The room barely accommodated us: the entire Duma was on hand. Rodzianko and the Elders sat behind a table. Around them sat and stood, crowding, the others in a dense mob. Frightened, excited, somehow spiritually clinging to one another. Even enemies of Jong standing suddenly sensed that there was something which was equally dangerous, threatening, repulsive to them all. That something was the street, the street mob.… One could feel its hot breath.… With the street approached She to whom very few then gave any thought, but whom, certainly, very many unconsciously sensed. That is why they were pale, their hearts secretly constricted. Surrounded by a crowd of many thousands, on the street stalked Death …61
After a chaotic discussion, in the course of which proponents of immediate assumption of power by the Elders clashed with the more cautious adherents of legitimacy, it was decided to form an executive of twelve Duma members, still of a “private” nature, to be known as the “Provisional Committee of Duma Members for the Restoration of Order in the Capital and the Establishment of Relations with Individuals and Institutions.” Chaired by Rodzianko, it initially consisted of representatives of the Progressive Bloc with the addition of two socialists (Kerensky and Chkheidze)—a coalition that extended from the moderate Nationalists to the Mensheviks. The ludicrously cumbersome name given the organization reflected the timidity of its organizers. The revolutionary upheaval which they had so long anticipated had caught them unprepared: experienced at dueling with ministers they had no idea how to handle raging mobs. They did not even know how to claim power. The writer Zinaida Gippius, observing the timidity of the Duma leaders and contrasting it with the resolute behavior of the radical intelligentsia in the Soviet, remarked in her diary on the psychological inhibition that held them back:
36. Provisional Committee of the Duma. Sitting on extreme left, V. N. Lvov, and on extreme right, M. Rodzianko. Standing on extreme left, V. V. Shulgin, and second from right, A. F. Kerensky.
They could only ask “legitimate authority.” The Revolution has abolished this authority without their participation. They did not overthrow it: they have only mechanically remained on the surface, on top—passively, without a prior arrangement. But they are naturally powerless because they cannot take power—it must be given to them and given from above. Until they feel invested with power, they cannot exercise it.62
It has been argued63 that the failure of the Duma to proclaim at once, in an unequivocal manner, the assumption of power had disastrous consequences because it deprived the Provisional Government which issued from it of legitimacy. However, such importance as one can attach to this fact derives less from the legal aspects of sovereignty, which the population at large did not care about, than from the mentality which it revealed—namely, a dread of responsibility. An eyewitness says that the Duma group decided to constitute its Provisional Committee in an atmosphere not unlike that in which, in normal times, the Duma might have appointed a Fisheries Committee.64 The onetime head of the Petrograd Okhrana, A. V. Gerasimov, thought that in adhering to the fiction that it was not taking power, but forming a private body to deal with the disorders, the Duma leaders wanted also to protect themselves against criminal prosecution in the event that the crown succeeded in suppressing the rebellion—for in the course of the day they were apprised of the approach of General Ivanov’s punitive expedition.65
A Polish proverb has it that where there are no fish crayfish will do. In the eyes of the Petrograd mob, the Duma was the government, and from February 27 to March 1 numerous deputations made their way to Taurida to pledge support and loyalty. Among them were not only workers, soldiers, and intellectuals but also thousands of officers, the military units guarding the Imperial palaces, and, strangest sight of all, a detachment of the Corps of Gendarmes, which marched to Taurida to the strains of the “Marseillaise” bearing red flags.66 On March 1, Grand Duke Cyril Vladimirovich, the commandant of the Palace Guard at Tsarskoe Selo and a cousin of Nicholas, announced that he and his men acknowledged the authority of the Provisional Government.* 67
The sudden shift of sentiment on the part of the most illiberal elements of Petrograd society—right-wing officers, gendarmes, policemen—who only a few days before were pillars of the monarchy, can only be explained by one factor: fear. Shulgin, who was in the thick of events, had no doubt that the officers in particular were paralyzed with it and sought the protection of the Duma to save their lives from the mutinous troops.68
The Provisional Committee sent cables to the commanders of the armed forces informing them that to put an end to the crisis of authority it had assumed power from the old cabinet. Order would soon be restored.69
In the evening, Rodzianko visited Prime Minister Golitsyn to inquire whether the Tsar would consent to the formation of a Duma ministry. Golitsyn told him of Nicholas’s negative answer. When Rodzianko returned with this information to Taurida at 10 p.m. there followed lengthy discussions in the Provisional Committee which led to the inexorable conclusion that there was no choice but to assume de facto governmental authority. The alternative was either the complete collapse of order or the assumption of power by a rival and radical body, the Petrograd Soviet, which had come into existence the very same day.70
The revival of the Petrograd Soviet was first discussed by the Mensheviks on February 25, but the initiative came from two members of the Central Workers’ Group, who, having been jailed in January on orders of Protopopov, were freed by the insurgent mob on the morning of February 27: K. A. Gvozdev, its chairman, and B. O. Bogdanov, its secretary, both Mensheviks. An appeal was issued to the soldiers, workers, and other inhabitants of Petrograd to elect representatives to an organizing meeting of the Soviet that evening at Taurida. It was signed: “The Provisional Executive Committee of the Soviet of Worker Deputies.”71 This allowed almost no time for elections, and when the meeting opened that night few elected representatives were on hand. Although according to some accounts as many as 250 people showed up, most were onlookers; only forty to fifty were considered eligible to vote.72 The meeting chose a Provisional Executive Committee, or Ispolkom, of eight or nine persons, mostly Mensheviks: Chkheidze took over as chairman, with Kerensky and M. I. Skobelev as deputies. Since no protocols were kept, it cannot be established exactly what transpired. Some soldiers spoke and it was decided to admit soldiers into the Soviet in a separate section. There followed discussions of the food problem, of the need to create a militia to maintain order. It was resolved to publish Izvestiia as the official organ of the Soviet and to ask the Provisional Committee to withhold funds from the Imperial authorities by taking charge of the State Bank and other fiscal institutions.73
37. Troops of the Petrograd garrison assembling in front of the Winter Palace to swear loyalty to the Provisional Government.
38. A sailor removing an officer’s epaulettes.
On February 28 the factories and military units elected representatives to the Soviet. They chose overwhelmingly moderate socialists: the extremist parties (Bolsheviks, SR Maximalists, and Mezhraiontsy) received between them less than 10 percent of the votes.74 Voting procedures were chaotic: they followed the traditional practices of Russian popular assemblies, which strove to secure not a mathematically accurate representation of individual opinions but a sense of the collective will. Small shops sent as many representatives as large factories, army units from regiments down to companies did likewise, with the result that the Soviet was overwhelmed by delegates from small enterprises and the garrison. In the second week of its existence, of the Soviet’s 3,000 deputies more than 2,000 were soldiers75—this in a city in which industrial workers outnumbered soldiers two or three times. In photographs of the Soviet, military uniforms dominate.