], after Prime Minister Nikolai Golitsyn was forced to resign, 24 commissars of the Provisional Committee of the State Duma were appointed.

During the February Revolution two rival institutions, the imperial State Duma and the Petrograd Soviet, both located in the Tauride Palace, competed for power.

Initial composition of the Provisional Government: During the April Crisis (1917) Ivan Ilyin agreed with the Kadet Milyukov, who staunchly opposed Petrograd Soviet demands for peace at any cost.

On 18 April [1 May, N.S.Tooltip New Style] 1917, minister of Foreign Affairs Pavel Milyukov sent a note to the Allied governments, promising to continue the war to 'its glorious conclusion'.

General Lavr Kornilov, commander of the Petrograd military district, wished to suppress the disorders, but premier Georgy Lvov refused to resort to violence.

This was as a consequence of several factors: a request from Britain and France to help take the pressure off their forces in the West, avoiding the national humiliation of a defeat, to help put the generals and officers back in control of the armed forces so they could control the revolution and to place them in a better bargaining position with the Germans when peace negotiations started.

Alexander Kerensky, Minister for War, embarked on a 'whirlwind tour' of the Russian forces at the fronts, giving passionate, 'near-hysterical', speeches where he called on troops to act heroically, stating 'we revolutionaries, have the right to death.'

The mass of soldiers and workers then went to the Bolshevik Headquarters to find Lenin, who addressed the crowd and promised them that, ultimately, all power would go to the Soviets.

As violence escalated in the streets with the mob looting shops, houses, and attacking well-dressed civilians, Cossacks and Kadets stationed atop the buildings of Liteyny Avenue began to fire upon the crowds, causing the marchers to scatter in panic as dozens were killed.

At around 7 pm, soldiers and a group of workers from the Putilov iron plant broke into the palace and, flourishing their rifles, demanded full power to the Soviets.

When Socialist Revolutionary Minister Chernov attempted to calm them down, he was taken outside as a hostage until Trotsky appeared from the Soviet assembly and intervened with a speech praising the "Comrade Kronstadter's, pride and glory of the Russian revolution".

The Ministry of Justice released leaflets accusing the Bolsheviks of treason on the charge of inciting armed rebellion with German financial support, and published warrants for the arrest of the party's main leaders.

Lenin believed that these events were "an episode in the civil war" and described how "all hopes for a peaceful development of the Russian revolution have vanished for good" when writing a few days after his flight.

With the 1917 February Revolution, Tsar Nicholas II's abdication, and the formation of a completely new Russian state, Russia's political spectrum was dramatically altered.

While the Provisional Government retained the formal authority to rule over Russia, the Petrograd Soviet maintained actual power.

In fact, local soviets, political organizations mostly of socialists, often maintained discretion when deciding whether or not to implement the Provisional Government's laws.

The policies enacted by this moderate government (by 1917 Russian standards) represented arguably the most liberal legislation in Europe at the time.

The Provisional Government did not desire the complete decentralization of power, but certain members definitely advocated more political participation by the masses in the form of grassroots mobilization.

Special interest groups play a large role in every society deemed "democratic" today, and such was the case of Russia in 1917.

Beyond the formation of trade unions, factory committees of workers rapidly developed on the plant level of industrial centers.

Due to the extreme weakness of the government at this point, there was talk among the elites of bolstering its power by including Kornilov as a military dictator on the side of Kerensky.

However, it had terrible consequences, as Kerensky's move was seen in the army as a betrayal of Kornilov, making them finally disloyal to the Provisional Government.

], when the Russian Republic (Российская республика, Rossiyskaya respublika) was proclaimed, in a decree signed by Kerensky as Minister-President and Zarudny as Minister of Justice.

The Provisional Government considers its main objective to be the restoration of public order and the fighting efficiency of the armed forces.

[4]On 12 September [25, N.S] an All-Russian Democratic Conference was convened, and its presidium decided to create a Pre-Parliament and a Special Constituent Assembly, which was to elaborate the future Constitution of Russia.

[26] On 24–26 October Red Guard forces under the leadership of Bolshevik commanders launched their final attack on the ineffectual Provisional Government.

Most government offices were occupied and controlled by Bolshevik soldiers on the 25th; the last holdout of the Provisional Ministers, the Tsar's Winter Palace on the Neva River bank, was captured on the 26th.

Kerensky escaped the Winter Palace raid and fled to Pskov, where he rallied some loyal troops for an attempt to retake the capital.

The Little Council (or Underground Provisional Government) met at the house of Sofia Panina briefly in an attempt to resist the Bolsheviks.

[27] Some academics, such as Pavel Osinsky, argue that the October Revolution was as much a function of the failures of the Provisional Government as it was of the strength of the Bolsheviks.