Alexander Kerensky

From The Last Years of H. M. Hyndman by Rosalind Travers Hyndman, 1924

What had been happening in Russia ? There was a brief, promising period while Plechanoff was Minister of Labour, and Kerensky Prime Minster, when light, and division of function, appeared to be creating themselves out of the formless void of a huge bankrupt Empire. The peasantry were quietly attending to their own business, getting hold of the land by a brisk expropriation of the aristocracy on all sides. Bt, in spite of the Soldier�s and Workmen�s Councils, the army was very much the same as before ; and, what is worse, a great many spies, agent-provocateurs and Black Hundred men, abruptly thrown out of work by the Revolution, rejoicingly found well-paid jobs with the Bolsheviks.

Matters grew desperate when the leaders of the Bolsheviks, having been lightly sentenced, were set free again, and when Kerensky and Korniloff quarreled. After that we watched Russian affairs, merely hoping that the catastrophe would happen soon and clear the air. And it did.

The Petrograd �Soviet,� assisted by the army, overthrew the Kerensky Government, and arrested nearly all the members of it, except Kerensky, who escaped.

Thereupon some kind of governing body crystallized round the persons of Lenin as Premier and Trotsky as Foreign Minister. This body, called �the Soviet� by some and �the Bolshevist Dictatorship� by others, has always appeared to be in the most frightfully unstable equilibrium, and everyone, including my dear husband, at first said that it couldn�t last a week, a month, or a year long. But it did. Russia may cease to exist s a State, and the Russian people may be nearly all exterminated, yet so long as food, clothing and some kind of amusement for the Red Army can be got, Trotsky and Lenin will hang on to power. Was the success of the Bolshevists due only to �contributory negligence� on Kerensky�s part, or to something more ?

Who can yet tell ? Kerensky came to see us several times in 1918 . . . Hyndman was most anxious to help him, as an individual, and as a possible means of overthrowing the Bolshevists, but in both capacities he was difficult for English people to work with, since he always seemed to be acting upon the dictates of an irresponsible, or at least unaccountable, inner voice. Apparently, during the time that Hyndman was in touch with him, he missed two good opportunities of winning the sympathy of English Labour by sheer caprice. My husband said that he was �as instinctive as a woman, and no arguments were of the least avail ; but he certainly had a genius somewhere.� However, this did not come when called upon. We found his friend and supported, Dr. J. O. Gavronsky, far more comprehensible ; indeed Hyndman had a very high opinion of his judgment, and remained in touch with him long after Kerensky had left the country. . . . .

. . . Russian politicians, be they of the extreme Right or the furthest Left, often seem to have a peculiar power of fighting two apparently contradictory campaigns at once, and secretly treating the ally as an enemy, and the enemy as an ally. Such was the policy of the Bolshevists towards the German invaders of Finland ; and the famous traitor, Azeff, while feigning to serve the Revolutionaries as a spy among the Tsar�s officials, did for a little while deliver objectionable Tsarists into the hands of Terrorists, and Terrorists themselves into the hands of the Imperial power almost alternately. It is possible that Kerensky may have tried, in the interest of the Provisional Government, to play an equally daring double game with Lenin.

Comment   I do not know if this has been proved beyond doubt, but such a theory accounts for (a) Lenin�s escape in July 1917 and (b) Kerensky�s escape in October 1917. — (WPT).

New York : Brentano�s, 1924, pages 150 � 152.

From The World Crisis, Winston S. Churchill, 1929

The Czar had abdicated on March 15, 1917. The Provisional Government of Liberal and Radical statesmen was almost immediately recognized by the principal Allied Powers. . . . The Council of Soldiers and Workmen�s deputies at Petrograd, so prominent in the revolution, the parent and exemplar of all the soviets which were sprouting throughout Russia, maintained a separate existence and policy. It appealed to the world in favour of peace without annexations or indemnities ; it developed its own strength and connections and debated and harangued on first principles almost continuously. From the outset a divergence of aim was apparent between this body and the Provisional Government. The object of the Petrograd Council was to undermine all authority and discipline ; the object of the Provisional Government was to preserve both in new and agreeable forms. On a deadlock being reached between the rivals, Kerensky, a moderate member of the Council, sided with the Provisional Government and became Minister of Justice. Meanwhile the extremists lay in the midst of the Petrograd Council, but did not at first dominate it. All this was in accordance with the regular and conventional Communist plan of fostering all disruptive movements, especially of the Left and of pushing them continually further until the moment for the forcible supersession of the new government is ripe.

