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Interlude: The Russian Provisional Government 1917Author(s): W. E. MosseSource: Soviet Studies, Vol. 15, No. 4 (Apr., 1964), pp. 408-419Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/149631 .

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INTERLUDE: THE RUSSIAN PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT 1917

THE Russian Revolution of February 1917 which overthrew the tsarist regime has been overshadowed by that of October. Indeed, most people when faced with the term 'Russian Revolution' have been conditioned to think automatically of the Bolshevik seizure of power in Petrograd in October I917. There are several reasons for this, of which two are of paramount importance. In the first place there is that common human failing, uncritical admiration of success and corresponding contempt for failure, from which even historians are not immune. The second lies in the outstanding success of Bolshevik propaganda and historiography which has determined also the western picture of the Russian Revolution. In fact, the western and, a fortiori the Soviet approach to the Russian Revolution constitutes perhaps the supreme example of what has become known as the 'Whig interpretation of History'. In this instance, it colours and distorts the entire historical view of that prolonged and fascinating process, the Great Russian Revolution. The true character and scope of that movement are as yet hardly understood.

As with the February Revolution, so with the regime to which it gave birth-the Provisional Government commonly associated with the name of Alexander Kerensky. This, in general, has been treated as a meaningless and irrelevant interlude between Tsarisnm and Bolshe- vism, at best as some sort of prelude to the latter. The brief but eventful eight months which separate February from October have in fact been rarely examined in their own right. Nor have they been effectively studied in. their proper historical perspective, that is, as a crucial stage in the wider revolutionary movement.

This also is unfortunate. The period of the Provisional Government, as historians will one day begin to realize, in fact covered several distinct phases of the Great Russian Revolution: indeed, the concept of 'permanent revolution' developed by Trotsky after I905 is truer than the pages of soviet historiography would sometimes lead one to suppose. Moreover, developments like the emergence of the Bolshevik Party as a serious political force, the all-important practical application of 'Leninism' as well as the progressive evolution of the soviet form of organization are the product of these crucial months. Without the February Revolution and the Provisional Government which followed it, the subsequent history of the Russian Revolution becomes not only meaningless but nearly incomprehensible. It is high time therefore that these important events should be examined at last with care and in their own right. For this reason alone, the publication, in the English



409

language, of three volumes of documents dealing with the Russian Provisional Governmentl, is greatly to be welcomed.

I Moreover, a collection of this kind must be doubly welcome when

one of the joint editors is no less a personage than A. F. Kerensky himself. Although almost half a century has elapsed since Kerensky played his part in the momentous events of I917, his name yet gives to these volumes an authority they might not otherwise possess. Who better qualified than the key figure in the Provisional Government to record-on the basis of the documents-the story of that government? Must not this be regarded, in some respects, as the 'political testament' both of Alexander Kerensky and posthumously of the Provisional Government itself?

Conveniently, Kerensky and his co-editor, the American historian Robert Browder, in selecting their materials had at their disposal the important collection of documents on war and revolution gathered by ex-President Herbert Hoover and housed in the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, California. There were thus available to them, besides the Official Gazette of the Provisional Government and Izvestiya, the organ of the Petrograd Soviet, sets of the major Petrograd papers ranging from Lenin's Pravda (or its substitutes) and Gorky's Novaya zhizn on the left to journals like Russkiye vedomosti and Novoye vremya on the right. Another source, to which Kerensky in his introductory statement draws particular attention, consists of the rare printed minutes of the proceedings of the Provisional Government itself. These and other documents are supplemented by extracts from the Krasny arkhiv, as well as from the reminiscences of contemporaries. The sources, therefore, on which Browder and Kerensky draw are comprehensive. Similar material has indeed been used once before in another publication sponsored by the Hoover Institution but the present selection, besides differing in approach and emphasis, is considerably more ambitious in scope than the more modest single volume edited by Bunyan and Fisher.2 In many respects, Browder and Kerensky have done pioneering work.

As regards the method of presentation, Kerensky and Browder point out to their readers that whilst the first two volumes are 'organized topically', the third 'covering political history' is presented in chronological order. In actual fact, the scheme is not strictly adhered to. The

1 Browder, R. P., Kerensky, A. F. (ed.), The Russian Provisional Government 1917. Documents. 3 vols. (Hoover Institute Publications). Stanford: Stanford U.P., 1961. London: O.U.P., 1962. 1875 pp. $30.00. /I2 net.

