econd category, of which the
first to emerge was the Petrograd Council of Workmen's and Soldiers'
Deputies.

This Council was organized during the very first days of the revolution;
it was in fact the resurrection of a revolutionary body of the 1905
revolution. The Duma invited the Council to share its own convenient
quarters. Perhaps the invitation was an afterthought, for the workmen
and soldiers of Petrograd in revolt had gravitated toward the Duma,
had calmly entered and taken possession of the large corridors of the
palace. The Council was a strictly revolutionary, and a very democratic
body, composed of directly elected delegates from the factories and
garrison regiments of Petrograd. It immediately became the organizing
center for what came to be called the "revolutionary democracy," as
opposed to the "bourgeoisie."

The Executive Committee of the Duma consulted with the Council of
Workmen's and Soldiers' Deputies on the composition of the proposed
Provisional Government, and on the political program to be announced.
For as we saw, it was the first thought of these leaders to secure
unity of action. They recognized that the Council did in fact represent
"revolutionary democracy," at least of Petrograd. As the workmen and
soldiers of Petrograd were completely out of hand, armed and fighting
on the streets, arresting officers, ministers and police, and showing a
tendency to start general and anarchic pillaging, the Duma leaders saw a
restraining authority in the Council of these same workmen and soldiers.
They therefore either did not wish, or did not dare, to object at the
time to the famous order No. 1 to the garrison of Petrograd, issued by
the Council, and not by the Executive Committee of the Duma. Many have
claimed that this particular order, which was extended to the front,
was responsible for the later demoralization of the whole Russian army.
Others, the leaders of revolutionary democracy, have insisted that this
order prevented the immediate and complete collapse of the whole army.

In preparing the slate for the new government, the Executive Committee
of the Duma selected one of the presiding officers of the Council,
Kerensky. When Miliukov, the Duma leader, announced the composition of
the new provisional government to the crowd, composed largely of workmen
and soldiers gathered in the main corridors of the Duma, he emphasized
the cooperation between Duma and Council, the consent of Kerensky to
enter