The Russian Revolution

Among the members of the Soviet's first executive committee were a few Bolsheviks who accepted Lenin's dictum that the Rus sian Revolution was the vanguard of the World Socialist Revolu tion. But even they failed at the time to declare that the moment had come for establishing a Socialist and proletarian government in Russia. So unprepared indeed were they for taking action that when Lenin arrived in Petrograd three weeks later he found that his most difficult task was to inspire his own party with the necessary enthusiasm for "deepening the Revolution." But what ever may have been the views held by the Bolsheviks at this time they were in such an insignificant minority both in the Petrograd Soviet and outside that their views could not possibly carry any weight. Moreover their influence in the Soviet, whatever it may have been, was counterbalanced by that of an equally insignifi cant minority on the Right which denied that the Revolution had any aims other than the establishment of a democratic State and bourgeois liberties.

In fact most members of the executive committee of the Soviet expected and welcomed the advent of the World Revolution and believed in the missionary character of their own. They refused to accept the national victory over the autocracy as the sole aim of the Revolution ; and they may have regarded it as merely "the first step." What they never denied was that the bourgeoisie had a part to play in the Revolution and a rightful claim to form the first national government. The assumption of power by the bourgeoisie seemed to them indeed in the natural course of events. Moreover considerations of their own safety operated to induce the leaders of the Soviet to stand aside and to leave the formation of the new Government to the Duma committee. But, while they were prepared to stand aside and to delegate the power to the bourgeoisie they reserved to themselves the right to keep a steady watch on the activities of the new government ; for they made no secret of their suspicion that, left to their own devices, these bourgeois ministers might be tempted to abuse their authority by favouring the interests of their own class.

The Provisional Government.

But members of the Duma committee on the other hand, though they had few illusions as to the quarter in which the real power was vested, were not only willing to form a government with the consent of the Soviet leaders but insisted on the latter issuing an open proclamation of their support. The published programme of the Provisional Gov ernment was indeed dictated by the Soviet leaders and was ac cepted in full by the members of the Duma committee. The status

of the government created as a result of this compromise was necessarily precarious in the extreme. Nominally invested with full powers and sovereign authority the Provisional Government was in reality powerless and the mere creature of the Soviet. Its position was bound to be unstable because the basis of the corn promise which established it was vague and uncertain. But the revolutionary impetus of the masses and the constant changes in the constitution of the Soviet and in the mentality of its leaders soon combined to render this basis even more unstable. Every day fresh groups joined the Soviet and new leaders replaced old ones with the consequence that new adjustments had constantly to be made and even relative stability became difficult to main tain.

The Royal Family Arrested.

While negotiations between the Soviet and the Duma were still proceeding and before the Provisional Government formally took over the administration (March 14), the extremely delicate question of the position of the tsar and of the dynasty came up for settlement. That the tsar Nicholas could no longer remain autocrat was a foregone con clusion ; but the leaders of the Duma dreading the idea of Russia becoming a republic were determined to save the monarchy and even the dynasty. They accordingly dispatched Guchkov and Shulgin, two Conservative members of the Duma, to the tsar's headquarters at Pskov with the mission of obtaining the tsar's abdication in favour of the tsarevich and the appointment of the Grand Duke Michael as Regent. A few days previously such a solution of the national difficulties would have been regarded as a fantastically successful triumph for the Revolution. But in those few days the revolutionary movement had developed such an im petus that any attempt to save the dynasty was recognized as utterly impossible. The tsar therefore refused to risk the safety of his son and, abdicating both for himself and the tsarevich, pro claimed his brother Michael his successor. But when the terms of abdication became known on the following day even this solu tion had to be promptly abandoned and the very same members of the Duma committee who had pinned their faith to the dynasty proceeded to the palace of the Grand Duke and strongly urged him to refuse the throne till the Constituent Assembly had defin itely drawn up a constitution.