Abstract: the article substantiates the relevance of the study the February revolution, the relationship to her well-known political figures of Russia of that time, including P. N. Milyukova, V. M. Chernov, V. V. Shulgin, the participants, and to what extent its creators, representatives of different political currents. Reveals their understanding of the causes of the revolution, the essence, the nature of the relationship “enfranchised” democracy and Councils, their contradictions. The article is based on the memoirs and speeches of contemporaries, character, peculiarities of the sources and modern vision of the history of Russia in 1917. The analysis of the sources leads to the conclusion that for politicians, the contemporaries of the February, events were not spontaneous, random, was not a “miracle”. They did many things on the eve of the political change of regime in Russia. Assessing the revolution, they could neither during it nor after to adequately determine the value of socio-economic factors, especially the role of the masses: workers, soldiers, peasants. In the activities of the Provisional government clearly are class, not national interests, which did not allow them coupled with other reasons to prevent the radicalization of the revolution and the coming to power of the Bolsheviks.
Keywords: the February revolution, the Provisional government, “enfranchised democracy,” people’s freedom party, social Democrats, socialists-revolutionaries, P. N. Miliukov, V.V .Shulgin, V. M. Chernov