War Minister, General Belaiev, who refused to violate his allegiance to the Tsar. The failure of this consultation, which was going on while the Soviet was already formulating its revolutionary programme, led to the formation of the Provisional Committee of the Duma.
Thus the two forces of the Revolution—the Soviet of Workers and Soldiers and the Provisional Committee of the Duma—were formed.
The initiative for the creation of the Provisional Government came from the Duma Committee. The Soviet was consolidating the enormous popular forces which came under its leadership, and had the Duma Committee not taken the initiative in forming the Provisional Government at that moment, it would probably have been formed a day or two later on the initiative of the Soviet.[1] A Government formed on the initiative and under the auspices of the Soviet would certainly have been quite different in spirit, and the fortunes of the Revolution would have been very different in that case. As it was, the Soviet had to formulate the conditions of its adherence to the Provisional Government formed by the Duma Committee.
The succeeding days were marked by an unexampled revolutionary joy and enthusiasm, which caught the moderates no less than the revolutionary workers; it even infected the reactionaries. The whole of Russia was experiencing a kind of spiritual upheaval which
- ↑ In the Supplementary Edition to "Izvestia," No. 1, Feb. 28th (two days before the Provisional Government was formed), a Manifesto of the Russian Social-Democratic Workers' Party "to all Citizens of Russia" clearly indicates that the revolutionaries had the clear idea that they themselves must form a Provisional Government of Russia. "… It is the duty of the working class and of the revolutionary army to create a Provisional Revolutionary Government, which shall lead the newly born Republican order. . . . .
"The workers in the factories and the revolutionary army must at once elect their representatives for the provisional revolutionary government, which must be formed under the protection of the revolutionary people and army who have risen against the old order."
