerensky hastened round to Nikolai Sokolov, who also lived near the Duma. After a brief conference with him and Alexander Galpern, he made for the Duma.¹⁵⁷ Kerensky and other radical deputies tried to have the Duma continue in official session in defiance of the tsar’s decree and also urged that contact should be established between the Duma and the insurgents filling the streets of Petrograd.¹⁵⁸

At the Tauride Palace, Kerensky found himself the centre of attention. He was both the best known of the left-wing deputies and the most left-wing of the deputies who were well known. His name was familiar to anyone who took an interest in politics, and the sociable and energetic Kerensky had already met a good number of the capital’s citizens. Accordingly, it is unsurprising that many activists who made for the Tauride Palace wanted to see Kerensky and were expecting him to tell them what to do next. Spontaneously arising groups of insurgents, breakaway groups from units of the armed forces and individual activists battled their way through to him from all over the city. Already in the morning many people who knew Kerensky had been coming to the Duma bringing him information, and they conveyed the mood of the revolutionary crowds in the streets. Kerensky’s position straddling the boundary between legal and illegal politics was crucially important in those days, not least because illegals, members of the underground opposition, were not individually known to the masses (and some were in no hurry to take the risk of coming out into the open). The position he came to occupy, however, was very much dependent on Kerensky himself and the feverish activity on which he now embarked. He phoned round political friends, demanding they should go to the barracks and get insurgent troops sent to the Duma. Other politicians were doing the same, but Kerensky was outstanding. Every ten or fifteen minutes he was receiving up-to-the-moment information on the situation in different parts of the city by telephone. Duma deputies approached Kerensky to hear the latest news about action on the streets from the leader of the left. Rather anticipating developments, he assured them that the insurgents were on their way to the Tauride Palace. Many deputies were alarmed by this, but Kerensky insisted that the revolution was already in progress and that the Duma should welcome the mutineers and support and lead the popular movement. Time passed, however, and the troops Kerensky had ‘promised’ were nowhere to be seen. Anxious deputies asked him, ‘Where are your troops?’ He was already being seen not only as the best-informed member of the Duma but also as the representative of an illegal centre of insurgents, if not their leader.¹⁵⁹

Kerensky and the radical members of the Duma were demanding that a meeting of the Council of Elders, scheduled for twelve noon, should be brought forward, but Rodzyanko refused. At this a group of deputies arbitrarily convened a closed session of the council. Kerensky and several others demanded that the Duma should take power into its own hands, but not all those in attendance could support this. Rodzyanko protested against this meeting which he had not sanctioned but then convened an official meeting of leaders of the Duma groups in his office. Speaking on behalf of the Trudoviks, Social Democrats and Progressists, Kerensky again called for the tsar’s decree proroguing the Duma to be disregarded. This proposal openly to defy the monarch was rejected, opposed not only by Rodzyanko but also by Milyukov. The liberals were not prepared for this level of confrontation with the government. It was decided, nevertheless, that the Duma would not disperse, and the deputies were urged to remain where they were and, as planned, convene in the Semi-Circular Hall for an ‘unofficial’ meeting of such members of the chamber as were present. The choice of venue indicated that the Duma was not formally violating the tsar’s decree that it should dissolve, because official meetings were traditionally held in the Great Hall.¹⁶⁰

Kerensky’s Odessan biographer exaggerates the importance of his speech. ‘After Kerensky’s fiery speech, the deputies decided not to disperse, but to remain where they were.’¹⁶¹ The journalist Vasiliy Vodovozov, who was on friendly terms with Kerensky, even claimed that to him belonged ‘the merit of the initiative for a session of the State Duma, in defiance of the tsar’s command that it should be prorogued.’¹⁶² Kerensky later wrote the same thing himself, but in fact, as we have said, the private meeting had already been scheduled and was not a reaction to the tsar’s subsequent decree.¹⁶³

By one in the afternoon, groups of excited soldiers finally began to arrive at the Tauride Palace. One group introduced itself as representing the rebels, who wanted to know what the Duma’s position was.¹⁶⁴ The appearance of insurgents at the parliament building had a considerable impact on wavering deputies and strengthened the hand of Kerensky, who demanded decisive action from the Duma deputies.

