Within the Duma, liberals hoped that the czar would institute reforms that would make the executive responsible to the legislature, along the lines of west- ern parliamentary systems. But instead of replacing the minister of war with one of the liberals, the czar took that post himself. Although he refused to make the ministries answerable to the Duma, the czar did dismiss some of the most reactionary ministers and empowered a War Industries Committee to take over central control of weapons production, which seemed a step in the right direc- tion. After the assassination of Rasputin, however, the czar and czarina went into seclusion, apparently emotionally shattered by the news that members of the extended royal family had been involved in the murder. Then, at the beginning of 1917, the liberals found that their hopes to reduce the power of the czar seemed further undermined by new disorders that could serve as an excuse for him to enhance his grip on the state.
A wave of strikes in the capital and elsewhere broke out in January and early February 1917. Agitation by both Menshevik and Bolshevik Social Demo- crats and possibly by German agents among the factory workers of Petrograd attempted to turn the popular discontent over economic conditions into revo- lutionary fervor. However, the regime had dealt with strikes and protests before, and the czar and his ministers did not view the disturbances very seriously.
The fall of the monarchy, known as the February Revolution, came about so quickly and spontaneously that it almost seemed accidental. The strikes in Petrograd did not turn particularly violent at first, and, on February 22, the czar left the capital to return to the general headquarters at Mogilev, leaving instructions with the minister of interior to disperse the last remaining strik- ers. The Petrograd army garrison had become a sort of staging area for raw peasant recruits prior to their further training and shipment to the front. The interior minister, A. D. Protopopov, demonstrated his incompetence by ignor- ing warnings that the large garrison of troops in Petrograd, mostly poorly trained and ill-disciplined, could not be trusted. Even so, Protopopov refused to work closely with the czar’s secret police, the Okhrana, who had experience
in breaking revolutionary organizations and strikes, and chose to rely on the demoralized and raw garrison troops for security.
When Protopopov ordered the Petrograd garrison troops to march on the strikers on February 27, they refused. Four regiments of troops mutinied and shot a few of their officers who tried to stop them. The armed but disorganized soldiers joined the workers in the streets, then seized armories and provided more arms to the massed civilians. Within days the city police could no longer control the partially armed mobs, and groups of soldiers turned their machine guns, armored cars, and rifles on the weak police forces. The rebelling troops broke into the prisons and city jails, freeing political prisoners as well as common criminals. During these armed clashes, the first meeting of the Petrograd Soviet, or council of workers and soldiers dominated by socialists of the various wings of those parties, convened. The ministers of government fled their offices, in fear that the rioters would wreak their anger on them.
The czar heard of these difficulties, and, from Mogilev, he ordered the Duma dissolved, apparently believing the liberal leaders in that body responsible for the crisis. A small group of representatives in the Duma defied the order, and, when they heard that the czar planned to return to Petrograd with loyal troops, the rump group of the Duma demanded that the czar abdicate. Railway workers cooperated by shunting the czar’s train aside. Within a few days, the czar agreed to the demands of the Duma. He named Prince Lvov as prime minister and abdicated at the same time. He named his only son, the czarevich Alexis, the young boy with hemophilia, as his successor, with the provision that the czar’s brother, Mikhail Aleksandrovich, should be regent until the son came of age. He later altered the succession so that the crown was to go directly to his brother. In a passionate statement, he abdicated officially on March 3, 1917 (in the older Julian calendar, but March 16 in the western or Gregorian calendar). The Petro- grad Soviet and the Duma agreed that the crown should pass to the czar’s brother, Mikhail, but Mikhail refused, at the urging of Alexander Kerensky and others of the Duma. Mikhail indicated he would serve if called by an official constituent assembly, but in the meantime he refused to assume the “Supreme Power.” Sud- denly, as the result of a few days of rioting and disorder and chaotic meetings of the Duma, the monarchy had ended. Surprisingly, the Russian Revolution that destroyed the monarchy had cost only 169 people killed and another 996 wounded. Far worse casualties followed, however.
Almost as suddenly as the collapse of the czar’s rule, two governing bodies replaced the monarchy: the Petrograd Soviet and a Temporary Committee of the Duma. Together they agreed in supporting a Provisional Government. The only member of the Duma to be a member of the Soviet was the popular socialist lawyer Alexander Kerensky. The Petrograd Soviet appointed him as one of two vice-chairmen, and he served the Provisional Government first as minister of justice and later in other posts. He readily worked as a liaison between the Soviet and the Duma over the next months. His reputation as a defender of political dissidents and wrongly accused victims of the czar’s secret police had earned him support among both liberals and socialists, and, as an effective speaker, he seemed an ideal go-between for the liberals and others in the Duma and the Soviet, dominated by Social Revolutionaries, Mensheviks, and Bolsheviks. Prince Lvov served as the first chairman of the council of ministers in the Provisional Govern- ment. Despite his initial popularity and his position in both the Duma and in the Soviet, Kerensky soon made political enemies on every side.
From March to November 1917, the uneasy balance of power contin- ued between the Petrograd Soviet, increasingly supported by other urban and regional soviets, and the Duma. The revolution that established the Provisional Government seemed to observers in the West to represent the replacement of the monarchy by a republic of sorts. Many signs of liberal reform gave credence to that view, such as increasing freedom of the press, labor reforms, and promises of equality for women. From Britain, Lloyd George congratulated Prince Lvov, noting that Russia now stood with the nations that based their institutions on responsible government, allowing him to characterize the war as one of a fight for freedoms against Prussian military autocracy. During the next few months, the Bolshevik leaders Lenin and Leon Trotsky, both in exile overseas, returned to Russia to be a part of the revolutionary situation.
Lenin traveled from Switzerland in a sealed train, with the permission of the German authorities. Although his enemies used that fact to suggest that Lenin actually worked for the Germans, his trip had been funded by several Bolshe- viks who had made fortunes using their underground connections to arrange the smuggling of western products into wartorn Russia. When Lenin arrived in Petrograd, an enthusiastic crowd greeted him at the Finland Station of the railway. After his impassioned speech, they seemed eager for him to seize power and install the proletariat revolution. Lenin, however, held back, seeking better timing.