2 The Bolshevik Revolution, 1917-1918: Documents and Materials, ed. James Bunyan and H. H. Fisher (Stanford, I934).



first part of the first volume, dealing in some detail with the events of the February Revolution, is also, of necessity, chronological. The second part, entitled 'Toward a Democratic Order', covers the administrative policies of the Provisional Government, the organization of the new central power, the administration of justice and law en- forcement, local government and, in considerable detail, nationalities policy. The second and bulkiest volume is divided into three sections, the first covering economic and social reorganization, the others military affairs and operations and foreign affairs. Finally, the third volume, concerned with political history, again consists of three parts: 'The Provisional Government and Political Forces to July', 'The July Days and Subsequent Efforts to stabilize the Regime' and 'From Kornilov to October'.

This method of presentation, like indeed any other, is not without its inconveniences. Thus, the first political crisis of the new regime (covered in volume three) was caused primarily by differences over foreign policy (dealt with in volume two). Its second major crisis, again analysed in the political volume, was caused among others by problems of nationalities policy (documented in the first volume) and disputes about agricultural organization (dealt with in the second). While cross-references are, on the whole, adequate, this means, nonetheless, that the volumes have sometimes to be used side by side. Again, the analytical treatment, where adopted, tends to conceal the general chronological framework and to obscure the consecutive phases in the general policies and legislative activity of the Provisional Government. At the very least, the 'chronological' volume should have preceded instead of followed the analytical ones. A more strictly chronological treatment, incidentally, would have brought out more clearly the heavy shift, in the activities of the Provisional Government, from legislation to the politics of self-preservation. The analytical treatment so largely followed by the editors, whilst perhaps suitable for presenting the activities of a settled government, is less suited to a 'revolutionary' one.

II Indeed, as a picture of the period, the collection suffers from a

number of defects. Whilst it would be churlish to dwell overmuch on the very uneven quality of the translations from the Russian or on the considerable number of minor misprints and inaccuracies, some more substantial shortcomings must be mentioned. The first of these follows from the nature of the material presented. The principal sources, as already mentioned, are the legislative enactments of the Provisional Government and a variety of comments taken from Petrograd newspapers. Unfortunately, even in normal conditions, the use of sources

RUSSIAN PROVISIONAL 4Io



of this kind would present but a one-sided picture. Legislative enactments, taken by themselves, reveal the intention of the law-giver- and very little else. The social conditions to which such laws may or may not be relevant and in which they actually operate are a very different matter. Similarly, newspaper editorials express, in essence, the views of leader writers; at best, the point of view of a party. Both types of source, therefore, mean little without details about local conditions on the one hand, about decision-making processes on the other. Even for the description of events in a western society in 'normal' times, the value of the type of material predominantly represented in these volumes is limited.

How much the more must this be the case for the Russia of 1917! Even traditionally, the paper-work of the St. Petersburg bureaucrats- the innumerable laws and regulations manufactured wholesale in the great government offices situated on the edge of a vast empire-had but a limited relevance for the daily lives of Russia's millions. The real relations of everday life in all groups of society, particularly the indispensable element of general corruption, imposed the narrowest of limits on the effectiveness of any legislative enactment. As for the Petrograd party press, and its views, it probably meant little enough even in 1917.

Bearing in mind these limitations, the legislative achievement of the Provisional Government remains, on the face of it, impressive. In its cumulative effect, this legislation succeeded in establishing throughout Russia what even Lenin recognized as the most democratic order in

Europe. Kerensky himself describes in the following terms the changes introduced by the Provisional Government:

Everything that generations of the Russian people had dreamed about during their century-long struggle for freedom, right and justice was given to Russia at one stroke.... First of all, of course, the Provisional Government granted a full political amnesty and abolished capital punishment ... The government likewise did away with all extraordinary courts, making trial by jury the only form ofjustice for both criminal and political offences; it abolished all religious, national and class limitations; proclaimed full liberty of conscience; restored the independence of the Orthodox Church from the State; introduced completely equal rights for women; immediately called a special commission to draft the electoral law for the Constituent Assembly; abolished punishment by exile; promulgated absolute liberty of the press, union and assembly, and the inviolability of the individual; abrogated all the measures which infringed on the independence of the judicature; urgently drafted new standing orders for the election of urban and rural local authorities, based on universal suffrage and proportional representation; did away with all political and economic discriminatory measures against the peasantry; extended the rural self-government principle down to the 'volost' . . .; re-established the constitution of Finland; proclaimed the independence of Poland; appointed a commission for the introduction of self-government in Lithuania, the Ukraine etc.; reformed the administration of Turkestan and the Caucasus.

