2-481-418 - © Fine Art Images/Heritage Images

Alexander Kerensky, Prime Minister of the Russian Provisional Government, in his office in the Winter Palace in Petrograd (St Petersburg), Russia, 1917. Kerensky Kerensky (1881-1970) was one of the most prominent leaders of the February Revolution in Russia in 1917, which led to the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II. In the Provisional Government established after the revolution, he held the posts of Minister for Justice, then Minister for War, and, from July, Prime Minister. After a failed coup attempt led by General Kornilov in August, he also appointed himself commander-in-chief. The Provisional Government was unstable however, and Kerensky's refusal to pull Russia out of the First World War and his distribution of weapons to the Petrograd workers during Kornilov's coup brought about its downfall. The October Revolution brought the Bolsheviks to power and Kerensky was forced to flee into exile. He lived in France until 1940, from where he was forced to flee again, to the USA, when the Germans invaded in World War II. Found in the collection of the State Museum of the Political History of Russia, St. Petersburg.