Kerenskij Becomes Russian Prime Minister

The autumn of the short-lived "Provisional Government" after the overthrow of tsarism begins!



On July 21, 1917 (our era), Aleksandr Fjodorowitsch Kerenskijy took over the post of Prime Minister ...:



He also remains minister of war and navy - making him the most powerful man in Russia on paper.

Kerensky's predecessor as Prime Minister, Prince Georgij Jewgenjewitsch Lwow ...



... had resigned a few days earlier after an unsuccessful attempt to overthrow the Bolsheviks and other left groups.

The Bolsheviks, certain of their victory, had even printed the posters announcing the removal of the government ...:



The uprising could be put down with great difficulty - loyal troops were still on hand.

The fighting between "Red Guards" of the Bolsheviks and troops of the Provisional Government raged in the middle of the city!

The next picture shows passers-by on Nevksiy Prospect in Sankt Peterburg, who seek cover during a shootout ...:



The leader of the uprising, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, now wanted with an arrest warrant, fled as quickly as possible across the nearby border to Finland, camouflaged with a shaved off beard and a wig ...



Kerensky begins his term of office with a fatal mistake: Also on July 21, he appoints General Lavr Lavr Georgievich Kornilov as commander-in-chief of the army ...:



However, he will use his new post to pursue his own policy with the aim of reintroducing tsarism (so-called "Kornoilov putsch").

First, however, Kerensky ordered the "Kerensky Offensive" named after him, with the aim of strengthening the Russian position vis-à-vis the Central Powers for armistice negotiations.





He travels incessantly from unit to unit and gives encouraging speeches - or whatever he thinks they are ...:










However, this hastily and amateurishly planned offensive collapses again in July after high losses...



... as far as the war-weary troops attack at all ...





After that, Kerensky's star slowly but surely began to decline - the situation at the front was fatal, the troops tired of war, and the political system was noticeably eroding.

Kerensky's term of office as prime minister will not last long, almost four months later he will be overthrown by the Bolsheviks during the “October Revolution”.

No hand will be raised to defend him or the Provisional Government ...

Kerensky will flee the capital Petrograd in a car with the flag of the Swedish embassy and initially go into exile in France.

After the German invasion of Paris, he will flee again - this time to the USA.

After Hitler's Germany attacked the Soviet Union, he will offer in grotesque overconfidence his "help" to the Soviet dictator Jossif Stalin, which will not even deserve an answer ...

So Kerensky remains only to work as a speaker against the communist government of the Soviet Union and as a university lecturer at various universities in the USA ...



... and he will write his biography ...:



You have to read this biography (I have it) with the same magnifying glass as, for example, the memoirs of Reich Chancellor Fürst Bülow!

It is teeming with passages that Kerensky - for the sake of his self-exaltation - incorrectly or at least very one-sidedly colored ...

Kerensky - born on May 4, 1881 in Simbirsk, i.e. in the same place as his opponent Lenin - will die in New York on July 11, 1970, and thus the longest surviving protagonist of the tragic events between the fall of tsarism (March 1917) and the October Revolution (November 1917).

Lucky man to have escaped the clutches of the Bolsheviks, who would have certainly liquidated him. I have his autobiography somewhere in my mass of books - I must re-read it sometime.

Good post

Phil