GOVERNMENT OF 1917 4II



Nor was this all. The eight hour day was introduced at all the government works and factories, as well as in private undertakings; works' committees were formed; industrial arbitration was instituted; labour representation on the Board of Trade was introduced; a Ministry of Labour was set up; a grain monopoly was established, and prices for essential commodities were fixed; a new law concerning the co- operatives was prepared, which gave the movement exceptional possibilities; the entire military code was revised.3

The present collection of documents illustrates in detail this legislative activity of the Provisional Government. On paper at least, it was an impressive achievement.

However, it is impossible not to ask oneself how effective, in the circumstances of a revolution and following the almost complete destruction (at first de facto and later de jure as well) of the tsarist administration, was all this legislative effort. The Provisional Govern- ment appointed Commissars in the provinces to administer at least part of the powers formerly exercised by the Tsar's Governors. This, however, was far from restoring the old administrative hierarchy. On May 12, the Department of General Affairs in the Ministry of the Interior addressed a Circular to the provincial Commissars:

In many instances it has been observed that the gubernya commissars either fail to answer written queries or telegrams from the Ministry of the Interior, or answer them after considerable delay. I beg you to note that the queries from the Ministry should unfailingly be given an immediate answer; in case it is impossible to give an immediate answer, the causes of the delay should be explained by telegraph.4

Kerensky himself discusses the problem in his autobiography: However, it is easy enough during a revolution, when the inertia of the administrative routine disappears, to promulgate the most perfect laws; especially for a government wielding full legislative and executive power in its own right. It is much more difficult to rule a country stirred by a revolution in the absence of even the most primitive administrative machine. In essence, the problem of revolutionary authority is reduced to one question: the question of confidence.5

Nor did it assist matters that the new Prime Minister and Minister of the Interior, Prince G. E. Lvov, under the inspiration of his curious brand of slavophil-anarchic populist liberalism revealed himself as a convinced believer in initiative from below, unhampered, as far as possible, by interference from above. Thus Miliukov records that when old and new officials from the provinces came to Petrograd to ask for instructions, they received from the Minister of the Interior the same reply as he had given to the press in an interview on 7 March.

3 A. F. Kerensky, The Crucifixion of Liberty (London, I934) pp. 263 f. 4 Quoted in Browder and Kerensky (hereafter quoted as B. and K.), loc. cit. vol. I, p. 254. 5 Kerensky, op. cit. p. 266.

RUSSIAN PROVISIONAL 4I2



This-is a question of the old psychology. The Provisional Government dismissed the old governors but will appoint nobody to replace them. People will hold elections locally. Such matters must be decided not from the centre but by the populations themselves.... We are all boundlessly happy to have lived to see this great moment, to be able to create the new life of the people-not for the people, but together with the people .... The future belongs to the people, which is revealing its genius in these historic days. What happiness to live in these great days.

And, twelve days later, in an interview, the prince repeated these views:

In the sphere of local self-government, the programme of the Provisional Govern- ment is produced by the powerful indications of life itself. In the shape of local public committees and other similar organizations it has already created the germ of democratic local self-government, preparing the population for future reforms. In these committees I see the foundation on which local self-government must be based until the creation of its new organs. The commissars of the Provisional Government sent into the localities have the task not of standing above the evolving organs as superiors, but merely of serving as an intermediate link between them and the central power and of facilitating the process of their organization and institution.

Nor did the experiences of the first two months of office cool Lvov's ardour. On 27 April he declared: 'We may consider ourselves among the happiest of men; our generation is witnessing the happiest period of Russian history'. And he concluded his speech with the words of an American poet: 'Freedom, let others despair of you, I will never doubt you'.6

This attitude of Russia's Minister of the Interior, Miliukov reflects, led in practice to the systematic inaction of his department and to the self-limitation of the central power to a single task, the official sanction- ing of what in the language of 'revolutionary democracy' was called 'revolutionary creation of law'. The population, left to its own devices and deprived of the protection of the central government, had to submit to local committees controlled by different party organizations.7

In these circumstances, it is clear, the legislative activity of the Provisional Government could only be of secondary importance. What mattered was less what was decided in the Petrograd offices than what was done by the local committees. This is a matter which is altogether overlooked in the present collection of documents. The endless and-let the fact be faced-dreary laws of the Provisional Government, expressing good intentions, legalizing at best-in the majority of cases-spontaneously established facts, assume a prominence which they clearly do not deserve. All too rare are the lively, enter- taining and informative accounts of what really went on in Russia at this time, such as the outstandingly interesting extracts from the

