Kerensky, Alexander Feodorovich << kuh REHN skih, uhl yihk SAHN duhr `feh` aw dah RAW vihch >> (1881-1970), was an early leader in the Russian Revolution of 1917. He gained fame as a lawyer defending people whom the czarist government had accused of revolutionary activities. After the revolution that overthrew the czar in March 1917 (February 17 on the old Russian calendar), Kerensky was the only Socialist member of the first provisional government. He became minister of justice, then minister of war, and finally prime minister. His government was well-meaning but indecisive about the popular demand for “peace, bread, and land.”
The Communist Bolsheviks overthrew Kerensky’s government on Nov. 7, 1917, which was October 25 on the old Russian calendar (see Russia (The October Revolution) ). Kerensky fled Russia, and he settled in the United States in the 1940’s. Kerensky later became a staff member of the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution, and Peace at Stanford University in Stanford, California. He directed a project concerning the Russian Revolution at the institute. Kerensky was born on May 2, 1881, in Simbirsk (now Ul’yanovsk), Russia. He died on June 11, 1970.
See also Lenin, V. I. (Return from exile) .
