Order No. 1

Background

Immediately after the February Revolution toppled the Tsarist regime, the Duma Provisional Committee ordered soldiers who had joined the uprising to return to barracks and obey their officers. The soldiers distrusted Rodzianko's Duma, which they viewed as continuous with the old regime, and feared that returning officers would restore the old pattern of beatings and humiliation. In response, the soldiers' section of the Petrograd Soviet drafted the order based on the soldiers' own demands, with Nikolai Sokolov, a lawyer and member of the Soviet Executive Committee, leading the editing.

Provisions

The order mandated that all companies, battalions, regiments, and ships immediately elect committees of lower-rank representatives (§1); subordinated each unit's political actions to the Soviet and its committees (§3); restricted obedience to the Duma Military Commission's orders to those not contradicting the Soviet's decisions (§4); placed all weapons (rifles, machine guns, armored cars) under the control of company and battalion committees, never to be issued to officers upon demand (§5); required strict military discipline on duty while granting full civil rights off duty, abolishing standing at attention and compulsory saluting (§6); and replaced officer titles like 'Your Excellency' with 'Mr. General,' 'Mr. Colonel,' while prohibiting the use of the familiar 'thou' to address soldiers (§7).

Impact and Debate

Though addressed only to the Petrograd garrison, the order spread to the front. Within 48 hours the Executive Committee issued Order No. 2 to limit its scope, in vain. Guchkov and the generals condemned it as the destroyer of army discipline; Menshevik Skobelev defended it as a necessary measure to prevent weapons from being used for counter-revolution after officers had abandoned their units during the uprising. Social Democrat Goldenberg was more candid: 'We had to choose between the army and the revolution. We chose the revolution.' Whether the order alone destroyed the army remains debated, but it indisputably institutionalized dual power in its most concrete form: control of armed force.