5

Question 1

what two bodies fill the power gap created after the tsars abdication?

Answer 1

-the provisional government(made up
largely by kadets and other liberal party’s)
-the petrograd soviet(mensheviks and non party socialist intellectuals)

Question 2

notable members of the pg just after the feb revolution?

Answer 2

-prince lvov(pm)
-karensky(minister of justice(he was socialist))
-milyukov(foreign minister)

Question 3

what did the soldiers do to the soviet?

Answer 3

on Wednesday the 1st march they went to the soviet to demand representation they gained the famous order number one and the soviet was renamed the soviet of workers and soldiers deputies

Question 4

what does order one do?

Answer 4

-makes the pg unable to pass laws unless approved by the soviet
-forbade officers from using and being in possession of weaponry
-titles such as “your honour” to become “my general”

Question 5

what was the soviet like after order one?

Answer 5

-large(had lots of representatives of the different factory’s and regiments)
-they elected an executive committee to make decisions
-they had a large amount of power over the provisional government due to order one and the fact that they were not legitimate (they were self elected) and stopped right wing press to avoid undoing the revolution
-they censored right wing press to stop the pg from undoing the revolution

Question 6

what were the early accomplishments for the provisional government?

Answer 6

-the release of political prisoners
-recognition of trade unions
-8 hour working day
-replacement of the okrana with the people’s militia
-granted civil and religious freedom
-elections of a constituent assembly

Question 7

Who headed the bolshevik party before lenin’s return in april 1917?

Answer 7

-stalin and kamenev
-they took an anti lenin approach arguing that they should negotiate a peace in the war and cooperate with the provisional government and that it was ‘possible and desirable’ for the bolshevik’s to restore links with the Mensheviks, this was called accomodationism
-in lenin’s ‘letters from afar’ he urged the conversion from the world war to a class war and that soldiers should turn against their officers
-these orders were ignored

Question 8

when did lenin return and what was his return like?

Answer 8

-3rd april 1917
-he was greeted at the station with a band, flowers and red flags and banners
-he then made a speech to both the people and the bolshevik party known as the april theses

Question 9

why was lenin against the soviet?

Answer 9

this would result in cooperation which lenin was against but also it would result in peace which meant that russia would be less likely to have a marxist revolution

Question 10

why did germany assist lenin’s return?

Answer 10

they hoped that it would agitate the political state of russia and cause them to have to withdraw from the war allowing them to focus on the western front

Question 11

why was“peace land and bread” and “all power to the soviets” effective?

Answer 11

-3 things that the nation wants that the provisional government failed to provide
-therefore it would sway people’s opinions to become more anti provisional government

Question 12

what were the opposing views of the war in the pg and ps?

Answer 12

PS-revolutionary defensisism which was invented by Tseriteli which called for the fast negotiation of peace in order to protect the revolution
PG-they wanted to fight until there was a victory due to patriotism and keeping war credits and access to warm water ports promised by the war

Question 13

what was the milukov crisis?

Answer 13

-Paul Milukov sent a secret telegram to the allies to order them to ignore revolutionary defensivism which was obviously intercepted and then leaked to the public and people started to riot in petrograd
-prince lvov put his foot down and remanded milukov and added revolutionary’s to the pg (victor chenov became minister of agriculture)

Question 14

what was the effect of the milukov crisis?

Answer 14

it caused the pg and ps to be less likely to willingly collaborate with each other and left those ministers moved into the pg to the “dustbin of history”

Question 15

what happened in the reshuffle of the cabinet after the milukov crisis after milukovs resignation?

Answer 15

Alexander Karensky became war minister

Question 16

what did karensky do as was minister?

Answer 16

-he campaigned for russia to embrace the conflict with germany as a crusade to save the revolution
-“forewarn to the battle for freedom. i summon you not to a feast but death”
-the truth was that the war had gone past the point that it was salvageable but karensky persisted

Question 17

what happened at the june offensive?

Answer 17

-karensky as war minister launched a massive attack on the western front of russia which was a colossal failure
-the soldiers began to disobey orders as they didn’t understand what they were fighting for and they were also encouraged to disobey orders by bolshevik agitators
-heavy losses were inflicted on russia and their economy

Question 18

what were the causes of the july days?

Answer 18

-karensky because pm in 1917 which angered the kronstadt sailors and workers, who were situated 19 miles west of petrograd, to declare themselves politically separate
-this lead to people thinking that it was an appropriate time to overthrow the provisional government

Question 19

how did the ukraine provoke the july days?

Answer 19

-it had the largest number of non russians in the empire with 23 million people and it was the largest food producing region in the empire and so the control of it was vital to the economy
-therefore when the kadet ministers learned that in late june that a section of the pg offered independence they resigned arguing that only an all russian consituent assembly has the ability to properly decide such matters

Question 20

how were the july days a failure?

Answer 20

the disunity of the protesters allowed the provisional government to control the crowds

Question 21

how did the july days affect the bolsheviks reputations

Answer 21

-a month earlier in the first all russian congress of soviets, lenin had declared that the bolshevik party was ready was ready to take power so it was assumed that the bolsheviks were begind the uprising
-therefore after the failure of the uprising affected their reputation and people began to trust them even less when they attepted to absolve the blame from the bolsheviks

Question 22

what happened in the pg as a result of the july days?

Answer 22

-karensky was made prime minister due to the provisional government and immediately put pressure on the bolsheviks
-the pravda was closed down and many of the bolsheviks were arrested such as trotsky and kamanev
-lenin fled to finland

Question 23

how did karensky serve as pm? (land question)

Answer 23

-he initially made it clear of the promises to redistribute land that they will seize from land owners
-they eventually did not do this and many peasants took this into their own hands and took land
-this eventually turned into a full scale peasants revolt

Question 24

what did lenin do in response to the land question?

Answer 24

-they adapted marxist theory to include the peasantry as a revolutionary force
-they lifted “land to the peasants” from the sr programme making it clear that they viewed the peasantry’s seizure of land as fully legitimate
-this caused the left srs to align with the bolsheviks

Question 25

what happened during the kornilov affair?

Answer 25

-general kornilov became the new commander in chief
-due to the state of the politics in russia at the time he intended to bring his troops into petrograd to save the pg from being overthrown
-karensky then fired kornilov assuming that he wanted to inforce military rule
-kornilov then assumed that the government had already been taken over and assembled to march on petrograd to defend the pg
-karensky then assumed that he was trying to attack the pg and called for the political prisoners including the bolsheviks to defend the provisional government
-eventually the sides realised that they both wanted the same thing and the conflict died down

Question 26

how did the kornilov affair affect the bolsheviks?

Answer 26

this would have boosted the reputation for the bolsheviks as they would have been seen as saviors of the provisional government even though very little conflict occurred