At 2:30 pm the closed meeting of Duma members began. Vladimir Zenzinov recalled that Kerensky ‘technically’ convened it himself, wantonly pressing the bell to summon the deputies. There may have been nothing technical about it: the bell was an invitation to the deputies to convene in the Great Hall, and Kerensky was attempting to call the deputies for an official rather than a closed meeting. Certainly that was how some of the deputies interpreted his act. Rodzyanko ordered the bell to be switched off, and a closed meeting assembled, as scheduled, in the Semi-Circular Hall. At 2:57 Kerensky appeared in the hall and expressed a desire to go out to the rebels and announce the Duma’s support for the movement of the people. He asked the meeting to grant him the necessary authority. His proposal did not meet with enthusiasm from a majority of the deputies, who were wary of revolutionaries. Some of the liberals suspected the uprising had been instigated by pro-German interests. Under the pressure of events, however, the Duma had little option but to shift to the left. No doubt the spread of the uprising would have forced the Duma deputies to become more radical, but the impact of Kerensky’s decisiveness cannot be disregarded. He harassed his Duma colleagues, encouraged them to adopt a radical stance, and was not averse to confronting them with a fait accompli. Kerensky and other left-wing deputies went out to the crowd, gave speeches, issued instructions, and returned to the meeting, urging their colleagues now to undertake positive action.¹⁶⁵ This course of action accorded both with Kerensky’s views and with his temperament, given as he was to romanticizing and idealizing the revolutionary movement. It is also a fact that Kerensky reacted to the emotions of a crowd. He was infected by the elation of the rebellious people constantly arriving at the Duma.

A detachment of mutinous troops approached the Tauride Palace, there was a clash with the Duma sentries and the commander of the guard was wounded.¹⁶⁶ This greatly agitated the deputies. Kerensky rushed out and welcomed the mutineers, thereby setting a precedent for speeches by Duma deputies to newly arriving soldiers becoming something of a ritual. The Social Democratic deputies Skobelev and Chkheidze also addressed the rebels, but it was the leader of the Trudoviks who was unquestionably the more lively and trenchant. ‘The Social Democrats were very reserved: Kerensky had a more authoritative tone,’ recalled Alexander Polyakov, a journalist. It is no surprise that contemporaries often remembered only speeches by Kerensky.¹⁶⁷

Even conservative publications wrote enthusiastically about Kerensky’s doings in the early days of the revolution. Novoye vremya [New Time] reported:

In the Tauride Palace the deputies were in a state of shock. The Council of Elders had a meeting, not knowing what to do. The order proroguing the Duma was read out. They decided not to disperse, but had not the courage to declare themselves the new government immediately. Even the left-wingers were perplexed, and it was only when someone shouted, ‘A crowd! Soldiers!’, that Kerensky, not stopping to get a coat or hat, ran out to Shpalernaya Street to greet them.

‘We are with you. We thank you for coming, and promise to go forward with the people.’

The crowd raised Kerensky shoulder-high and tossed him up and down.¹⁶⁸

The report is not wholly accurate, but it is noteworthy that the reporter made Kerensky the main protagonist. Nearly all Kerensky’s biographers write about his speech to the insurgent soldiers,¹⁶⁹ and it became a central plank of his claim to be regarded as the Leader of the revolution.

Kerensky urged the rebels to enter the Tauride Palace, replace the old guards and protect the Duma. He gave orders on where to place sentries. The Duma telegraph and entrances to the palace were occupied by soldiers. The invasion of the palace by an armed crowd changed the deputies’ mood, strengthening the position of the left wing and demoralizing the conservatively minded. The new atmosphere was something of which Kerensky was better placed to take advantage than others. These were bold and dangerous acts: by placing himself at the head of mutinous soldiers he was openly declaring himself the leader of an armed uprising. From the point of view of law-abiding subjects of the tsar, he was a rebel, but by his decisive actions he acquired, in the eyes of the insurgents, the status of a revolutionary leader. In particular, his authority with the soldiers was greatly enhanced. In March an influential journalist was entirely justified in calling Kerensky ‘one of the most prominent leaders of the mutinous army’.¹⁷⁰

