foundations of justice’ by the government.
Those who had organized the protest were accused both of contempt of court and the Russian government and of attempting to influence the outcome of an ongoing trial. The government attempted to deprive Kerensky of his immunity from prosecution as a Duma deputy, and the minister of justice, Ivan Shcheglovitov, informed the chairman of the Duma that Kerensky was required in court to face criminal charges. The Duma Commission on Personnel Matters decided by a majority vote that Kerensky could not be expelled from the Duma.106 In June 1914 the court reached its verdict in the case of the Petersburg lawyers, and Kerensky was sentenced to eight months’ imprisonment. He continued, however, to be protected by his immunity as a deputy. Banquets were organized in his honour, telegrams of greetings were sent to him, and like-minded deputies gave the leader of the Trudoviks a standing ovation in the Duma.107 Kerensky’s biographers write about this episode but do not always mention his parliamentary privilege, which might have given readers the impression that he had actually been in prison for that length of time.
Kerensky’s attitude to the First World War was of great importance for his career, but some biographers simply omit to mention it. In 1917 Russian society was completely split over this issue, so, for any statesman seeking to create a broad political coalition, being pinned down on the matter could only have adverse consequences. In his memoirs, Kerensky describes his position as simultaneously defencist and revolutionary. These apparently contradictory positions he reconciled on the basis that it was essential to overthrow the tsarist government because it was not competent to win the war.108
It was impossible for him to adopt that position publicly. Nevertheless, as leader of the Trudovik group, he had no option but to state his position on the war at an emergency meeting of the State Duma on 26 July 1914. In his speech Kerensky declared:
Citizens of Russia, remember that you have no enemies among the working classes of the belligerent countries. Defending to the utmost everything you hold dear from attempts to seize it, remember that this terrible war would not have come about if liberty, equality and fraternity were guiding the actions of the governments of all countries. All you who desire the happiness and prosperity of Russia, heighten your resolve, summon up all your strength and, having successfully defended your country, liberate it. To you, our brothers, shedding your blood for your own motherland, we bow low and send fraternal greetings!
It was a skilfully constructed speech, acceptable to the radical intelligentsia because its call to defend the country could be read as a signal to liberate it politically. The patriotic pathos of the speech earned Kerensky applause from all sides of the Duma. Indeed, his speech was interrupted by applause, in which even right-wing deputies joined.109
In the course of devising autobiographical sources of legitimation in 1917, Kerensky could not avoid the topic of the war, and when it was tactically to his advantage he could even present himself as an internationalist. Addressing the First All-Russia Congress of Soviets on 4 June, he declared, ‘From the very beginning of the war, at the first session of the State Duma on 20 July 1914, we and the Social Democrats in Russia were the first – remember this – the only parties in Europe to vote publicly against military appropriations.’ This claim was greeted with applause.110 Remembering the past in this manner was what that particular audience at that particular moment wanted to hear.
Kerensky publicly condemned chauvinism and criticized all the governments of Europe for unleashing war, but, most importantly, he never omitted to harshly attack the Russian government. He did not exclude the possibility of a civil truce within the country but made it conditional on the introduction of a whole raft of reforms. At other times he was more radical. His Trudovik colleague Vladimir Stankevich, who was close to him, described Kerensky’s position as ‘contributing to the war effort by criticizing the government.’ Kerensky was influenced by the decisions of the Zimmerwald International Socialist Conference held in September 1915, and he would often use the phraseology of the internationalists, even while remaining a defencist who never stopped opposing the government. When it was to his advantage Kerensky would even describe himself as ‘a left-wing Zimmerwaldian’. This was untrue, although some of his contemporaries did believe he was opposed to the war.111 Depending on the situation, seeking to create the widest possible coalition against the government, Kerensky could express different views, adapting what he said to his audience.
At illegal meetings Kerensky found himself under pressure from radically minded Socialist Revolutionaries who were conducting anti-war propaganda, and would use words they would find persuasive. With time, however, his differences with the internationalist wing of the Socialist Revolutionaries became more marked.112 He wanted to create a ‘red’ or ‘left’ bloc uniting all socialists, whatever their attitude to the war.113 In his public speeches he took every opportunity to denounce the government – common ground for all the forces he was trying to bring together.
Together with Nikolai Sokolov, Kerensky organized the legal defence of five Bolshevik deputies of the Duma who had been arrested in November 1914. From the tribune of the Duma he protested against the arrest of ‘our comrades’ and headed a group of radical lawyers who defended these Social Democrats in court. He continued subsequently to demand the release of ‘the five’.114 The celebrated memoirist Nikolai Sukhanov, a Menshevik internationalist, recalled that Kerensky behaved like a professional revolutionary. He used his trips around the country as a Duma deputy for illegal work, delivering public lectures, helping to organize opposition, supporting it with funds provided by his liberal friends. This was not something which could remain unnoticed. The right-wing politician Nikolai Tikhmenev wrote: ‘The revolutionaries’ leaders, the likes of Kerensky, are busily travelling round Russia delivering talks and lectures, and in the meantime evidently arranging a bit of this and a bit of that. Financed by murky sources, new social-democratic newspapers are popping up like bubbles out of the mud in provincial towns. The insolence of the “progressive” press is on the increase.’115 Kerensky’s opponents in the Duma may have exaggerated the scope and results of his activities, but his renown was increasing all the time. His connections with those in the underground, and his reputation as someone with those links, were of importance to him during the events of February 1917.
Kerensky, as we have noted, did not confine his illegal activity only to supporting Socialist Revolutionaries. Meetings aimed at bringing about unity among the left-wing organizations took place in his own apartment. On 16–17 July 1915 a conference of representatives of the Narodnik groups of Petrograd (as St Petersburg had been renamed at the outbreak of war), Moscow and the provinces was held there. The police considered Kerensky to be the prime mover of this meeting, at which a central bureau was established to coordinate the activities of the Trudoviks, the People’s Socialists and the Socialist Revolutionaries. Disagreements on the issue of the war, together with police harassment, prevented the union from becoming a reality. Meetings of the capital’s Socialist Revolutionaries also took place in Kerensky’s apartment, as the secret police were well aware. In July 1915, police posts on the Russo-Finnish border received a secret order advising them that Kerensky was travelling around the empire, ‘engaging in anti-government activity’. They were instructed to keep him under observation. After the revolution this document was put up at Beloostrov railway station at the Finnish border for the public to see, as publications supportive of Kerensky duly reported.116
The police exaggerated the role of the Trudovik leader in organizing protest. A report from the director of the Police Department linked the strikes of summer 1915 to Kerensky’s propaganda activity, claiming he had called for the establishment of factory collectives to form soviets along the lines of those which had appeared in 1905. In the report Kerensky was named as ‘the principal leader of the current revolutionary movement’. In reality, Kerensky and Chkheidze had urged the workers not to waste their energy on individual strikes but to prepare for future decisive action against the regime. After February 1917, police assessments of this kind, even if factually erroneous, were all to the good of the reputation of the champion of freedom. Newspapers published such documents, provided by Kerensky’s supporters who had the archives under their control. His biographers readily quoted from them.117
Kerensky’s