On April 27th, acting under pressure from the Soviet, the Provisional Government published a Manifesto to the Russian people in which it announced a foreign policy which conformed to that which the Congress of Councils of Workmen's and Soldiers' Delegates had adopted. On May 1st Miliukov, the Foreign Minister, transmitted this Manifesto to the Allied governments as a preliminary to an invitation to those governments to restate their war aims. Accompanying the Manifesto was a Note of explanation, which was interpreted by a great many of the Socialists as an intimation to the Allies that the Manifesto was intended merely for home consumption, and that the Provisional Government would be glad to have the Allies disregard it. It is difficult for any one outside of Russia, whose sympathies were with the Entente Allies, to gather such an impression from the text of the Note, which simply set forth that enemy attempts to spread the belief that Russia was about to make a separate peace with Germany made it necessary for the Provisional Government to state its "entire agreement" with the aims of the Allies as set forth by their statesmen, including President Wilson, and to affirm that "the Provisional Government, in safeguarding the right acquired for our country, will maintain a strict regard for its agreement with the allies of Russia."
Although it was explained that the Note had been sent with the knowledge and approval of the Provisional Government, the storm of fury it produced was directed against Miliukov and, in less degree, Guchkov. Tremendous demonstrations of protest against "imperialism" were held. In the Soviet a vigorous demand for the overthrow of the Provisional Government was made by the steadily growing Bolshevik faction and by many anti-Bolsheviki Socialists. To avert the disaster of a vote of the Soviet against it, the Provisional Government made the following explanation of the so-called Miliukov Note:
The Note was subjected to long and detailed examination by the Provisional Government, and was unanimously approved. This Note, in speaking of a "decisive victory," had in view a solution of the problems mentioned in the communication of April 9th, and which was thus specified:
"The government deems it to be its right and duty to declare now that free Russia does not aim at the domination of other nations, or at depriving them of their national patrimony, or at occupying by force foreign territories, but that its object is to establish a durable peace on the basis of the rights of nations to decide their own destiny.
"The Russian nation does not lust after the strengthening of its power abroad at the expense of other nations. Its aim is not to subjugate or humiliate any one. In the name of the higher principles of equity, the Russian people have broken the chains which fettered the Polish nation, but it will not suffer that its own country shall emerge from the great struggle humiliated or weakened in its vital forces.
"In referring to the 'penalties and guarantees' essential to a durable peace, the Provisional Government had in view the reduction of armaments, the establishment of international tribunals, etc.
"This explanation will be communicated by the Minister of Foreign Affairs to the Ambassadors of the Allied Powers."
This assurance satisfied a majority of the delegates to the Soviet meeting held on the evening of May 4th, and a resolution of confidence in the Provisional Government was carried, after a very stormy debate. The majority, however, was a very small one, thirty-five in a total vote of about twenty-five hundred. It was clearly evident that the political government and the Soviet, which was increasingly inclined to assume the functions of government, were nearing a serious breach. With each day the Council of Workmen's and Soldiers' Delegates, as the organized expression of the great mass of wage-workers in Petrograd, grew in power over the Provisional Government and its influence throughout the whole of Russia. On May 13th Guchkov resigned, and three days later Miliukov followed his example. The party of the Constitutional Democrats had come to be identified in the minds of the revolutionary proletariat with imperialism and secret diplomacy, and was utterly discredited. The crisis developed an intensification of the distrust of the bourgeoisie by the proletariat.