Bolshevik Bleeding

After the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II in March 1917 and the refusal of the crown by his brother Michail Alexandrovich, otherwise having become Michael III, tsardom in Russia ended after 400 years.

Duma sets up a provisional government with Prince Lvov as its chairman and Alexander Kerensky as its minister for warfare and justice. Different to *here", Kerensky jugdes the Bolshevik danger more earnest. He convinced Lvov of the probable danger that a Bolshevik rise of power would bring democratic powers as well as old Tsarist powers, even assuming the assassination of the Tsarist family as possible and that the Bolsheviks would use Siberia as a dump for politic opponents as Imperial Russia did, remembering what happened to Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette after French Revolution. The primary goal was at least to execute the elections for the Constitiutional Assembly in November and making its results (undoubtly never been in favor for the Bolsheviks) firmly tied to future Russian politics, rather then risking a coup d'état from Bolshevik side.

In May 1917, as a compromise between continuing warfare for the Entente and the satisfaction of the population's demand for an end of the endless death on the battlefield (the reason why Bolsheviks became popular), Lvov and Kerensky convicted Duma of the advantages of leaving Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland into independence. The US just entered into warfare on the Entente side and though the US didn't not say any word which would link to any of the famous Fourteen Points announced in early 1918, Kerensky knew about the role the US, and maybe the UK as well, wanted to play in Europe.

Russian politics should rather look for internal policies. The wise co-operation between old Tsarist powers on the one side and moderate Social Democrats on the other side helped to affect the self-confidence of the Bolsheviks lastingly. Nevertheless the Bolsheviks didn't want to give up the option of a coup d'état, but the Mensheviks could stabilize their majorities in the Soviets. Trotzky never moved from the Mensheviks to the Bolsheviks and best potential warfarer in left Russian politics was not available for Lenin.

Lenin finally dropped his plans for an uprising against the Provisional Government headed by Kerensky from June on. On October 17, the All Russian Soviet Congress finally agreed the elections to the Constitutional Assembly.

Hence the elections on November 25 O.S. or December 7 N.S., 1917 were executed without any incidents. The Social Revolutionary party got 44% of the votes, Menshewiki got 12% and the Bolsheviks didn't get more than 10%.

The Gregorian calendar had been introduced from January 31 O. S. to February 14 N. S. in 1918. The assembly held its first summit on February 17, 1918 and elected Kerenski as its provisional head of state. On August 3, 1918, the assembly passed the new Constitution for the Democratic Republic of Russia.

The 1st Republican Duma was elected on September 22, 1918. Russia was invited to the negotiations at the Paris Peace Conference in January 1919 as part of the victorious Entente.

As Russia became a parliamentary democracy and could damage communism lastingly, Communists in other countries never achieved the motivation for an uprising similar to OTL October Revolution and as middle classes in Europe didn't fear a proletarian revolution, they also didn't get an easy snack for fascism.