I 100% agree with that take
@Kaiser Wilhelm the Tenth
the reality is that Russia
just passed the point of no return towards civil war. The shortsighted stupidity of Kerensky and the rest in thinking that by cutting off the head of the government
and murdering the Czarina will somehow usher in restraint and moderation and calm tensions would be risible if it wasn’t so tragically nearsighted.
The fact is that killing Lvov alone would probably have been enough to at least present the Czarina with the (titan sized air quotes) “option” of appointing Kerensky or some other reformer and giving an air of legality to the whole nasty business and that right there would have ended the threat of civil war for the next 20 years assuming at least
some reforms with teeth were enacted and the invisible hand continued to grow Russia’s economy as it did before the war.
With the Civil War, I don’t see any good outcomes for Russia. If the reds win, well. We know how that story starts, muddles, and ends.
With anyone else (except an ultra-nationalist win) Russia will exist in a state of perpetual illegitimacy because I’m going to assume a ton of foreign support (both material and ‘volunteers’) will arrive from Germany, USA, Britain, and other non-socialist nations and the stain of winning a
civil war through indebting the nation to foreign powers who supplied the bullets, the shells and the hands that won it...that is an image that will never be shaken off. Especially for a country like Russia which (imo) tends to be particularly sensitive about foreign encroachment and feeling like they have enemies on all sides.