The Russian revolutionary and politician Aleksandr Fedorovich Kerensky (1881-1970) was the central figure around whom the fate of representative government and socialism revolved in Russia during the Revolution of 1917.

Aleksandr Kerensky was born on April 22, 1881, in Simbirsk (now Ulyanovsk), the son of a teacher who also served as a middle-ranked provincial official. He entered St. Petersburg University (1899), where he studied jurisprudence, philology, and history. By 1904 he had completed his formal training and joined the St. Petersburg bar. He gained a reputation for public controversy and civil liberty; among other things, he worked with a legal-aid society and served as a defense lawyer in several celebrated political cases.

Kerensky's formal political career began when he stood successfully for election to the Fourth Duma (legislative assembly) in 1912. As a candidate of the Labor (Trudovik) party, he continued to champion civil rights. By 1914 he had been imprisoned twice for acts considered...