The Bolsheviks 1917 Flashcards
Provisional Government and The Petrograd Society
After the abdication of the Tsar, the Provisional Government was formed to run Russia until elections could be held to choose a constituent assembly. But the Petrograd Soviet, formed at the same time, held real power in the capital, creating a situation known as ‘Dual power’/’Dual authority’.
Petrograd Soviet-
Made up of:
Workers’ and Soldiers’ representatives,
Socialist intellectuals( mainly Mensheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries)
Chairman of the executive:
Chkheidze
Role:
To protect the interests of the working classes and soldiers.
Socialist intellectuals formed the leadership of the Soviet
Provisional Government:
Made up of:
Leading figures from the Kadets and Octobrists and other liberal parties
Leader:
Prince Lvov (also the Prime Minister)
Role:
To run the country until a constituent assembly had been elected
The Provisional Government had been chosen by a committee of the Duma; it had not been elected by the people.
The Petrograd Soviet and Provisional Government held meetings in different wings of the Tauride Palace (historic palace in St. Petersburg). The Provisional Government was the popularly accepted, although unelected, government. But the real power lay with the Soviet.
Order No.1
The most significant first move by either body was the Soviets Order No l on 1, March .This gave the soldiers committees control of all. seapons and stated that soldiers would carry out the orders of the Provisional Goverument provided the Soviet agreed.
The Soviet of Workers and Soldiers Deputies has decided.
* in all companies, battalions, squadrons and separate branches of military service of all kinds and on warships, committees should be chosen immediately.
* The orders of . the State Duma [Provisional Government shall be carried out only… when they do not contradict the orders and decisions of the Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies.
* All kinds of arms, such as rifles and machine guns, must be under the control of the cornpany and battalion committees and must in no case be handed over to officers even at their demand.
* The addressing of officers with titles such as Your Excellency. Your Honour, etc., is abolished and these are replaced by Mr General, “Mr Colonel’land so on.
Why soviets accepted the provisonal government
The state of affairs was far from ideal for the Provisional Government because it did not have control of the capital and its armed forces. But it had little choice and the two bodies needed to co-operate at this precarious time. Everybody feared anarchy as there was already disorder, looting and violence. The socialist leaders of the Soviet decided to allow the Provisional Government to govern while it kept a close eye on what it was doing. There were three main reasons for this:
- They did not want to provide an excuse for counter-revolution. The Russian High Command had not intervened because the Duma politicians were involved in establishing representative government. But they might have stepped in if they thought a socialist government was about to take power
- The socialist leaders of the Soviet, mainly intellectuals, had little idea howr to run a government. Also they were not sure they could control the masses and were scared that things could get out of hand.
- The soctalist leaders did not think the time was right for workers to take Che socialistne with classical Marxist theory, the the f.hey were going chaul the bourgeois democratic revoltion (se, pan mainly by this, Russ would have a democratically elected governdertop. The prolesy the middle classes, and industry and capiulim would develop woproletariat would Chases th industralisation and then, after a period of worker education, the
socialist revolution would take place
Initial measures taken by Provisional Government
For the first two months of the revolution, there was little to bring the Provisional Government and the Soviet into conflict. The first measures taken by the Provisional Government met with Soviet and public approval:
* Tsarist ministers and officials were arrested and imprisoned
* The secret police were disbanded.
* The death penalty was abolished and political and religious prisoners were granted an amnesty.
* Freedom of the press, freedom of speech and religious freedom were guaranteed.
* Elections to the Constituent Assembly were to be by secret ballot and universal suffrage
in addition, the workers secured an eight-hour working day and the right to form trade unions and strike; and it was agreed that soldiers in the Petrograd gaerison would not be sent to the front. So, people were optimistic about the future. Some of the worst aspects of tsarism were discarded and elections were on the way.
Lenin remarked in the summer of 1917 that Russia was the freest country in the world. Indeed, if all of the Provisional Government’s plans had been put into practice Russia would have been the most radical liberal democracy in Europe in 1917.
Reaction outside the capital
Support for the new government flooded in from outside the capital where the Isarist administrative system was being dismanuled. The signs and symbols of imperial power (coats of arms, statues, portraits of the Romanovs) were torn down and destroyed. The old tsarist governors were dismissed and replaced with commissars. But they were largely ignored.
