In February 1917, the Russian Empire was overthrown in a revolution and the republican Russian Provisional Government was established in place of the Tsarist autocracy. Initially, the liberal cadet Georgy Lvov was appointed as president of the nascent republic but, unable to rally sufficient support, he was replaced by the Socialist Revolutionary Alexander Kerensky. Assemblies of workers, peasants, and soldiers known as Soviets, which had appeared spontaneously in the 1905 revolution, began to re-emerge throughout the country.