What could save the Russian Provisional Government and multiparty Soviet democracy from leftist dict

The Bolshevists took power from the Duma with brute force, so you may have to counter it with force. But which forces? After three years of war, during which everyone seemed to be willing to fight until the last drop of blood... of the Russian peasant, it's not surprising that said peasants were fed up.

Here are a few ideas I could offer, to try to help out the Provisional Government/stave off further revolution, some of these ideas could be tried singly, or in combination, and hopefully could help:

1. Don’t drop out of the war but do switch to a defensive only posture for the remainder of 1917. Be prepared to give ground if fighting to defend it is too costly.

2. Switch entirely to the defensive, for 1917 at least, in the European theaters, but stay on the offensive in the Ottoman-Caucasian theaters where morale remained high, the 1916 had been quite successful, Lloyd George was planning Mesopotamian and Palestinian advances, and German-Austrian assistance had to traverse a longer distance to reach the Ottomans. Steady progress without catastrophic setbacks should be possible in the Caucasian Anatolian theater with simply steady support and making ready use of Armenian and Pontic Greek and Assyrian recruits from among liberated territory and refugee populations, and at a minimum, should lead to a link up with British forces in Mesopotamia or Kurdistan. If the French follow Petain rather than Nivelle for 1917 and wait for the Americans and the tanks, which they considered, perhaps Sarrail’s force in Salonika or the French reserve would have troops to put added pressure on the Ottomans with a distinctive French landing at Alexandretta, or the Cilician, Syrian or Lebanese coast at a location like Beirut, generating synergistic effects with the British Palestine and Mesopotamian and Russian Caucasus-Armenia campaigns. Or, more simply, the French might lend Divisions and supply resources to strengthen the British led effort in Palestine. If the accounts of the improved readiness of Kolchak’s Black Sea Fleet and Divisions trained for a “Desant” are true, and superiority had been established over the Ottoman Fleet with damage to the Goeben laying it up, perhaps the Russians could have mounted a successful version of the assault on Constantinople they’d been planning and preparing for, supported by a strong overland advance on the Anatolia side led by Yudenich.

3. As soon as possible after the February revolution, in a nationalistic symbol of fighting for the long haul, a security measure to gain distance and security from the Bolsheviks, and to move to a somewhat less revolutionary atmosphere with less of a demoralized garrison and a stronger bourgeoisie, move the capital of the Provisional Government from Petrograd to Moscow. Maybe arrange a big greeting by Church figures. Retreating the capital, while to some degree a confession of weakness (although it can be portrayed to the enemy and at home as a move of defiance) can be leveraged to underline any demands the Provisional Government has for money, material assistance or armed aid. “When we say we’re in trouble, yes, we’re serious, we’re in this much trouble.”

4. Hold the Constituent Assembly elections and get the Assembly working on a constitution and turning into a popularly elected Duma and ultimately Duma approved Cabinet and Prime Minister sooner rather than later? While full suffrage elections were likely to turn up a Socialist majority of *some* size and margin from almost any time after the February Revolution, largely because of the peasant affiliation of most of the elected leading them to the big tent Social Revolutionary Party, the bleed away of support of rightist and centrist and pro-war parties to further left parties and local national parties would only increase with time. Governing on the basis of a Constituent Assembly adds legitimacy, or at least ameliorates some of the PG’s limited and waning legitimacy issues from being originally based on the pre-revolutionary, limited franchise elected Duma. And it also could establish legitimacy for making any pressing decisions on landed property, ethnonational autonomous rights, war aims, etc.

5. Shouting back to #3, which was *beat the Ottomans first* approach, while holding back defensively in Europe, there is an alternative for reducing your enemy numbers if you eliminate one by defeating it: Offer the Ottomans a separate peace, in concert with the other Allied powers, in return for the Ottomans quitting the war, and opening straits traffic for military and civil aid to Russia, and use of Turkish territory for follow-on operations against other Central Powers, the Bulgarians, Austro-Hungarians and so on. The natural moment for the Russians to begin proposing this is after the Milyukov Note scandal of April 1917, when Pavel Milykov’s note reaffirming all the secret treaties regarding post-war territory and the Turkish straits were revealed, and Socialist and popular objections to prolonging the war for the purposes of winning “Annexations and Indemnities” were raised in Petrograd and other Soviet resolutions, and this forced the Provisional Government to walk back intent to claim postwar “Annexations and Indemnities.” With domestic politics now demanding repudiation of expansionist war aims, the Russian Provisional Government itself has little to lose offering to give up ambitions it would have a hard time pursuing in return for getting the Ottoman Turks to drop out of the war. Granting a separate peace would be a harder sell to the British, French, and Italians who were also promised slices of Turkey in the Sazanov-Sykes-Picot and Orlando Treaties. However, terms might be negotiable. The Allied initial proposal could be an uti possedetis peace, where the Ottomans keep and are guaranteed all the territory they still have in their possession in return for breaking with the CPs, quitting the war and opening the straits, but the British (and possibly the Russians, but possibly not), could keep and dispose of the territories they have actually won and occupied already in Hijaz, Mesopotamia, and greater Armenia already. This would leave France and Italy without territorial spoils, but Paris and Rome may well make the sacrifice of prospective territorial reward in order to shorten the bloody war and speed the acquisition of the territories they care most about, German Alsace-Lorraine for France and Austrian Italia irredenta for Italy. There can be challenges for the Russian Provisional Government selling this idea to the other Allies, Italy, France, and Britain specifically. But it should not be as hard a sell to the other Allies as Russia dropping out of the war or trying to sell them all on a no annexations or indemnities peace relative to all the enemy belligerents including Austria-Hungary and Germany.