People were setting up their own organisations. These tended to be nonparty bodies run by members of the zemstva, but their membership rapidly expanded to take in representatives of various workers, soldiers. wade union and other popular committees that mushroomed at the time.
However, these bodies were being outstripped by the rapid growth of soviets in the cities and towns. These could be run by non-party socialists, SRs, Mensheviks or by individuals of standing in the community. In many places local control was chaotic.
As news of the revolution spread into the countryside, peasants also started to set up committees and give voice to their opinions and demands. Some villages declared themselves autonomous republics. The Prime Minister, Lvov, who was more radical and populist than other liberals in the Provisional Government, encouraged localities to run their own affairs. The trouble was that a great wave of expectation was building up and the new government was going to find it hard to meet the hopes and aspirations of all of the different groups in Russian society.
The challenges facing the Provisional Govt- Economic Problems
Food shortages, unemployment and high prices had been important factors in bringing about the February revolution. These problems did not go away when the Provisional government took power. The downward spiral in the economy continued. The railay system, badly dislocated by the war, showed signs of breaking down. Shortages of fuel and raw materials led to factories cutting output or closing -568 factories in Petrograd closed between February and July with the loss of 100.000 jobs. The scarcity of manufactured goods caused prices to rise rapidly.
Food supply was a major issue. There was a temporary respite in the grain crisis after February, but by the end of the summer the situation was critical because peasants were reluctant to bring their grain to cities and the harvest of 1917 was poor. In Petrograd, grain prices doublef between February and June and rose again in the autumn. The Provisional Government seemed unable to do anything about the food shortages.
The rise in the costs of living which was unmatched by wage rises. The workers were becoming incensed, convinced that they were being exploited by speculators. They turned their antagonism on the government, demanding price controls, a halt to speculation and the arrest of profiteers. However, the liberals in the Provisional Government were under pressure from industrialists not to interfere or fix prices and would not act against them. It therefore failed to halt the decline in living standards in the cities.
August 1914 - 1917
Black Bread saw an 500% increase in cost.
Pork saw a 770% increase.
Soap saw a 1780% increase.
The challenges facing the Provisional Govt- The war
The Kaders wanted to continue the war. They did not want to sue the Germans for peace and suer the national shame, loss of territory and humiliation this would entail. They were a nationalist party and wanted to retain the Russian Empire intact. Also they did not want to lose the support of their allies - Britain and France. They thought Western support would be needed for the Redgling democracy. In particular, they desperately needed foreign money as the state was nearly bankrupt; financial support was only guaranteed if Russia stayed in the war.
The socialists were divided on the war. The moderate socialists were prepared to support the continuation of the war as they also did not want to see Russia humiliated. Factions in the Mensheviks and SRs wanted a negotiated peace. But they could all agree that it should be a defensive war — that they should only light to defend Russian territory.
It was this issue that brought the first crisis for the Provisional Government al the end of April. It became apparent that Milyukov, the Minister of War, was committed to an aggressive war in support of the Allies and also hoped to make territorial gains (for example, getting control of Constantinople) if the Germans were defeated. This outraged the socialists in the Soviet and there were anti-war demonstrations in Petrograd. Milyukov was forced to resign.
The Provisional Government was reformed on 5 May. Five socialist leaders joined the new coalition government. The most important of these were the Menshevik leader Tsereteli and the leader of the Socialist Revolutionaries, Chernov. It was hoped that this move would help relations with the Soviet and with the workers and peasants. However, its effect was to distance the moderate socialist leaders from their support base and associate them with the conduct of the war.
The continuation of war was deeply unpopular with many sections of sociery.
I was putting a huge strain on the economy and prevented the Provisional Coveriment romaking dovi. Scial reform and other issues at home. Army discipline was breaking down. The peasant soldiers just wanted the war to end and desertions increase as many made their way home in the hope of geting a share of the land that they thought would be redistributed.
