Chapter 263： Attack of the Provisional Government

While Romanian smugglers worked hard to dig the corner of Russia, something that made it even more chaotic happened in St. Petersburg.

The Minister of Foreign Affairs Pavel Miliukov gave a note to the governments of the Allied countries, promising to continue participating in the First World War until the end of the victory. On March 2nd and 3rd, large-scale demonstrations against the war broke out among workers and soldiers in Petrograd. The demonstrators demanded that Milyukov be removed from his post.

This dissatisfied Ravl Kornilov, commander of the Petrograd Military District, so he asked the government to order the suppression of demonstrations by force. However, Kornilov's request was rejected by Prime Minister Lvov. Lvov believed that the provisional government could not make such a move, otherwise it would be no different from the overthrown Tsarist Russian government. And it will shake the foundation of the interim government, be aware that there is more than one government agency in St. Petersburg.

Due to the opposition of Prime Minister Liwov, the armed suppression was vetoed. So the Minister of Foreign Affairs Miliukov and Secretary of the Army Guchkov, the two cabinet members announced their resignations. In fact, Leverf’s choice was also a helpless move. At that time, if the people’s protest march was suppressed, the people would be driven into the embrace of Bushrwick. Because many soldiers and workers in St. Petersburg have been organized by this red party, suppression will be a prelude to the downfall of the Provisional Government.

After the heads of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Army and Navy resigned, the interim government could only be convinced by joining other political parties. At that time, the Petrograd Soviet, another government, also entered the eyes of the Provisional Government.

I need to say one more thing here. The Petrograd Soviet was not the subsequent Soviet government, and its government members were not all members of the Bushrwick. Many of its members were Mensheviks. The Provisional Government just needs the help of these Mensheviks to facilitate its unity of left-wing forces.

Of course, the Provisional Government did not give the Menshevik party much important status, but gave the two insignificant ministerial positions of labor and post and telecommunications, and its main target was the Socialist Revolutionary Party.

Speaking of the Socialist Revolutionary Party, in fact, the establishment of this party hasn't been long. This is a Russian petty-bourgeois political party, formed in 1902 by a preliminary alliance of a number of scattered old Narodnik groups and groups. In December 1905, the 1st National Congress of the Socialist Revolutionary Party was convened, and its establishment was formally announced through the party platform and party constitution. The main characters are Chernov, Kerensky, etc.

Among them, Kerensky was most favored by the Provisional Government because in 1905, Kerensky served as a legal advisor for the victims of the government's suppression and was imprisoned for publishing works that incited revolution. This incident made it famous, and he also served as a defense attorney for many opposition politicians in litigation trials. These work greatly benefited Kerensky in the subsequent time, making him a well-known political figure in the country.

Therefore, the Provisional Government took out the Minister of the Army and Navy, who was such an important seat in the war to win him over. Of course, in addition to this, the relationship between him and Lenin who were friends in childhood is also part of the consideration of the Provisional Government. During the interim government, Lenin made speeches about the need to continue the revolution everywhere, causing him a great headache.

So what is the sacredness of this famous head of the Socialist Revolutionary Party, Mr. Kerensky?

Kerensky's full name is Alexander Vodorovich Kerensky. On May 4, 1881, he was born in Simbirsk on the Volga River in Russia (now Ulyanovsk, Russian Federation, Lenin was also born in the same place). His mother was a nobleman, and his father was a teacher and principal of a local middle school. And Lenin finished high school under his father, so Kerensky and Lenin are close friends.

The difference from Lenin is that Kerensky received a Bachelor of Laws degree in 1904, the same year he married the daughter of a Russian general. Then in 1912 Kerensky was elected as a member of the State Duma. During the trial of Jew Belis (the defendant was falsely accused of killing a Christian boy in a sacrificial ceremony), Kerensky successfully persuaded the St. Petersburg lawyers to pass a resolution condemning the incident as "deliberately spreading rumors and slandering the Jewish nation." In the end he was detained for 8 months in the name of criticizing the judicial system.

After the outbreak of the war, Kerensky supported Russia's participation in the war and urged the government and people to unite with the outside world. However, because the government adopted an oppressive policy and was unable to effectively carry out the war, he advocated the abolition of the tsarist regime.

In this time and space changed by Edel, Kerensky was still one of the leaders of the revolution that rose rapidly during the January Revolution. He was elected as the two vice-chairmen of the Petrograd Workers and Soldier Soviets’ Provisional Ruling Committee. This is also one of the main reasons that the Provisional Government needs to look at, because it can coordinate the contradictions between the two governments, even if the Petrograd Soviet does not allow its members to participate in the Provisional Government.

Faced with the olive branch extended by the Provisional Government, Kerensky still happily accepted the post. This makes the relationship between the Socialist Revolutionary Party and the Bolshevik Party very delicate, and it is not yet known how this change will result.

On March 15, 1917, the two sides negotiated and reached an agreement Five socialist ministers joined the cabinet. They are divided into: Army and Navy Minister Alexander Kerensky, Socialist Revolutionary Party. Minister of Justice Pavel Pereverzev, Socialist Revolutionary Party. Minister of Agriculture Victor Chernoff, Socialist Revolutionary Party. Minister of Labor Matvi Skobelev, Menshevik. Irakli Tsereteli, Minister of Posts and Telecommunications, Menshevik.

After the Provisional Government absorbed some members of the Petrograd Soviet, the Bolsheviks, a leftist force in the Soviet, quickly rose up. The government is considering its functions and the satisfaction of the people, but it has not taken into consideration the issue of political party ideas. Due to the presence of both left and right ministers in the interim government, it often presents two sides and is unable to formulate decisive policies.

Therefore, the policies introduced by the Provisional Government are always unpopular, and because of the spread of smuggling, the situation in various parts of Russia has become worse, and the people are gathering dissatisfaction. In fact, members of the Provisional Government know these things, but because the Russian economy has been shattered by the war, the Provisional Government has no good solutions. Therefore, using the performance of the battlefield to divert the attention of the people has become one of the few choices of the Provisional Government.

Therefore, after Kerensky became minister of the army and navy, the interim government gave him a lot of support in the army. The officers who were dissatisfied with continuing to fight on the front line were replaced to suppress the soldiers' war exhaustion. To be honest, these actions quickly restored the morale of the Russian army that had collapsed, but they did not restore much. They only adjusted the collapsed army to be about to collapse. However, the mood of the army was still not high, but the bad domestic situation made Kerensky unable to do so. Slowly deal with the situation of the army.

So on May 1, Kerensky ordered the frontline army to launch an attack on the German-Austrian coalition forces. So the attack of the Russian Provisional Government began in such a hasty situation.