The Provisional Ministers strutted about the Offices and Palaces and discharged in an atmosphere of flowery sentiments their administrative duties. . .  Meanwhile the Germans, and farther south the Austrians and the Turks, were battering upon the creaking and quivering fronts by every known resource of scientific war. The statesmen of the Allied nations affected to believe that all was for the best and that the Russian revolution constituted a notable advantage for the common cause.

In the middle of April the Germans took a somber decision. Ludendorff refers to it with bated breath. Full allowance must be made for the desperate stakes to which the German war leaders were already committed. They were in the mood which had opened unlimited submarine warfare with the certainty of bringing the United States into the war against them. Upon the Western front they had from the beginning used the most terrible means of offence at their disposal. They had employed poison gas on the largest scale and had invented the �Flammenwerfer.� Nevertheless it was with a sense of awe that they turned upon Russia the most grisly of all weapons. They transported Lenin in a sealed truck like a plague bacillus from Switzerland into Russia. Lenin arrived at Petrograd on April 16. Who was this being in whom there resided these dire potentialities ? Lenin was to Karl Marx what Omar was to Mahomet. . . . 

New York : Charles Scribner's Sons, vol. v, 1929, pages 61 - 63.

From Russia and History's Turning Point by Alexander Kerensky, 1965

Our European allies . . . knew, as Winston Churchill has said in his The Unknown War,⁴⁴ that victory would have been impossible without Russia. They knew that, as a result of the failure of the Allied offensive under Nivelle in the spring of 1917, the fighting capacity of the Anglo-French armies had been quite paralyzed. They new that the summer and autumn operations of the Russian armies in that year had saved the Western Front and upset the plan of the German General Staff to crush the Allies before the arrival of help from the United States.

Yet, knowing all this, the Allied governments established contact with those who were conspiring to replace the legal Russian Government by a dictatorship. Why did they do this? I did not learn the answer until long after I had left Russia forever.

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      ⁴⁴ Winston Churchill, The Unknown War (New York, C. Scribner�s Sons, 1931).

New York : Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1965, pages 390-1.

The Truth about communism [videorecording] Publisher Chicago, IL : International Historic Films, 1985. Description 1 videocassette (30 min.) : sd., b&w; 1/2 in. Series Historic film classics ;284

Kerensky, Aleksandr Fyodorovich, 1881-1970. Title The catastrophe : Kerensky's own story of the Russian Revolution / by Alexander F. Kerensky. Publisher New York : Kraus Reprint, 1977. Description xi, 376, [1] p. : port. ; 24 cm. Language English Note Reprint of New York ; London : D. Appleton, 1927 ed.

Bulygin, Paul. Title The murder of the Romanovs : the authentic account / by Paul Bulygin. Including The road to the tragedy / by Alexander Kerensky ; with an introd. by Sir Bernard Pares. Publisher Westport, Conn. : Hyperion Press, 1975, c1935. Description 286 p., [16] leaves of plates : ill. ; 23 cm. ISBN 0883551837 Language English Note "Translated from the Russian by Gleb Kerensky." Reprint of the ed. published by R. M. McBride, New York. Includes index.

Kerensky, Aleksandr Fyodorovich, 1881-1970. Title The crucifixion of liberty, by Alexander Kerensky. Translated by G. Kerensky. Publisher New York, Kraus Reprint, 1972. Description 406 p. Language English Note Reprint: New York, The John Day company [c1934].

Kerensky, Aleksandr Fyodorovich, 1881-1970. Title The crucifixion of liberty, by Alexander Kerensky. Translated by G. Kerensky. Publisher New York, Haskell House [1972, c1934] Description p. ISBN 083831421X Language English

Kerensky, Aleksandr Fyodorovich, 1881-1970. Title The Kerensky memoirs: Russia and history's turning point, by Alexander Kerensky. Publisher London, Cassell, 1966. Description xvi, 558 p. front., 8 plates (incl. ports.) 23 cm. Language English Note First published in 1965 under title: Russia and history's turning point.

