The orator ground away between revolution and counter-revolution
In March 1917, taking the rostrum of the Petrograd Soviet to announce his acceptance of the Justice Ministry, he cried: "I cannot live without the people. In the moment you begin to doubt me, then kill me!" The workers and soldiers filling the hall erupted in wild applause.
The face of the Provisional Government and its last premier. In August 1917 he armed even the jailed Bolsheviks to stop Kornilov; in October, no army anywhere would come to save him. The story of his escaping in a dress is a Soviet fabrication. He spent half a century in exile lecturing on what had gone wrong, and died in New York.
Career Timeline
- 1912–17Duma deputy (Trudovik); famed defence lawyer in political trials
- 1917.3Justice Minister: amnesty, abolition of the death penalty
- 1917.5War Minister: the failed June offensive
- 1917.7–10Premier: the Kornilov affair; overthrown in October
- 1918–70Exile in Paris and New York: writing and lecturing
Related historical events
- 1917.02–07The February RevolutionFace of the Provisional GovernmentMoving between the Soviet and the Provisional Government, he rose from justice minister to war minister to premier in July, yet solved neither the war nor the land question.
- 1917.10–1918.01The October RevolutionHead of the Provisional GovernmentHe left the capital on the day of the insurrection and attempted a counterattack with Krasnov's forces, but after defeat at Pulkovo went into exile.
- 1918–1922The Civil War and Foreign InterventionAnti-Soviet emigre politicianImmediately after the October rising he tried and failed to retake Petrograd with Krasnov's Cossacks, then campaigned from exile for foreign intervention.
Half a Century in Exile — From Paris to New York
Kerensky left Russia in 1918, not in a nurse's dress, the Soviet fabrication, but via Pskov and weeks in hiding, and reached France. Throughout the Civil War he supported neither the Bolsheviks nor the Whites, viewing both as enemies of Russian democracy. In Paris he edited the émigré newspaper Dni (Дни) and wrote memoirs and histories including The Prelude to Bolshevism (1919), The Catastrophe (1927), and The Crucifixion of Liberty (1934). When Nazi Germany invaded France in 1940, he fled to the United States. There he spent much of his time at Stanford's Hoover Institution, where he both used and contributed to its vast Russian archive and taught graduate courses. He settled in New York City, continuing to write, broadcast, and lecture. His last public lecture was at Kalamazoo College, Michigan, in October 1967. Kerensky died at St. Luke's Hospital in New York on 11 June 1970, aged 89. Both the Russian and Serbian Orthodox churches in New York refused burial rites, citing his Freemasonry and blaming him for the Bolshevik seizure of power. His body was flown to London and buried at the non-denominational Putney Vale Cemetery. To the end he insisted that February 1917 had been a democratic promise betrayed.