July Offensive - At the beginning of the summer of 1917, the Provisional Government decided to launch a major offensive against the Germans. The new Minister for War, Alexander Kerensky, threw himself into a propaganda campaign lo mobilise the armed forces and the people for a massive attack. Kerensky made patriotic speeches and toured the Fronts. Middle-class civilians volunteered to fight in shock battalions designed to raise the army’s morale. However, Kerensky was less successful with the soldiers, who were increasingly unwilling to fight.
The offensive began on 16 June and lasted for about three days. Then it began to fall apart, thousands of soldiers were killed and even more territory was lost. It pushed many soldiers towards the Bolsheviks and led to an armed uprising in Petrograd known as the July Days.
Moderate socialist leaders in the government lost their credibility with the soldiers and workers.
The challenges facing the Provisional Govt- The Land and the Peasants
The peasants saw the February revolution and the collapse of central authority as their chance to get the remaining great estates to be redistributed without compensation and they wanted government approval to legitimise this process.
But the Provisional Government wanted the Constituent Assembly to resolve the land question. This was partly because it was a huge issue for a temporary government to resolve, but there were other reasons:
* Many of the liberals in the Provisional Government came from the landed and propertied classes and did not wish to see their property simply handed over to the peasants. Moreover, they wanted landowners (often their supporters) to be compensated.
* They were also worried that a land free-for-all would lead to the disintegration of the army as peasant soldiers rushed back to claim their share.
So the peasants began taking the land without government sanction. They also took livestock, tools, timber and anything they could grab from private estates.
This began slowly but gathered in pace throughout the summer.
When Chernov, the popular leader of the SRs, was made Minister of Agriculture in May, it seemed that a better relationship might develop between government and peasants. Chernov proposed a scheme whereby peasants would be given the right to use land from private estates (with ownership to be sorted out later), but the liberals in the Provisional Government blocked this. So, during the summer, land seizures increased (237 cases were reported in July). Violence began to increase with attacks on landowners (some out of revenge) and armed robberies becoming more frequent.
It was a fundamental weakness of the provisional government that it didnt not appreciate the strength of feeling among the peasants and go some way to meet their demands. The Provisonal Government mishandled relations with the peasants in general over this period. Grain was urgently required for the hungry cities; the Provisional government tried to make the peasants agree to fix grain prices. With inflation rampant, the peasants considered the prices too low and refused to send their grain to the towns and cities. The Provisional government sent out the army to requisition supplies and suppress disturbances but this served only to make the peasants more hostile.
The challenges facing the Provisional Govt- The national minorities
When the tsarist regime collapsed, the national minorities around the empire either demanded outright independence like the Finns and Poles or wanted more autonomy like the Caucasus. This issue exposed more splits and weakness in the Provisional Government. The Kaders were determined to maintain the integrity of the Empire. They believed that Russia had to keep all the regions together in one centrally governed state if it was to remain a great power. The socialists on the other hand believed that non russians should run their own affairs and have more self government.
The Provisional Government was unwilling to see the state break up in the middle of a war and wanted to wait until the Constituent Assembly decided The matter came to a head over the Ukraine. The Ukrainians demanded self- government and the moderate socialists in the government made concessions to them. The liberals, who saw this as the first step towards the break-up of Russia, were outraged and three Kadet ministers resigned on 2 July.
The challenges facing the Provisional Govt- Social Reform
The workers had expected social reform after February, with higher wages, better working conditions, shorter hours and more influence in the workplace.
In principle they had achieved same of these aims, but in practice things were moving slowly. Although there were increases in their wages, prices were going up much faster. Strikes increased, taking in a broad range of occupations from kitchen workers to artisans as well as metal workers.
Workers now saw themselves as citizens and worthy of respectful treatment by managers, and demanded action on issues such as equal pay for women and the abolition of child labour. There was a new sense of assertiveness, and factory committees, which became the main organ for worker rights, demanded a more active role in the workplace. The workers had become politicised although economic demands were still at the top of their concerns.
The Provisional Government could not handle this labour militancy and was unable to mediate between employers and workers. The employers for their pan were angry about the constant strikes and pay demands. They used lock-oust try to bring the workers to heel. Added to this, factories were closing every day because of the economic situation. In a desperate attempt to save jobs, workers committes took over some factories completely; but they did not know how to run them and so many closed anyway. Workers were not getting the refore and Improved conditions they expected and class antagonism was growing. turned their anger on the Provisional Government and the moderate socialis leaders in the Soviet.