6. Similar to above, but with less loss of prospective gains for the western Allies, the Russian Government could propose an Allied separate peace offer to Bulgaria to lose an enemy, weaken the Austrian and overall CP position, speed the ultimate end of the war with that diplomatic “lift” and possibly open the straits. Again, the appropriate timing for an offer would be in the backlash after the Milyukov note, when the Russian PG publicly disclaimed demands for the straits postwar. What does that have to do with Bulgaria? Well, it means that whatever is demanded of Bulgaria besides quitting the war, breaking with the CP, and relinquishing all of Bulgarian occupied Romania and Serbia (the hardest pills for Bulgaria to swallow), or part of those territories, Bulgaria can be offered up Ottoman Turkish Thrace and even Constantinople and the European side of the straits as “compensation” for anything it yields back to Entente countries.

7. A desperate measure but possibly necessary to deal with ever increasing discontent in the mass conscript Army: demobilizing and releasing most conscripts and converting over to a mainly paid volunteer and mercenary force Russian force, and relying on them, mostly funded by the Allies, plus motivated Allied exile forces, like Armenians, Romanians, the Czechoslovak Legion, to man the defensive front against.

8. “Play chicken” with the Allies, threaten to conclude a separate to compel the Allies to open peace talks with the Central Powers for a peace that may ultimately be no better than a status quo ante bellum peace or “white peace” as some call it, so that Russia can defend itself and the balance of power in Europe, but get the war over with.

9. “Play chicken” with the Allies and describe the untenability of the Russian situation and the ease with which the Russian war effort could collapse and how Allied supplies could fall into German and Austrian hands, therefore demanding Allied troop support, British Empire, French Empire, Japanese, to help protect Allied supplies in Russian ports and advance to the Russian front lines to prop it up. This is far from optimal logistically, and far from efficient, but *after* the Bolshevik revolution and the Russo-German peace of Brest-Litovsk, all these Allies and the Americans started to send non-trivial troop contingents into Russia to prevent loss of supplies to the CPs and to try to reestablish the broken front, even in the spring of 1918 and summer, when they were still very, very busy with German forces on the main western front. So, wouldn’t it be better to signal the need for Allied interventionary troops *before* the second revolution and full collapse of the Russian Army and war effort?

10. Get the soldier’s committees to keep practicing a minimum discipline standard and punishment for the most grievous offenses, ie, capital punishment for desertion: The soldiers very quickly during and after the February Revolution fell out of control of their officers and abolished old disciplinary systems but took longer to give up the fight entirely or to lose all order. Discipline frittered away week by week, starting with the petty formalities and distinctions and non-essential matters, but bled over in a short period to vital matters impairing operational and tactical command and maintaining cohesion under the stress of enemy fire. Soldiers’ Soviets varied in their receptiveness to radicalism and implementation of thorough “committee” decisionmaking. The problem was worse in rear garrison than at the front, and worse in further northern, urban sectors, and least bad in the furthest southern fronts, like those facing the Ottomans, where soldiers often simply “elected” their officers to represent them to local Soviets. A possible way to maintain better order and cohesion could have been for the earliest soldier’s councils/Soviets to take ownership of the disciplinary process and penalties early, redefining the most problematic offenses for chain of command (like desertion, AWOL, cowardice under fire) not as betrayals of the higher hierarchy or officers, but as betrayals of the Soldiers collective, and thus still deserving of just as severe punishments as ever, by enforcers elected by the soldiers themselves.

Option #11 Salvation from the East:
Getting more specific on the Russian PG getting crucial increments of direct Allied support in 1917: Russia and its Allies “purchase” the combat support of several Japanese Divisions, inserted and supplied through the Trans-Siberian railroad, for the eastern front in Russia against the Central Powers, by “selling” for basically nothing Russian rail and mining concessions in northern Manchuria, Mongolia, Tuva, even Xinjiang and Chinese Turkestan.

Just like the trickle and later torrential flow of American “doughboys” and anticipation of their arrival helped sustain French morale, a parallel arrival of Japanese “dumpling boys” who earned Russia’s respect as soldiers in the previous war comes to shore up the eastern front.

There may be some racism about it but there is some desperation and respect too, and Russia’s Eurasian identity shades into Asian towards the south and east. Professional, fresh Japanese troops can set a good example. For numbers, the Japanese can raise and train additional formations more hastily- designating them informally “Gyoza”, “Tempura”, “Sushi”, or “Sashimi ” Divisions depending on how well trained or “cooked” to IJA peacetime standard they are versus “raw”.

If Japan needs an even bigger bribe for this level of effort the British can add monetary incentives, or the French could yield some of their concession properties in China as well, all in the cause of keeping Russia afloat. America would not be fond of this arrangement but would already be committed to German defeat.

An elite group of the Japanese troops could even be used as a bodyguard/praetorian force for the top PG leadership in case political stability and support continues to deteriorate, guarding them against coups or urban revolutions.

Yielding political sovereignty, actual territorial transfer, in northern Sakhalin would be a tough political sell, and call into question the need to stoutly defend against Germany and co. at all costs. Seems just as undermining as the praetorian guard idea. But I could imagine leasing away pretty much the fishing/whaling/sealing exploitation rights offshore for a fixed term like fifty years or something.