Failure of the Russian Provisional Government

On 24-26 October, the Bolshevik Party seized power from Kerensky’s Provisional Government. This was achieved with surprising ease. Retaining their newly acquired power, however, was to prove difficult. Nonetheless, the Bolsheviks proved successful in consolidating their power from 1917-1924, achieving this through a combination of pragmatic reforms and ruthless terror. This ultimately led the Bolsheviks far from their original goals and ideologies, and by 1924, the Soviet Union was a highly centralised one-party state.

Following WWI, sever strain was placed on Russia's weak government and economy, resulting in mass shortages and hunger. The people and soldiers turned against the Tsar, losing faith in his authority and power due to the mismanagement and failure of the war, his decision to take personal command of the army seemed to make him responsible for the defeats. Discontent grew amongst the people where they In March, growing civil unrest and discontentment erupted into open revolt and strikes in Petrograd, forcing the abdication of Nicholas II (1868-1918), the last Russian czar. The Duma then assumed control and declared a provisional government.  Eight months later, the radical Bolshevik party seized power from the Provisional government.

After the February revolution on 1917 which saw the abdication of the Tsar, Russia was in turmoil. It had gone (in a matter of days) from being one of the most

Bolshevik soldiers were already succeeding, before even people from Petrograd city realized they were going through a civil war. On the 25th , the soldiers had gotten to the Winter Palace. People were confused, not knowing what was going on. Red Guards occupied the place. The Bolsheviks arrested the Provisional Government whom left and formed a new government, lead by the chairman Vladimir Lenin.

There were four elected Duma which were all dispersed by the Tsar who would find an excuse to not trust them. Once the October Manifesto and the Fundamental Laws were passed, the Tsar Nicholas II ordered the army to shoot at protestors but the army refused and took the side of the revolutionaries. These Fundamental Laws re-established the autocracy as the Tsar became more reactionary. After the 1905 Revolution, the Tsar was able to regain control the uprisings in his country. He sent the police to arrest the leader of the St. Petersburg Soviet, a Worker’s Council, Trotsky and exiled him to Siberia. The army crushed a strike in Moscow which caused 1000 deaths. The Black Hundred who were the official strikebreakers, stopped riots in different parts of Russia and murders approximately 500 Jews. Eventually, the workers lost the will to fight and started working again in order to feed their families. The split of the opposition parties turned out to be an advantage for the Tsar who was able to use this against them.

The new rules and emancipation edict forced workers to protest because of the lack of employment available. Although the population and food prices were increasing, its job availability was not. The citizens of the Russian population truly believed that the Tsar, their inspirational leader, was unaware of these economic issues they faced. As a gesture to show awareness a group led by Father Gapon marched to the doors of his palace in order to inform him of their situation. The open fire on January 22nd 1905 brought upon a new perspective to the citizens of their country’s ruler. Bloody Sunday, start of the Bolshevik revolution, was an awakening for the Tsar Nicholas II indifferent thinking to keep his country happy as he modernized regulations. The indifferent thinking brought upon social issues that the Tsar could not handle, in which led to the failure of the monarchy and start of the Bolshevik

The Failure of the Provisional Government and the Rise of the Bolsheviks i. Subject of investigation. How did the failure of the Provisional Government allow for the rise of the Bolsheviks? ii. Methods to be used. 1.

Tsar Nicholas II is thought to be personally responsible for the collapse of the Russian Monarchy. His nature wasn’t well suited for the role he held therefore he was an incompetent leader. Russia was undergoing many changes and was in early stages of industrialization. This was followed by an embarrassing string of defeats of which the Tsar was badly prepared. His unsuccessful involvement in the First World War added to the disappointment in the government’s incompetence and corruption. There were many opportunities for Russia to modernize but this would require political change, which the Tsar was unwilling to do. Nicholas had many opportunities throughout his reign to reform, but destroyed his last chance of survival.

The Russian Revolution was a series of two revolutions that consisted of the February Revolution and the October Revolution. The February Revolution of March 8th, 1917 was a revolution targeted and successfully removed Czar Nicholas II from power. The February Revolution first began to take place when strikes and public protests between 1916 and early 1917 started occurring. These strikes were created to protest against and to blame Czar Nicholas II for Russia’s poor performance in WWI and severe food shortages that the country facing. Soon, violence between protesters and authorities began to escalate, and on February 24th, 1917 in the city of Petrograd, hundreds of thousands of male and female workers flooded the streets. They all had the same purpose which was to protest against the “Great War” and the monarchy. The protests began to escalate and the vastly outnumbered police were unable to control the crowds. When news of the unrest reached the czar, he ordered the military to put an end to the riots by the next day, and on February 26th, 1917, several troops of a local guard regiment fired upon the crowds, but however many soldiers felt pity and empathy for the protesters than the czar, and on the next day, more than 80,000 soldiers join the protest even directly fighting the police.