October Revolution 1917 Timeline
10th- Lenin Wins central committee vote within Bolshevik Party for an armed uprising to take power from Provisional and give it so Petrograd Soviet.
24th-25th - 8000 of the Red Guard (workers who are armed and trained by Bolsheviks) also sailors and garrison soilders seize key points in the city ( St Petersburg)
Key points secured included Bridges, train stations, power stations and telephone exchanges.
For the most part everything continues as normal with shops, trains and Petrograd continuing as normal.
25th-26th - Next night they storm the Winter Palace and arrest remaining members of the government
Factors that led to the success of the Bolsheviks in the October Revolution - Economic and WW1 Problems continued
Continuation of previous problems:
-Factories closing daily
-Striking
-Food shortages- inflation
-Lack of adequate social change
-Socialist and liberals split of WWI
Factors that led to the success of the Bolsheviks in the October Revolution - Return of Lenin and the April Thesis (The Bolsheviks)
Lenin returned from exile in April
1917. He immediately gave a speech which would become known as the ‘April Theses’.
He called for:
-A worldwide socialist revolution
-An immediate end to the war
-An end to co-operation with the Provisional Government
-The Petrograd Soviet to take power
-Land to be given to the peasants.
The Mensheviks called these ideas ‘the ravings of a madman’, but the April Theses became Bolshevik party policy and propaganda material.
Slogans such as ‘Bread, Peace and Land’ and ‘All power to the Soviets’ attracted many. They appealed particularly to the soldiers, workers and peasants who were becoming more radical and unsatisfied by the Provisional Government.
The Bolsheviks became the main focus for those dissatisfied by the government’s performance.
Factors that led to the success of the Bolsheviks in the October Revolution - The July Days (weaknesses of the provisional government)
In the summer of 1917, Russia had launched a failed offensive, which cost the lives of hundreds of thousands of soldiers. The mounting frustration of workers and soldiers led to several days or rioting and disorder the Jesty Days). It was the first direct challenge to the Provisional Government
On 3 July, Sukhanov (a Menshevik) reported lorries and cars rushing about the city full of ‘fierce faced’ civilians and soldiers, and armed groups marching in the streets. On 4 July 20,000 armed soldiers from the Kronstadt naval marched to the Tauride Palace and demanded that the Soviet take power. Chernov, the Socialist Revolutionary leader, was sent out to calm them but they kidnapped him. The Provisional Government had lost control - the atmosphere in the city was very violent.
Some saw the Bolsheviks as being responsible for the July Days. However, they were not ready to take power - Lenin appealed for restraint during the July Days. This being so, the Provisional Government blamed the Bolsheviks and claimed that the Germans were paying Lenin to undermine the Russian war effort. Lenin was forced into hiding. Trotsky and other Bolsheviks were arrested. It was a setback for the party.
The collapse of the summer offensive was a huge blow to the authority of the Provisional Government. Lvov resigned his post as Prime Minister and Kerensky became PM. The uncontrolled rioting of the July Days was essentially an explosion of the frustrations and disappointments of the workers, soldiers and sailors with the policies of the provisional government.
Factors that led to the success of the Bolsheviks in the October Revolution - Problems for the Provisional Government
Political: After the failed summer offensive, the coalition began to fall apart. The Kadets blamed the socialist leaders and the Soviet for the militant strikes. On the 2nd July, three Kadet ministers resigned. Lvov also resigned as Prime Minister.
Alexander Kerensky became PM.
Workers: They had become radicalised. Strikes were frequent and militant. They were becoming impatient with the PG. They saw the government as supporting businessmen who were trying to control them.
Peasants and soldiers were also become impatient with the PG. The army was disintegrating and control was breaking down in the countryside: country houses were being burnt down and landlords killed.
What’s more, the 1917 harvest had been particularly bad. The Provisional Government sent ‘punishment brigades’ into the countryside to force grain requisition. This angered the peasants
Middle Class: Industrialists and businessmen were also losing faith in the government because it couldn’t control workers. Landowners were frustrated they couldn’t stop peasants seizing their land.
