St. Aleksandr Fyodorovich Kerensky: 1881-1970
“The Father of the Soviet Union,” Aleksandr Kerensky was born in Simbirsk (renamed to Kerensk in 1967) in the Russian Empire. Educated in law at St. Petersburg University, he quickly became a champion defending the rights of political revolutionaries during the early years of the reign of Nikolai II.
In 1912, he won election to the Fourth State Duma, also known as “The Long Duma,” where he quickly rose through the ranks of leadership due to his powerful oratory and legal skill. As a primary leader among the Socialist Revolutionaries, Kerensky was a thorough and effective counterbalance to the autocratic hand of Tsar Nikolai, and slowly but methodically grew the power of the legislative body. Despite the power held by the Tsars at this time, Kerensky was consistently able to manipulate and outmaneuver the uncertain and ineffective Nikolai, winning reforms for due process rights and severe limitations on the death penalty. During the unrest that surrounded the Tsar's push for rapid industrialization during the 1920s, Kerensky was hailed as the voice of the working man within the government.
The pace of political modernization changed drastically after the death of Nikolai II. His successor, Alexei III, was sickly and unable to maintain any degree of control of those within his court who sought to undermine the Duma. As the economic depression, exacerbated by the ongoing civil war in Germany, led to food shortages in the cities, Kerensky supported the St. Petersburg strikers. When the Tsar's inner-circle attempted to prorogue the Duma in February 1933, Kerensky refused, famously stating that “two-hundred thousand striking men shall determine this government's authority, not one detached noble.” With the military refusing to act against the masses and the capital paralyzed, Alexei abdicated. During the following year, Kerensky was the principal power player in St. Petersburg, as a chief member in the leadership of both entities now in control of the Russian Empire: the moderate Provisional Government and the socialist St. Petersburg Soviet.
The St. Petersburg Soviet soon assumed supremacy among the two competing powers, as Kerensky and his colleagues began work on creating the Constitution of the Soviet Union. Nevertheless the process was nearly disrupted when exiled German Communist radicals attempted to overrun the Soviet with the aim of creating an extremist Communist state. The attempted coup encouraged Kerensky to adopt the controversial measure of keeping a figurehead monarch, inviting Cyril Romanov to become the first Constitutional monarch of the Soviet Union in 1934.
Kerensky remains the longest-serving Prime Minister of the Soviet Union, governing from its formal creation in 1934 until his retirement in 1963 at the age of eighty-two. He died at his home in St. Petersburg on June 11, 1970. Kerensky was glorified by the Russian Orthodox Church in 1987.
(OOC: Didn't go into detail on his time as PM as I didn't want to dominate much more of the Russian timeline than I already had.)