In March 1917, Shulgin volunteered for the Duma mission to the tsar. He felt that by asking Nicholas to resign he would save the monarchy. His companion, Aleksandr Guchkov, shared that view. Like other members of the government, such as the new minister of foreign affairs, Pavel Miliukov, Guchkov believed that the tsar’s abdication in favor of his son and heir, the twelve-year-old Tsarevich Aleksei, would calm the people and allow the Duma and the Provisional Government to retake the initiative from the Petrograd Soviet. The monarchy would survive at the price of becoming constitutional.
