George
Lvov was born in Dresden on 21st October, 1861. A landowner
he favoured constitutional reform and in 1915 he became chairman of
the All-Russian Union of Zemstva.
Under
Lvov's leadership the zemstvo movement grew rapidly and by 1916 it
had 8,000 agencies. Lvov became increasingly involved in national
politics and in January, 1917, expressed the opinion that Russia would
be defeated by the Central Powers unless
it overthrew the Tsar and his autocratic regime.
After
the abdication of Nicholas II in March,
1917, Prince Lvov was asked to head the new Provisional
Government in Russia. Lvov's unwillingness to withdraw Russia
from the First World War made him unpopular
with the people and on 8th July, 1917, he resigned and was replaced
by Alexander Kerensky.
After
the Bolsheviks overthrew
the Provisional Government, Lvov
emigrated to France. George
Lvov
died in Paris on 7th March, 1925.
(1)
After meeting George Lvov, George Buchanan,
sent a report on their discussions to the Foreign Office (8th April,
1917)
Lvov does
not favour the idea of taking strong measures at present, either against
the Soviet or the Socialist propaganda in the army. On my telling
him that the Government would never be masters of the situation so
long as they allowed themselves to be dictated to by a rival organization,
he said that the Soviet would die a natural death, that the present
agitation in the army would pass, and that the army would then be
in a better position to help the Allies to win the war than it would
have been under the old regime.
(2)
George Buchanan, report to the
Foreign Office (7th May, 1917)
The Government,
as Prince Lvov remarked, was "an authority without power",
while the Workmen's Council (Soviet) was "a power without authority".
Under such conditions it was impossible for Guchkov, as Minister of
War, and for Kornilov, as military governor of Petrograd, to accept
responsibility for the maintenance of discipline in the army. They
both consequently resigned, while the former declared that if things
were to continue as they were the army would cease to exist as a fighting
force in three weeks' time. Guchkov's resignation precipitated matters,
and Lvov, Kerensky and Tershchenko came to the conclusion that, as
the Soviet was too powerful a factor to be either suppressed or disregarded,
the only way of putting an end to the anomaly of a dual Government
was to form a Coalition.
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