A day after the abdication of Nicholas II, his younger brother Grand Duke Mikhail Alexandrovich abdicated too
The document recording his abdication is known as the Act of Non-Acceptance of the Throne, since formally Mikhail did not renounce power but entrusted the fate of the monarchy to the Constituent Assembly, which the Bolsheviks later dispersed.
"A heavy burden has been laid upon Me by the will of My Brother, who has passed to Me the Imperial All-Russian Throne in a year of unexampled war and popular unrest.
Inspired, together with the whole people, by the thought that the good of our Motherland stands above all else, I have taken the firm decision to accept Supreme Power only if such be the will of our people, whose task it is, by universal vote through their representatives in the Constituent Assembly, to establish the form of government and the new fundamental Laws of the Russian State.
Therefore, invoking the blessing of God, I ask the citizens of the Russian Realm to submit to the Provisional Government, which arose on the initiative of the State Duma and has been invested with full plenitude of power, until such time as the Constituent Assembly, convened as soon as possible on the basis of universal, direct, equal and secret suffrage, shall by its decision on the form of government express the will of the people."
