The Russian Revolution by Sheila Fitzpatrick

the Petrograd Soviet emerged spontaneously, and the government accepted it largely because it had no choice. In the most immediate practical terms, a dozen Ministers with no force at their disposal could scarcely have cleared the Palace (the initial meeting place of both the government and the Soviet) of the scruffy throng of workers, soldiers, and sailors who were tramping in and out to make speeches, eat, sleep, argue, and write proclamations; and the mood of the crowd, intermittently bursting into the Soviet Chamber with a captive policeman or former Tsarist Minister to leave at the deputies' feet, must have discouraged the attempt. In broader terms, as War Minister Guchkov explained to the Army's Commander-in-Chief early in March,
    The Provisional Government does not possess any real power; and its directives are carried out only to the extent that it is permitted by the Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies, which enjoys all the essential elements of real power, since the troops, the railroads, the post and telegraph are all in its hands. One can say flatly that the Provisional Government exists only so long as it is permitted by the Soviet.'
    In the first months, the Provisional Government consisted mainly of liberals, while the Soviet's Executive Committee was dominated by socialist intellectuals, mainly Mensheviks and SRs by party affiliation. Kerensky, a Provisional Government member but also a socialist, who had been active in setting up both institutions, served as liaison between them. The socialists of the Soviet intended to act as watchdogs over the Provisional Government, protecting the interests of the working class until such time as the bourgeois revolution had run its course. This deference to the bourgeoisie was partly the result of the socialists' good Marxist education and partly a product of caution and uncertainty. As Nikolai Sukhanov, one of the Soviet's Menshevik leaders, noted, there was likely to be trouble ahead, and better that the liberals take the responsibility and, if necessary, the blame:
    The Soviet democracy had to entrust the power to the propertied elements, its class enemy, without whose participation it could not now master the technique of administration in the desperate conditions of disintegration, nor deal with the forces of Tsarism and the bourgeoisie, united against it. But the condition of this transfer had to assure the democracy of a complete victory over the class enemy in the near future.7
    But the workers, soldiers, and sailors who made up the Soviet's rank and file were not so cautious. On i March, before the formal establishment of the Provisional Government or the emergence of `responsible leadership' in the Soviet, the notorious Order No. i was issued in the name of the Petrograd Soviet. Order No. i was a revolutionary document and an assertion of the Soviet's power. It called for democratization of the Army by the creation of elected soldiers' committees, reduction of officers' disciplinary powers, and, most importantly, recognition of the Soviet's authority on all policy questions involving the armed forces: it stated that no governmental order to the Army was to be considered valid without the counter-signature of the Soviet. While Order No. i did not actually mandate the holding of elections to confirm officers in their positions, such elections were in fact being organized in the more unruly units; and there were reports that hundreds of naval officers had been arrested or killed by the sailors of Kronstadt and the Baltic Fleet during the February Days. Order No. i therefore had strong overtones of class war, and totally failed to offer reassurance about the prospects for class cooperation. It presaged the most unworkable form of dual power, that is, a situation in which the enlisted men in the armed forces recognized only the authority of the Petrograd Soviet, while the officer corps recognized only the authority of the Provisional Government.
    The Executive