6 P. N. Miliukov, Istoriya vtoroi Russkoi Revolutsii (Sofia, 192I) vol. I, p. 67. 7 Ibid. pp. 67 f.

GOVERNMENT OF 1917 413



report compiled by the Provincial Section of the Temporary Com- mittee of the State Duma (based on the report of its local representatives during the first three months of the revolution)8 or the equally fascil- ating reports of government Commissars on rural conditions in different parts of the empire.9 These are among the true sources of Russian history in the times of the Provisional Government: too few of them appear in Kerensky's collection. In fact, of course, the significance of the period of the Provisional Government lies less, as the editors would appear to believe, in Petrograd legislation and newspaper comment, than in the distinctive social and political developments promoted by the relative absence of central government, the spontaneous chaos created by the February Revolution. This period, between the destruction of the rigidly bureaucratic and centralized Tsarist regime and the introduction of the equally rigid Bolshevik soviet organization was (with the doubtful exception of the brief period of freedom following the October Manifesto of I905) the only time in modern Russian history when the Russian people were able to play any significant part in the shaping of their destinies. Without in any way determining the issue of the need or otherwise for extreme centralization resulting from economic, social and political conditions (whether under the Tsars or the Bolsheviks), it can yet be said that the interlude of freedom (a curious mixture of anarchy and new organizational forms arising more or less spontaneously among the Russian people in their economic and social units-though it is only fair to recall that in Russia organized co-operation already had a respectable and eminently successful history) forms one of the most significant and fascinating episodes for the modern Russian political and social historian. Freed from the westernized state of Peter the Great, later to be restored lock stock and barrel by Lenin and his successors, Russian social groups and units were enabled for a brief spell to indulge in spontaneity and experiment. It is no accident that this is the sole period of Russian history (the doubtful precedent of g9o5 apart) when the soviets, as spontaneous organs of proletariat, soldiers (peasants) and intelligentsia enjoyed autonomy and true significance.10

III Mention of the soviets, moreover, draws attention to a further

inevitable shortcoming of the present collection. Kerensky, perhaps understandably, focuses attention on the activities of the Provisional

8 B. and K. pp. 244 if., reprinted from 'Mart-Mai, 1917 goda', Krasny arkhiv XV (I926). 9 B. and K. pp. 587 if., reprinted from M. Martynov, 'Agrarnoye dvizheniye v 1917 godu

po dokumentam Glavnovo Zemelnovo Komiteta', Krasny arkhiv XIV (1926). 10 For the history of the Soviet movement see the outstanding pioneering work of Oskar

Anweiler, Die Ratebewegung in Russland 1905-1921 (Leiden, I958).

RUSSIAN PROVISIONAL 414




Government. By implication at least, his selection and emphasis are based on the assumption that that Government, especially during its first two months of intensive legislative activity, was essentially a free agent. Nothing, of course, could be further from the truth. In speaking of the first turbulent weeks following the February overturn, Kerensky in his autobiography is forced to admit:

Temporarily, the impersonal authority of government institutions had to be replaced by personal influence of such individuals and revolutionary organizations as held indisputable sway over the people. It was only natural that the moral influence of the Soviets upon the workers and soldiers who gathered round them was very great.1'

The celebrated Order No. i of I March had to all intents and purposes transferred political control over the Petrograd garrison-and thus over the 'army of the revolution'-to the Petrograd Soviet. 'The Provisional Government', Guchkov, the new Minister of War wrote on 9 March to General Alexeyev, the commander-in-chief,

has no real power at its disposal. Its orders are obeyed only to the extent that this is permitted by the Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies. The Soviet controls the important elements of real power, troops, railways, post and telegraph com- munications. One could say bluntly that the Provisional Government exists only as long as the Soviet permits. In the military sphere in particular only such orders can now be issued as do not conflict with the orders of the Soviet.12

Only the Petrograd Soviet by calling on the workers (on 5 March) to resume work could end the general strike. Only following a Soviet decision could newspapers be printed once again. On 10 March the employers agreed to the Soviet demand for the introduction of an eight hour day. Workers and soldiers not unnaturally treated the Soviet as the sole authority. Hundreds of questions of detail were referred by them to its Executive Committee.13 As in the capital, so in the provinces. Early in April, a delegate to the first All-Russian Soviet Conference described the situation in his locality:

The Government transfers power to the Commissars, but you know yourselves that the Commissar has no power. With us, for example, it was like this: the day after his appointment, the Commissar came to the Soviet and said: 'Do what you like; I have been elected14-if you support me, I will do my job, if not, I will resign to-morrow'. We said to him: 'If you do your job well, we will support you, otherwise not.'15

11 Kerensky, op. cit. p. 258. 12 QuotedinW. H. Chamberlin, TheRussianRevolution 1917-1921 (NewYork, I952) vol. I, p. 435

(translation revised by the author). 13 Anweiler, op. cit. p. I59 14 Some Commissars were elected and the appointment was merely confirmed by the Ministry

of the Interior. 15 Anweiler, op. cit. p. I70.



And, as is well known, one of the most radical Soviets, that of the naval base of Kronstadt, went further still. On 13 May, its Executive Committee resolved that 'The sole authority in the town of Kronstadt is the Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies which, in matters of state order, acts in direct conjunction with the Petrograd Soviet.' Three days later, a plenary meeting of the Soviet confirmed this resolution.16

The Provisional Government therefore, before it became early in May a coalition embracing the Soviet majority parties, was thus virt- ually powerless. Yet it was precisely during this period that it carried out the bulk of its legislative programme.

. .. the Provisional Government completed almost the whole of its legislative work within the first two months of its existence, that is to say, just before the representatives of'revolutionary democracy' entered the cabinet.17

In the circumstances, it may well be doubted whether the liberal and democratic legislation of the Provisional Government, documented with such loving care by the two editors, had any real meaning at all. The printed text of a law, indeed, loses much of its significance when divorced from the circumstances of both its inception and its application.

The question then may be asked whether the editors, in their selection, give sufficient coverage to the activities of the all-powerful Petrograd Soviet, the all-Russian. Soviet organization and the provincial soviets. There are, indeed, extracts from soviet proceedings; also, at suitable places, from Sukhanov's invaluable record. Yet all this is fragmentary. The emphasis, almost by definition, is on the activities of the Provisional Government. This emphasis, inevitably, is to some extent misleading. It could even be argued, that the editors might have done better to omit all reference to the Soviet except where its existence directly impinged on the Provisional Government, explaining, at the same time, both their reasons for this procedure and the actual relations between the two bodies. As matters stand, it could be claimed that the material about the soviets and their doings is either too little or too much.

IV The same criticism could be made with regard to another important

element in the situation, Lenin's Bolshevik Party. As is well known, the soviets as well as the majority Socialist parties which controlled them, did not for long maintain their dominant position. Their entry into the Provisional Government early in May marked the beginning

16 Ibid . p171. 17 Kerensky, op. cit. p. 262.

416 RUSSIAN PROVISIONAL




of their decline. By the summer, the higher soviet organs as well as the leadership of the majority Socialists had, to some extent, become divorced from the rank and file. The influence lost by the soviet parties passed, to a lesser extent to the bourgeoisie and its representatives, to a greater to Lenin and the Bolsheviks. The July Days in Petrograd revealed the latter as a major political force. Their temporary eclipse, following the suppression of the July movement and the prosecution of some of the leaders as German agents, was of short duration. Follow- ing the failure of Kornilov's attempt to restore 'strong government', the Bolsheviks became potentially the strongest force in Russia, capturing in rapid succession the soviets of the two capitals and gaining wide support among the soldiers at the fronts. The stage was then set for further revolutionary developments.

The two stages in the growth of Bolshevism, the first extending from the proclamation of Lenin's April Theses to the failure of the 'Kerensky offensive' and the July Days, the second from the defeat of Kornilov to the seizure of power in Petrograd, are among the most significant developments of the period covered by the present documents. Their coverage also is fragmentary. This, in part, is inevitable, arising from the editors' frame of reference. Indeed, the departure from the prevalent completely Lenino-centric approach to the events of 1917-one-sided to the point of historical falsification,-is wholly to the good. At the same time, in what purports after all to be a comprehensive survey of the period, the inadequate and sketchy treatment of the Bolshevik Party and its activities is much to be regretted.

