Coalition Government (Russian Provisional Government, 1917)

History

The first Provisional Government of March 1917 was not a coalition. The Soviet Executive Committee gave it conditional support but voted against participation in the cabinet, and only Kerensky, loosely affiliated with the Socialist Revolutionaries, took a post, as Minister of Justice.

Coalition began after the April Crisis. Demonstrations over Foreign Minister Milyukov's note on war aims forced the resignations of Milyukov and War Minister Guchkov; the Provisional Government then proposed a coalition to the Petrograd Soviet, and agreement was reached on 22 April 1917. The entry of socialist ministers followed in May, forming the first coalition government. Wikipedia dates the agreement to 22 April 1917, while Peeling places the establishment of the coalition in May 1917.

The coalition was shaken again in July. On 2 July [15 July] the Kadet ministers resigned over the government's concessions to Ukrainian nationalists, leaving Lvov's government in disarray. After the July Days, Kerensky became Prime Minister on 21 July and Lvov resigned; on 24 July (6 August) a new cabinet composed mostly of socialists was formed with Kerensky at its head.

After the Kornilov revolt, in September 1917 Kerensky put together a third coalition that lacked the firm support of any major political group. It was the last government before the Bolsheviks seized power in October.

Examples

In the first coalition Kerensky became Minister of War, joined by the SR leader Chernov as Minister of Agriculture and the Mensheviks Skobelev (Minister of Labour) and Tsereteli (Minister of Post and Telegraph). Milyukov was succeeded at Foreign Affairs by Tereshchenko, an unaffiliated liberal industrialist.

The government deferred land reform to the Constituent Assembly while peasant land seizure spread, and its continued war effort alienated the war-weary population and army.

Distinctions

The coalitions operated within a system of dual power, in which the Petrograd Soviet held the only real authority over workers and soldiers, undermining the government. Commitment to the war "irrevocably tainted the government in the eyes of many", and the war can be considered both the midwife and the executioner of the Provisional Government.

The coalitions adopted the Soviet's line of Revolutionary Defencism: pursuing a general peace without annexations or indemnities while fighting to defend the country and the revolution. Socialist ministers, under fire from their left-wing Soviet associates, were driven to a double-faced policy, while the government, influenced by its "bourgeois" ministers, tried to base itself on the right wing of the Soviet.