The absence of the name of Tchcheidze from the list was a surprise and a disappointment to most of the moderate Socialists, for he had come to be regarded as one of the most capable and trustworthy leaders of the masses.  The fact that he was not included in the new government could hardly fail to cause uneasy suspicion.  It was said later that efforts had been made to induce him to join the new government, but that he declined to do so.  Tchcheidze’s position was a very difficult one.  Thoroughly in sympathy with the plan to form a coalition Provisional Government, and supporting Kerensky in his position, Tchcheidze nevertheless declined to enter the new Cabinet himself.  In this he was quite honest and not at all the tricky politician he has been represented as being.

Tchcheidze knew that the Duma had been elected upon a most undemocratic suffrage and that it did not and could not represent the masses of the peasants and wage-workers.  These classes were represented in the Council of Workmen’s and Soldiers’ Deputies, which continued to exist as a separate body, independent of the Duma, but co-operating with it as an equal.  From a Socialist point of view it would have been a mistake to disband the Council, Tchcheidze believed.  He saw Soviet government as the need of the critical moment, rather than as the permanent, distinctive type of Russian Social democracy as the critics of Kerensky have alleged.

While the Provisional Government was being created, the Czar, at General Headquarters, was being forced to recognize the bitter fact that the Romanov dynasty could no longer live.  When he could no more resist the pressure brought to bear upon him by the representatives of the Duma, he wrote and signed a formal instrument of abdication of the Russian throne, naming his brother, Grand-Duke Michael, as his successor.  The latter dared not attempt to assume the imperial role.  He recognized that the end of autocracy had been reached and declined to accept the throne unless chosen by a popular referendum vote.  On March 16th, the day after the abdication of Nicholas II, Michael issued a statement in which he said: 

This heavy responsibility has come to me at the voluntary request of my brother, who has transferred the Imperial throne to me during a time of warfare which is accompanied by unprecedented popular disturbances.

Moved by the thought, which is in the minds of the entire people, that the good of the country is paramount, I have adopted the firm resolution to accept the supreme power only if this be the will of our great people, who, by a plebiscite organized by their representatives in a Constituent Assembly, shall establish a form of government and new fundamental laws for the Russian state.

Consequently, invoking the benediction of our Lord, I urge all citizens of Russia to submit to the Provisional Government, established upon the initiative of the Duma and invested with full