May 18 – May 5, 1917: Coalition Government!

Prince Lvov’s proposal offers six of the fifteen ministerial portfolios to the socialists. The Executive Committee of the Petrograd Soviet voted to accept it, Bolsheviks only voting against.

Lvov was to remain as premier. Kerensky, a Social Revolutionary who was already in the government, took the war ministry; the foreign ministry stayed with the Cadets in the person of Tereshchenko. Socialists got the ministries of labor and of trade and industry, and the Menshevik Tseretilli became minister of posts. No Bolshevik joined the government.

Russia’s allies in the Entente seem to have been pleased. A broader government embracing leaders of the socialist revolution might be better able to keep Russia in the war. This was certainly Kerensky’s intention.

May 17 – May 4, 1917: Trotsky Arrives

Released from a British prisoner of war camp in Canada some weeks before, Trotsky arrives in Petrograd. Among his first acts was speaking against participation in the Provisional Government.

Meanwhile, the First All-Russian Conference of Peasants’ Deputies convenes.

May 13 – April 30, 1917: Miliukov Resigns

Unable to resist backlash for the handling of his policy on the war and annexation (i.e., the Dardanelles), Miliukov resigns his post as Foreign Minister. Guchov, the Minister of War, having refused to sign the Declaration of the Rights of the Soldiers, also resigned his post.

This left some portfolios open for distribution to the socialists who had been invited to join the Provisional Government. Already some of the provincial soviets, including that of Moscow, had declared against participation. On the other hand, some of the soldiers seemed to prefer having a socialist in charge of the war.

May 12 – April 29, 1917: All Russia Bolshevik Party Conference Ends

Besides the resolutions described in prior entries, the conference considered reports and resolutions on the party’s attitude toward the provincial soviets, revisions to its program, the agrarian and nationalities questions, and the current situation of the international proletarian revolution. Stalin delivered the report on the nationalities question. The tsars had made Russia the overlord of numerous peoples; Stalin was becoming the party’s expert on the issues this raised.

The party’s agrarian policy sought to align the peasants in the countryside with the workers in the cities under the Bolshevik banners. It called for confiscation of the landed estates of the nobility, church, and crown, nationalization of the lands, and transfer of the lands to the peasantry under leasehold. The party also undertook to organize the peasants in an independent arm, and support their efforts in existing peasant soviets and land committees.

A new Central Committee was also elected; Lenin, Kamenev, Zinoviev, Stalin, and Sverdlov were among those given seats.

After the April Days, the votes in elections to the soviets begin to shift, favorably to the Bolsheviks.

May 10 – April 27, 1917: Resolution on the War

Satisfied with revisions to the original draft, Lenin speaks in favor of the party’s resolution on the war. Denouncing the war as imperialist, the resolution declared against annexations and indemnities, against “revolutionary defensism,” and, ironically, against a separate peace. Of course, the “democratic peace” the resolution called for could only occur if proletarians in all the belligerent countries held the state power and so agreed. To this end, fraternization with enemy soldiers at the front, already taking place, was encouraged.

Pravda published the resolution on May 12 – April 29.

May 9 – April 26, 1917: Coalition Government?

Prince Lvov – in effect – invites members of the Petrograd Soviet to join the Provisional Government. The actual words of the announcement invite “those active, creative forces of the country” who weren’t already in the government to join it. As we’ll see, the proposal was soon to be acted upon.

May 7 – April 24, 1917: Bolshevik Party Conference

The All-Russia Bolshevik Party Conference called for in the April Theses begins. Neither Stalin nor Kamenev were named to the five-member praesidium.

Lenin spoke against misdirected violence, violence that is not being used as a tactic to further some specific revolutionary strategy. He also presented a resolution “On the Attitude Towards the Provisional Government” that had been adopted by the Petrograd conference of the party. The resolution recognized the government as an organ of the bourgeoisie and landowners, enumerating the programs such as land reform and the eight-hour workday it had failed to act upon or actively resisted. The resolution was published in Pravda on May 10 – April 27.