There might, in fact, have been a case for excluding from the documents altogether all matter dealing in any detail with the Bolshe- viks and their seizure of power in Petrograd, as only marginally relevant to the purpose of the editors. Indeed such a course, openly proclaimed, might have had something to recommend it. The editors, however, have preferred to complete exclusion a sketchy and in places sum- mary treatment. In a footnote to their section on 'The Bolshevik Seizure of Power and the Last Stand of the Provisional Government'18 they explain:

. . . that this section especially makes no attempt at an extensive coverage of the events of the October revolution, which are carefully documented in the Hoover Institution's publication The Bolshevik Revolution, by Bunyan and Fisher. Their volume is indispensable for a study of this period.19

18 B. and K., pp. I761 ff. 19 Ibid. p. I761 n. 5. It would have been not unreasonable to have mentioned also Oldenbourg's

Le Coup d'Atat Boicheviste among the indispensable sources in a Western language. This work, however, is unaccountably omitted even from the comprehensive bibliography at the end of the third volume.



If this might still be defended, it is hard to justify a further aspect of 'anti-Bolshevik discrimination'. This concerns the extracts from the press of the Russian capital. Whilst there may be differences of opinion about the value in general of this type of evidence, the editors, as has been said, make the fullest use of the extensive newspaper collection available in the Hoover Institution. However, though the political spectrum is, on the whole, fairly represented, this cannot be said for the treatment of the Bolshevik press. The editors explain the reason:

. . . we have purposely given Bolshevik pronouncements less representation in several places, because of their availability elsewhere, as, for example, in the collected works of Lenin in English. In these and other cases where materials of some importance has been omitted, we have indicated where they may be found.20

This is an argument difficult to accept. Where a cross section of press reactions to an event or development is given, it seems wholly arbitrary to omit the Bolshevik view on the ground that it can be found elsewhere, particularly taking into consideration the Bolsheviks' growing importance. Why, for example, are the views on the fall of Riga to the Germans (August 19-21) of Novoye vremya and Russkoye slovo21 more worthy of inclusion than those of the Bolshevik organ? Whilst they certainly help to illustrate the background to the Kornilov movement and have not hitherto been available in English, one at least could have made room with advantage for a Bolshevik pronounce- ment. On the other hand, the plea of availability in English as justifying the exclusion of Bolshevik documents is applied without consistency. What document, for example, is more readily available in English than that listed here as 'The Meeting of the Central Committee of the Bolshevik Party on the Night of October Io, and the Decision to seize Power'?22 It is to be regretted that Lenin's views of the actions of the Provisional Government are not included more frequently in the appropriate places.

V Nevertheless, in spite of some shortcomings, this remains the best

documented and most comprehensive account in the English language -probably in any other as well-of the actions of the Provisional Government, its successes, its difficulties and its failures. That government, in which Kerensky himself played of course a prominent part from the beginning, did indeed lay the legislative and to some extent also the administrative foundations for a democratically governed

20 B. and K. p. xi. 21 B. and K. pp. Io29f. 22 Ibid. pp. 1762 f.

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Russia ruled in a western and liberal spirit. It inaugurated-whether freely or under pressure from below-a policy of social reform which was certain to give both workers and peasants, through the inter- mediary of the Constituent Assembly, the bulk of their economic and social aspirations. The Provisional Government-the slightly unfortunate comparison must be ventured-had set Russia fairly firmly on the road to a 'Weimar Republic'. Such a development involved a further extensive westernization of Russia's political and social system, an advance to a freer society administered in a spirit of democratic socialism. What degree of capitalistic growth-recognized by orthodox Marxists like the Mensheviki as the next and necessary stage in Russian evolution-could have taken place under such a system must remain a matter for speculation. The new Russia, in the end, would have been administered by Socialist Revolutionaries primarily in the interests of the peasantry. At the same time, even during the period of the Provisional Government, both the working- class movement and its socialist spokesmen had already become so radical as to put in jeopardy the possibility of orderly capitalist development. Or was the partial move towards the centre, which marked the development of the Weimar Republic after an early and stormy phase of extremism of left and right, possible in the new Russia as well? It is a question which cannot, of course, be answered.

In any case, the significant fact about the February Revolution and the Provisional Government is precisely this, that there took place no stabilization or consolidation, that the revolution proved continuous, and that it would take no less than five years before a settlement could be achieved and a 'new order' established. To the question why the Provisional Government was unable to create a stable new order, the present collection supplies a large part of the answer. On this account, alone, it constitutes an invaluable source for anyone interested in the study of the period. Browder and Kerensky have deserved well of the students of modern Russian history. Nobody seriously concerned with the problems of the Great Russian Revolution will be able to pass them by.

W. E. MossE

University of Glasgow

GOVERNMENT OF 1917 4I9

