Canary in the Coal Mine - Day

12:11AM - Warren Beatty's Reds (1981)

2:37AM

Who was this man who stood in the eye of the hurricane that was Russia in 1917? Kerensky was a moderate socialist whose passionate, lifelong goal was to see a Western–style constitutional democracy in Russia. He tried valiantly, but ultimately failed, to straddle the ever–widening gulf between the relative conservatives, who felt the Revolution to be complete with the simple elimination of the monarchy, and the radical leftists pushing for much more extreme social and economic transformations.

[I]n a sense, the Revolution really was his revolution—he had seized the moment, channeled the energy of the masses, and now he was the only figure straddling the two power centers. In fact, because of the vote in the Soviet, he was arguably the only member of the provisional government with a genuine electoral mandate.

As minister of justice, Kerensky immediately instituted universal suffrage and unheard–of freedoms of speech, assembly, press and religion. He would argue later that Russia was, for a few months, the freest country in the world. But individual liberties meant little to a people suffering the privations of World War I—massive fatalities at the front, hyperinflation, transport breakdowns, empty shelves in the stores and insufficient fuel to heat their homes.

( ... tālāk ... )