Kerensky himself subsequently made use of the episode. ‘I led the first contingent of revolutionary troops into the Tauride Palace and set up a token guard,’ he told a meeting of the soldiers’ section of the Petrograd Soviet on 26 March, when his actions were criticized by leaders of the Soviet.¹⁷¹ This line of argument enabled Kerensky to maintain his standing with the main body of deputies. The entry of troops into the building of the State Duma was one of the most important moments in the history of the February Revolution. In 1917 there were differing accounts of what exactly happened, but all the authors agreed that Kerensky had played a major role, which they often exaggerated. For example, a Nizhny Novgorod newspaper wrote:

A company of some regiment or other with an officer happened to be passing the Tauride Palace…. Suddenly Kerensky appears in the driveway and shouts, ‘Soldiers, the State Duma is with you!’

With a fiery speech he gains the support of the company and its officer, and a minute later Kerensky utters in the parliamentary chamber the call everyone has so desperately been waiting for in those hours of indecision: ‘Members of the State Duma, the soldiers are with us! Here they are!’

A moment later Kerensky delegated a squad of soldiers to arrest Minister Shcheglovitov and bring him to the Tauride Palace, and a moment after that the Volhynia Regiment knew what it had to do and where it needed to go.

That was the beginning of everything.

Whether it is fact or legend, there is good reason why this formula of a fusion of the democratic ‘idea’ (the Duma) with the democratic ‘matter’ (the soldiers) was arrived at by Kerensky. It is the formula which resolved the whole ‘problem’ of the revolution.¹⁷²

According to other accounts, Kerensky was entirely ready to win the army over to the revolution. His Odessan biographer writes: ‘Twenty-five thousand armed soldiers were marching towards the Tauride Palace. To what end? Was it in order, at the command of the tsar, to raze to the ground this hotbed of sedition? Or was it to bring tidings of the liberation of the people and emancipation of the army? It seemed there was no one to give an answer. It was approaching, with the tramp of soldiers’ boots and of horse-drawn artillery.’ It was at this critical moment, when, according to the author, ‘chilling doubt’ assailed the deputies’ hearts, that ‘a thin little man, as pale as death and without a hat in the bitter cold’, leaped forth to greet the troops. The revolution was about to win. ‘That little lawyer from Saratov had no way of knowing what he would face on the porch: a red flag or the bayonets of tsarist soldiers. With heroic self-sacrifice he detonated the revolution, and to this day bears that heavy cross.’¹⁷³ This factually inaccurate version of events is of interest because Kerensky is presented as the saviour of the revolution, heading off a planned punitive campaign.

Kerensky’s leading of the mutinous soldiers into the Duma was exploited by his supporters also to back his claim to the post of minister of war in May 1917. ‘Kerensky was the first to take command of the revolutionary army when its regiments arrived at the Tauride Palace.’¹⁷⁴

For many contemporaries, this was the act which accorded Kerensky the status of Leader of the revolution. An address from the sailors on the Baltic cruiser Rossiya, adopted after the April Crisis¹⁷⁵ but before 5 May 1917, read:

Did anyone see even a single burzhui [bourgeois] on the revolutionary streets? The whole lot of them, Milyukov, Guchkov, except Comrade Kerensky, all hid themselves away. When, arising, the revolutionary people came to the Tauride Palace and asked to be given a leader, only Comrade Kerensky agreed to be it and lead them who were asking for bread and freedom, but all the rest of the ministers of the present Provisional Government could do was take their portfolios in their hands stained with the blood of our brothers, champions of freedom.¹⁷⁶

It tells us something about those times that this text, composed by grassroots activists, was sent to Soldatskaya pravda and that this newspaper of the Military Organization of the Bolsheviks published it, even though by that time Bolshevik propaganda was already attacking Kerensky, the new minister of war. Even to some Bolshevik supporters Kerensky was still a hero of the revolution, whom they contrasted with the ‘bourgeois’ ministers.