The Russian Revolution is a series of political events that occurred during the years 1905 to 1924. The February Revolution, in which overthrew the imperial government and the October Revolution, placed the Bolsheviks in power (britannica.com). The Russian Revolution happened because of discontentment of with the tsar, poverty in Russia, and lack of control over the government. During the In January of 1905, protesters were protesting in front of the winter palace because of extreme poverty and starvation due to peasants’ wages decreasing. The Russian workers and peasants wanted a better working and living conditions. More than 1000 protesters were killed and injured after the tsar, Nicholas the II, ordered his army to gun down the protesters. This incident, known as Bloody Sunday, led to the 1905 revolution. During the 1905 revolution, Russian Social Democratic Social Party split into two factions, the Mensheviks and the Bolsheviks. Later in October of 1905, Nicholas the II issued the October Manifesto, which ended the Russian Revolution of 1905. In July of 1914, World War I begun which caused the Russians a lot of damage because four million Russian soldiers killed, wounded or captured. The Russian Soldiers refused the fight and people back in Russian were starving because of the lack of income from the war. World War I also caused the tsar to lose control of Russia as the war has caused chaos in Russia. Soon, continuous protests and revolts led to the March Revolution of

With the October revolution in 1917, Lenin managed to execute a successful coup d’état against the provisional government of Russia and with the death of the constituent assembly early 1918; Lenin and his Bolsheviks had finally control over Russia. However this was just the beginning of various problems he would be facing. This raised the debate on whether Lenin could deal with these problems or not. Many of the quarrels originated from the Tsar’s regime and the provisional government such as Russia’s participation in WW1 as well as economic underdevelopment. Immediate problems such as the raging civil war existed as

tried to create a western style society. Nevertheless, this government led by Alexander Kerensky lasted for only seven months, by which at the end Lenin and the communist Bolsheviks seized power over Russia. When the peasants claimed land from the government the government refused which made the Bolsheviks extremely mad making them riot against the government. The Provisional Government lost to the

The Success of the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia in October 1917 The Bolshevik seizure of power or coup de’tat of October 25th, 1917 was a culmination of both internal and external failure to satisfy the needs of an oppressed Russian society. In contrast to the spontaneous revolts earlier in 1917, the Bolshevik revolution was ‘a carefully planned plot carried out by ‘professional’ revolutionaries. ’[1] The victory of the Marxist Lenin’s

Although, we must remember, that Lenin had incorrectly pushed for an unsuccessful revolution in July. Lenin is famed to have said, 'History will not forgive us if we do not assume power,' Lenin chose, successfully, when to seize power. The Weaknesses of the Provisional Government were as much, if not more to blame than the successes of the Bolsheviks for the Socialist Revolution. The Provisional Government was delicate by its very nature, it was not democratically elected, it was illegitimate, and had no mandate to rule.

“The power still has to be snatched from the hands of the old rulers and handed over to the revolution. That is the fundamental task. A general strike only creates the necessary preconditions; it is quite inadequate for achieving the task itself”(Trotsky). The ineffectiveness of the strikes can be found in the fact that in nearly every occasion the soldiers were ordered to shoot on the crowd, stopping the revolts and leaving the tsar as obnoxious to the situation as before. Also the peasants in the countryside suffered land-hunger due to the growth of population caused by the decreased of mortality rates. Backwardness was also caused by the “open field system”, which didn’t motivate the peasants to improve their machinery or seeding methods since their land would be taken away from them and redistributed when a member of the community died. Nicholas II was a weak, indecisive and obstinate ruler who, being very conservative and reactionary, used extensively the secret police (“Third Section”) and the army to suppress uprisings and political enemies. He alienated the intelligentsia and angered the liberals with his lack of political participation and exaggerated reliance on the Fundamental laws, which said that the tsar was appointed by god and was rightfully in charge of the country. As a response, the liberals initiated a banquet campaign that started in November 1904, and ended in January 1905 with the aim of making the tsar give