... the whole point of the provisional government was to organize elections so that decisions could be made on a democratic basis.

Except for the war, which they evidently never intended to put to a democratic vote (since they intended to only hold them after the war was won).

I'm sorry you feel that democracy is just an obstacle to a 'truly' socialist regime?

The existence of a democratic mandate for land reform and ending the war was never in doubt, so the appeal to democracy here rings hollow. However, since we're already talking about this, let me just quote Engels here:

A revolution is certainly the most authoritarian thing there is; it is the act whereby one part of the population imposes its will upon the other part by means of rifles, bayonets and cannon — authoritarian means, if such there be at all; and if the victorious party does not want to have fought in vain, it must maintain this rule by means of the terror which its arms inspire in the reactionists.

- https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1872/10/authority.htm

A revolution whose program ends with a constitution and an elected assembly isn't a socialist revolution; it's a bourgeois revolution, which is fundamentally flawed for the same reason all bourgeois revolutions are fundamentally flawed. To somewhat repeat myself, the existence of a democratic mandate for bread (or rice depending on where you live), land and liberty is never seriously in doubt, so a revolutionary government doesn't need a bunch of men in a room to tell it to provide these things in the same way it doesn't need one to tell it to collect taxes and police cities. I could say a lot more about this, but let's not.

The main reason why the war continued was that the Entente threatened to revoke aid to Russia if it pulled out of the war, which would have led to a worsening economic situation in a period when economic hardship was literally what toppled the Tsarist regime.

I almost wrote a rebuttal of this argument, but it's frankly irrelevant to the wider point. No matter the reason, the Provisional Government kept Russians (and other peoples comprising the Russian Empire) in the war against their will. In the end it took a coup by the Bolsheviks to get the things the working class was revolting for.

Again, because the provisional government's purpose was to organize elections.

And win the war, don't forget that one. That's the whole reason the elections took as long as they did.

the accusations of the Bolsheviks and their defenders would have been precisely that they were acting without a democratic mandate from the workers,

I mean, I'm not convinced but sure? Nobody would've needed to consider the Bolsheviks' opinions if the clowns running the provisional government had been running a tighter ship.

... yet a 'communist' government which does nothing but create bureaucratized oligarchy and is indistinguishable from a fascist government is 'absolutely fair' to call communist?

No offense, but yeah no you have to be kidding here. Soviet rule under Lenin and Stalin was what turned Russia into a developed country. Virtually every indicator of a modern (for the time period) quality of life exploded. The idea that they did "nothing but create bureaucratized oligarchy" is simply not a serious historical position, and if you seriously believe that you should get back to studying. This is a position not worth debating.

... the long-time SR politician who is despised and slandered to this day by tankie bootlickers?

See above. Kerensky was and remains despised by a lot more than tankie bootlickers for being an incompetent, self-important twat—in fact I'm surprised there's anyone who doesn't despise him. Either way he kept Russia in the war for four crucial months, so he deserves to be despised for that alone. Bolsheviks don't take power without a great idiot like Kerensky at the helm.

I guess his involvement long before socialism was victorious in the Russian Empire doesn't qualify him as a true believer, unlike the Great Genius Stalin?

I never said he wasn't a true believer. I don't know if he was, and frankly don't care too much. Whatever principles he might've had only excuse his conduct as much as Stalin's do his—which is to say not at all.