On 27–8 February Kerensky several times made speeches to soldiers. His biographers have latched on to these events to sculpt an image of him as the leader of an armed uprising. ‘When revolutionary regiments began appearing at the State Duma, it was invariably Kerensky who met them. His speeches were brief and powerful and kept up the morale of the revolutionary troops, guiding them towards the only path which could lead them to freedom.’¹⁷⁷

In those days there were, of course, other Duma deputies delivering speeches to the rebels, but we note that it is Kerensky whom his biographers depict as the Leader with the gift of defining the truly correct path to freedom.

Shortly after the troops entered the Tauride Palace, Kerensky addressed a crowd gathered in the Catherine Hall. His audience was demanding that the leaders of the old regime should be punished. It was the struggle with the internal enemy they saw as the most urgent task. Kerensky called for arrests but demanded that there should be no extrajudicial executions. The crowd wanted names and was thirsting for immediate action. Kerensky ordered that the hated ‘public enemy’ Ivan Shcheglovitov, formerly the minister of justice and later chairman of the State Council, should be brought to him.¹⁷⁸ It is interesting that the chairman of the upper chamber rather than any representative of the executive branch was named as the first candidate for arrest. That choice by their new Leader was approved by his listeners, although, from a tactical point of view, it would have seemed more logical in the struggle for power to capture the leaders of the army and police force. This testifies to the role of snap decisions in how the revolution developed.

At this time Kerensky and his comrades were busy organizing the insurgent forces. Present-day researchers write about the creation of a Kerensky General Headquarters, a body which tried to secure the Duma, to draw troops over to the side of the uprising, to arm the rebels and to occupy strategic institutions. That evening a military commission was created, with Kerensky’s group at its core. The Trudovik leader was himself on the commission, and several of its orders are over his signature.¹⁷⁹

At about 3:00 pm on 27 February, the socialists came to Rodzyanko and Kerensky, seeking accommodation in the Tauride Palace for the emergent Soviet of Workers’ Deputies. With Rodzyanko’s permission they were allocated the hall of the budget commission and the adjacent office of its chairman. A provisional executive committee was created, which took the initiative of convening the Soviet, and at about the same time Kerensky and Chkheidze authorized the issue of Izvestiya Komiteta zhurnalistov [News of the Journalists’ Committee]; this newspaper became a crucial source of information for the residents of Petrograd.¹⁸⁰

When students with drawn swords delivered Shcheglovitov to the Duma, Kerensky arrested him ‘in the name of the people’, brushing aside Rodzyanko’s attempt to treat the chairman of the upper chamber as a ‘guest’.¹⁸¹ This outcome reflected a shift in the balance of power in the Tauride Palace: the authority of the Trudovik leader had greatly increased, and the chairman of the Duma had no option but to acknowledge the fact. Rumours that Kerensky had arrested Shcheglovitov and personally locked him up spread throughout the city. The arrest was a key moment in the myth of the revolution and influenced perception of Kerensky as the real Leader of the coup.

Vladimir Zenzinov, a prominent Socialist Revolutionary, wrote in the first issue of the party’s newspaper: ‘A. F. Kerensky refused to release Shcheglovitov from the Duma, locked him up in the ministerial pavilion, and obliged those present to take the path of revolution. This moment was one of the turning points of the movement.’ Zenzinov returned to this episode in his memoirs, noting that it had been one of the important ‘gestures’ which determined the course of the revolution.¹⁸² Kerensky’s supporters often made mention of the arrest of Shcheglovitov after the February Days, sometimes presenting it not as a spur-of-the-moment act but as a prudently and meticulously prepared blow devised by the Leader of the revolution to crush the old regime. It was claimed that Kerensky had had a list of people to be arrested.¹⁸³ Some of his biographers see the arrests he ordered as enabling him to uncover conspiracies against the people’s revolution on the part of servants of the old regime. It is said that his skilful questioning of them helped him win the battle against ‘enemies of Russia’ and carry the coup forward to a successful conclusion.

Kerensky also managed, however, to prevent summary justice being meted out to those who had been arrested and brought to the Tauride Palace. This also strengthened his authority. Some contemporaries saw it as a demonstration of the power he wielded, while others saw it as proving, more importantly, that the young Duma deputy was humane and opposed to rough justice.

