Kerensky's characterization suffers heavily from canon incoherence. You literally cannot have him be what he's 'directly' depicted as in canon, because there's so much contradictory stuff going on, so he's ultimately forced to be subject to whatever fanon interpretation a person prefers to come up with based on which parts of canon they emphasize, and which they discard as bad writing.
In all honesty, I'd be interested to read his take on the man and his legacy
In
reality people are often multilayered and contradictory. Witness Thomas Jefferson's writings on liberty versus his behaviour as an owner of slaves, or contrast Woodrow Wilson's internationalist sentiments with his racist personal leanings and domestic policies. It is often the case, that idealists are among the most rampant and aggressive hypocrites. This seems especially true of Idealists who are also charismatic.
It really does break down to how you might want to interpret their actions, because nobody (not even monsters like Stalin) thinks of themselves as teh villain of the piece in the real world. Pol Pot believed he was saving cambodian culture from corruption, Hitler believed a variety of conspiracy theories-some of which are sadly still extant today in the mainstream of paranoid thought, Stalin believed he was bringing stability and prosperity to the world.
Kerensky
thought he was doing the right thing, that his compromises would bear fruit.
In Ngoverse and Ngoverse adjacent, Kerensky had no idea that his departure would sever his promises to Kowloon, or remove the limiters-he honestly thought by withdrawing the SLDF he was saving lives.
Elizabeth and her people are, perhaps, less interested in his ideals. They've grown up in the world his
actions created. But they
know those ideals, and she knows the
power those ideals hold over the popular culture. thus why she gets the shock when the actions are called out in 'polite' society-because those actions are, as is often the case, contrary to the ideals.
In a sense, the "Heroic Kerensky" and the "Villain Kerensky" are, in fact, the same man. The same man in the Ngoverse who penned that order, is the same one who oversaw the murder of children based on who they were related to.
The same man who fought a massive, horrifying war to remove a usurper, abandoned his nation in time of leadership crisis, stripping away the one force that might have, if not prevented, then limited the damage of the succession crisis.
Same Guy.
In a sense, it's a lot easier to fight to destroy something, than it is to preserve, and that's where Kerensky's moral failure really lies. He was perfectly comfortable as long as he had a defined enemy and a black-and-white situation. when it came time to hold things together, he failed not once, but twice. Once in the Inner Sphere, and once in the Pentagon worlds. for a man who rejected a seat (Terran hegemony) he chose to make himself the equivalent of a bandit king-and was unable to maintain order among his followers.
The House Lords were right in one key aspect: Kerensky was unable to govern. He was unable to govern his men, he was unable to govern himself. That's the
result of his actions, not his ideals.
but how often do men fail to live up to their ideals? It takes a pretty low bar for someone to fit perfectly into the mold of their beliefs. To be honest, your ideals must be paltry indeed, for you to achieve them in all of your actions. the only time High Ideals are reached by mortals, is in fiction.
