The Russian revolutionary and politician Aleksandr Fyodorovich Kerensky He was the central figure around whom the fate of Russia’s government and socialism revolved during the 1917 revolution.
Aleksandr Kerenski He was born on April 22, 1881, in Simbirsk (today Ulyanovsk); He was the son of a middle-ranking provincial teacher and official. He entered the University of Saint Petersburg (1899), where he studied jurisprudence, philology and history. In 1904 he completed his studies and joined the Saint Petersburg Bar Association. He made a reputation for his public controversy and defender of civil liberties; He also worked with a legal aid society and acted as a defense attorney in several famous political cases.
The formal political career of Kerensky it began when he ran successfully in the elections to the Fourth Duma (legislative assembly) in 1912. As a candidate for the Labor Party (Trudovik), he continued to fight for civil rights. In 1914 he was jailed twice for acts that were considered hostile or seditious by the government.
With the outbreak of the First World War (1914), Kerensky was one of the few members of the Duma to speak out against it, denouncing, in a public speech, the “devouring fratricidal war“As Russia suffered defeat after defeat, support for the government waned and disappeared, setting the stage for the 1917 revolution, which led to Kerensky to power for a brief period.
During the revolutionary months of 1917, power in Russia’s main cities and in many points of military concentration were effectively divided between the provisional government, whose authority derived from the Duma, and the Soviets or deputy councilors, representatives of workers and soldiers. Among the members of the provisional government, Kerensky it had a unique position, since, for a time, it was a bridge in the competition between these agencies of the revolution. Although he was a well-known member of the Duma, he was a spokesman for the left wing and a member of the executive committee of the Petrograd Soviet.
From this request for support, he was unable to count on the support of the military leadership against that same radical left. Soon after, Lenin and Trotsky, once again at large, planned their own coup, the Bolshevik revolution of November.
When the hit occurred, Kerensky he was out of Petrograd seeking loyal support sufficient to defend the government against the Bolsheviks. Without achieving his goal, he returned to Petrograd and then to Moscow, vainly trying to organize the opposition against the revolution.
In the spring of 1918 Kerensky Russia eventually fled, and, for a short time thereafter, strove to win international opposition to the Bolshevik government. Failing to do so, he began to write and give lectures in Europe, on matters of his native land. In 1940 he moved to the United States to write, lecture, and teach at Stanford University.
He died on June 11, 1970, in New York City.