Meanwhile, a closed meeting of State Duma deputies elected from its midst a Provisional Committee of the State Duma to restore order in the capital and communicate with individuals and institutions. The committee was charged with monitoring how the situation was developing and with taking appropriate measures, up to and including assuming full executive power. Rodzyanko was appointed chairman and Kerensky was included as a member. The committee tacitly endorsed Kerensky’s action in arresting the tsar’s top officials and confirmed his authority.¹⁸⁴

On the evening of 27 February, at the first meeting of the Petrograd Soviet of Workers’ Deputies, Kerensky was nominated by the Socialist Revolutionaries and elected to the Executive Committee of the Soviet, then appointed vice chairman of the Soviet. He was absent from the meeting and learned of his appointments only later.¹⁸⁵ He was also absent from the first meeting of the Executive Committee.

A majority of those setting up the Soviet, activists of the socialist parties, were wary of this dynamic politician but, in appointing an influential Duma deputy to the post of vice chairman, evidently felt they were consolidating their own positions. (The setting up of the Soviet itself had come about with Kerensky’s help.)¹⁸⁶

His bold speeches to the mutinous soldiers, his personal contact with the centres of the protest movement and, finally, his arresting of the tsar’s ministers all gave Kerensky exceptional popularity. Of the protagonists known to the general public, only he had acted so decisively and brilliantly. ‘He was the only person who flung himself with total abandon and confidence into the chaos of the popular movement. Only he had every right to talk to the soldiers as “we” and believed that the masses wanted exactly what was historically necessary at that moment,’ recalled the Trudovik Vladimir Stankevich. The unique role played by Kerensky was acknowledged by the Social Democrat Nikolai Sukhanov, who was later to become a harsh critic. ‘The indispensable Kerensky of the last gasp of tsarism; Kerensky the monopolist of those days of February and March’. Some conservative members of the Duma perceived him, indeed, as a revolutionary dictator.¹⁸⁷

Kerensky’s wife had her own perspective on the feverish pace of his actions during the February Days. ‘Those first days he never left the Duma, working day and night, and only when they had worked themselves to a standstill did he and other deputies force themselves to take a short nap, collapsing where they were, on the sofas and chairs in the offices of the Duma.’ At times those close to him literally forced him to drink a cup of coffee or a glass of brandy. The journalist Alexander Polyakov recalled, ‘On the steps of a small staircase leading to the journalists’ box, A. F. Kerensky was sprawled, completely exhausted, and his wife was spooning egg yolks she had brought in a tumbler from home into his mouth.’ At times the deputy seemed only semi-conscious, which mesmerized the agitated crowd. Kerensky was to recall rather nostalgically that state of extreme stress. For him, the February Days remained the most important and ‘real’ period in his life. ‘It’s worth living to have felt such ecstasy,’ he explained.¹⁸⁸

He was sometimes depicted later as a bloodthirsty mutineer, but those assertions appeared in the press only in the autumn. For example, Vladimir Purishkevich’s newspaper claimed in October that Kerensky had done nothing during the uprising to prevent officers from being beaten and humiliated.¹⁸⁹ In the first months of the revolution, however, Kerensky’s role was described only in positive terms and confirmed his status as Leader. It is perhaps only to be expected that his biographers saw the success of the coup as being due to Kerensky’s actions, but his contribution was rated highly in political resolutions adopted at the time. If journalists supportive of him exaggerated his role, so did many rank-and-file participants in the events. For example, Nikolai Kishkin, the Provisional Government’s commissar in Moscow, declared in early March, ‘I can testify that, but for Kerensky, we could never have achieved as much as we have. His name will be inscribed in letters of gold in the annals of history.’¹⁹⁰

Kerensky’s reputation as the revolution’s champion was central to creating his image of ‘the Leader of the people’. When Kerensky was seeking to bolster his authority, he frequently harked back in his speeches to those days. His supporters, defending their Leader’s decisions and deflecting attacks on him, also referred back to the exceptional role he had played in ‘the February Days’.

Kerensky’s 1917 biographies dwell particularly on that period, usually bringing in his ‘prophetic’ speeches and his arresting of representatives of the old regime, while his actions leading to the entry of the mutinous troops into the Duma are seen as uniquely endorsing him as the best politician to stand at the head of the revolution.