An introduction to Alexander Kerensky [motion picture] / sponsors, Mills College, San Francisco Foundation ; director, Dave Butler. Publisher United States : [Mills College], [1965]. Description 1 reel of 1 (27 min.) (954 ft.) : opt sd., b&w ; 16 mm. Language English

Kerensky, Aleksandr Fyodorovich, 1881-1970. Title Russia and history's turning point, Publisher New York, Duell, Sloan and Pearce [1965] Description xvi, 558 p. illus., ports. 24 cm.

Browder, Robert Paul, 1921-, Title The Russian Provisional Government, 1917: documents, selected and edited by Robert Paul Browder and Alexander F. Kerensky. Publisher Stanford, Calif., Stanford University Press, 1961. Description 3 v. (xxx, 1875 p.) 25 cm.

Kerensky, Aleksandr Fyodorovich, 1881-1970. Title L'exp�rience Kerenski. Publisher Paris, Payot, 1936. Description 2 p.l., [7]-183, [1] p. 23 cm. Series Collection d'etudes, de documents et de temoignages pour servir a l'histoire de notre temps Language French

Novai︠a︡ Rossii︠a︡ = La Russie nouvelle. Publisher Paris : [s.n.], 1936-1940. Description 84 v. ; 31 cm. Language Russian Note "Dvukhnedelʹnyĭ zhurnal pod redakt︠s︡ieĭ A.F. Kerenskogo."

Bulygin, Paul. Title The murder of the Romanovs : the authentic account / by Paul Bulygin. Including The road to the tragedy / by Alexander Kerensky ; with an introd. by Sir Bernard Pares. Publisher London : Hutchinson , 1935. [ and New York, R. M. McBride & company, 1935 ] Description 286 p. : ill., facsims. ; 24 cm. Language English Note "Translated from the Russian by Gleb Kerensky." Includes index.

Kerensky, Aleksandr Fyodorovich, 1881-1970. Title The crucifixion of liberty, by Alexander Kerensky; translated by G. Kerensky. Publisher New York : The John Day company, [c1934] Description 4 p. l., 3-406 p., 1 l. 21 cm.

Kerensky, Aleksandr Fyodorovich, 1881-1970. Title The crucifixion of liberty, by Alexander Kerensky. Translated by G. Kerensky. Publisher London, A. Barker, 1934. Description 368p. illus.

Kerensky, Aleksandr Fyodorovich, 1881-1970. Uniform Title [ Catastrophe. French] Title La re�volution Russe, 1917 / Alexandre Kerenski ; e�dition franc̜aise e�tablie par les soins de l'auteur, suivie d'un tableau chronologique des principaux e�ve�nements. Publisher Paris : Payot, 1928. Description 399 p. ; 23 cm. Series Collection de me�moires, e�tudes et documents pour servir a l'histoire de la guerre mondiale Language French Note Translation of The catastrophe; Kerensky's own story of the Russian revolution.

Kerensky, Aleksandr Fyodorovich, 1881-1970. Title The catastrophe; Kerensky's own story of the Russian revolution. Publisher New York D. Appleton 1927 Description 376p.

[ . . ] le Dni [microform]. Publisher Berlin, Parizh : [s.n.], 1922-1933. Description 12 v. ; 33 cm. Language Russian Note Published in Berlin, 1922-1924; in Paris, 1925-1933.

Kerensky, Aleksandr Fyodorovich, 1881-1970. Title Izdalëka : sbornik stateĭ, 1920-1921 g. / A. Kerenskīĭ. Publisher Parizh : Russkoe knigoizdatelʹstvo I︠A︡. Povolot︠s︡kago i. Ko., c1922. Description 249 p. ; 25 cm. Language Russian Note Romanized record. Note Includes bibliographical references.

Kerensky, Aleksandr Fyodorovich, 1881-1970. Title La situation ge�ne�rale en Russie. Publisher [Paris, 1918] Description 34 p. 26 cm. Language French