Russia Under the Provisional Government, 1917 (AQA A Level History: Component 1: Breadth study): Revision Note

Summary

• Power was split between the Provisional Government and the Petrograd Soviet, an unstable arrangement called dual power

  • The Provisional Government had formal responsibility for governing

  • The Soviet held real influence over soldiers and workers

• Lenin returned in April 1917, rejecting cooperation with the Provisional Government

  • He demanded peace, land and bread and all power to the soviets

• The Bolsheviks recovered quickly from early setbacks

  • The July Days briefly discredited them

  • The Kornilov Affair rearmed and revived them within weeks

• The Provisional Government lost support because it failed to solve Russia's key problems:

  • It continued Russia's involvement in the First World War

  • It delayed land reform

    • This alienated soldiers, workers and peasants

• Historians debate whether the Provisional Government could ever have restored order

  • However, most stress that continuing the war was the decision that doomed it

Issues with dual power: Provisional Government vs Petrograd Soviet

A divided inheritance: legitimacy without force

• Dual power meant two bodies claimed authority over the same country

• The Provisional Government held legal authority but had no legal, elected basis

  • Most people saw it as a committee of the wealthy

• The Petrograd Soviet held the real loyalty of the soldiers and workers

  • Yet it chose not to take formal responsibility for governing

Why the arrangement was unstable: Order No. 1

• The Soviet's Order No. 1 was the structural fault line

  • It told soldiers to obey the Provisional Government only when the Soviet agreed

    • This gave the Soviet effective control of the army and railways

• The result was responsibility without power for the Provisional Government

  • The government had formal authority but could not command the armed forces

  • The Soviet had real force but refused to take governing responsibility

• Disagreements appeared within weeks over the war and public order

  • The government wanted to discipline deserters and restore order in the towns

  • The Soviet encouraged workers and peasants to assert their new rights

Lenin’s return and the April Theses, 1917

The return of Lenin, April 1917

• Lenin returned to Petrograd from exile in Switzerland on 3 April 1917

  • The Germans helped with his route, hoping he would pull Russia out of the war

  • He travelled in a sealed train with 31 fellow revolutionaries

The April Theses

• Lenin set out a radical programme that broke with every other party

  • Power should be transferred to the soviets, not the Provisional Government

  • The war should be brought to an immediate end

  • All land should be taken over by the state and given to the peasants

• The demands were summed up in two unforgettable slogans

  • 'Peace, bread and land' spoke directly to the soldiers, workers and peasants

  • 'All power to the soviets' ruled out any cooperation with the government

A mixed reception at first

• Even many Bolsheviks thought Lenin had lost touch with reality

  • Some feared his demands would do more harm than good

  • There were allegations that he was being paid by the Germans

• The Bolsheviks were still a small minority party in early 1917

  • They only had about 26,000 members and trailed the other socialists

    • Lenin's persistence won over the party's Central Committee by late April

The July Days and the Kornilov Affair, 1917

The July Days: a rising too soon

• In early July, armed crowds poured onto the Petrograd streets

  • Grain prices had doubled between February and June 1917

  • 586 factories had closed, with the loss of around 100,000 jobs

  • Some 20,000 armed Kronstadt sailors joined workers chanting Bolshevik slogans

• The demonstrations failed and rebounded badly on the Bolsheviks

  • Troops loyal to the Soviet Union dispersed the crowds

  • Warrants were issued for Bolshevik arrests; Trotsky was jailed and Lenin fled to Finland

    • The government published claims that Lenin was a German agent, and his reputation fell

• Kerensky replaced Prince Lvov as Prime Minister in July 1917

  • For a moment, it seemed the Bolshevik threat had passed

The Kornilov Affair: the turning point

• General Kornilov became Commander-in-Chief in July 1917

  • The frightened elites hoped he would crush the Soviets and restore order

• In late August, he ordered troops to march on Petrograd

  • He intended to break the Soviet and set up a military dictatorship

• Kerensky panicked and turned to the very people he had just jailed

  • He released imprisoned Bolsheviks and armed the Soviet Red Guards

    • Railway workers cut Kornilov's supply lines and the coup collapsed

• The affair handed the Bolsheviks a decisive advantage

  • They were now armed, organised and seen as defenders

  • Kerensky looked weak, having needed the Bolsheviks to save him

Why was the continuation of the First World War fatal for the Provisional Government?

The fatal choice to keep fighting

• The government chose to stay in the war, against the wishes of the people

  • Milyukov's note promising to fight on triggered mass anti-war demonstrations

  • Milyukov and Guchkov were forced to resign in the resulting crisis

• During the war, the June 1917, the Kerensky Offensive in Galicia ended in heavy defeat

  • The failed advance destroyed morale and deepened anti-war feeling

An army that would no longer fight

• Desertion turned from a problem into a collapse

  • There were over 365,000 desertions in just three months, from March to May 1917

    • The government brought back the death penalty to try to hold the front together

Economic misery and the land question

• The war wrecked the economy and the government could not feed the towns

  • Prices stood at 300% of 1914 levels by January 1917

  • They reached 755% by October, despite an eight-hour day

• Refusing to redistribute land lost the government the support of the countryside

  • The government insisted land reform must wait for the Constituent Assembly

  • Peasant land seizures spread from 34 districts in March to 325 in July

• Delaying elections fed suspicion that the government was clinging to power

  • An electoral commission was set up in May, with elections promised for November

Could the Provisional Government have restored order to Russia?

• You must weigh evidence to answer this common, hypothetical question

It had a genuine chance, and its failures were its own choices

• The government enjoyed real legitimacy in the spring of 1917

  • It was accepted by the civil service, the officers and the old order

  • The First All-Russian Congress backed it by 543 votes to 126 in June

• Its fatal problems flowed from decisions, not fixed circumstances

  • Leaving the war was possible, but the government chose to fight on

  • Land reform could have been started rather than postponed until after the elections

• Its rivals were weak for much of the year

  • The Bolsheviks were a minority and badly damaged in July

The pressures it faced made order almost impossible

• Dual power left the government unable to enforce any decision

  • Order No. 1 meant it never truly commanded the army

• The war drained every resource needed to govern

  • Mass desertion and economic collapse were beyond quick repair

  • Prices at 755% of 1914 levels left the towns hungry and angry

• Popular expectations had run far ahead of what any government could deliver

  • Peasants seized land and soldiers left the front without waiting for orders