Causes of the October/November Revolution

Question 1

When did Lenin and Trotsky overthrow the PG?

Answer 1

24th-26th October 1917

Question 2

What did the PG launch in June/Summer and what was the outcome?

Answer 2

A renewed attack on the Austro-Hungary army and Germany- The June Offensive led by Brusilov was a disaster and led to mass desertions and a serious breakdown of discipline in the Russian army as they fraternised with the German troops

Question 3

What happened following the failure of the June Offensive?

Answer 3

The Kadet ministers resigned from government on July 3rd- this provoked a military uprising as Bolsheviks encouraged workers and soldiers to protest

Question 4

How many people joined the July days?

Answer 4

Around 70,000 soldiers and armed workers surrounded the Tauride Palace in Petrograd (which housed the PG and the Petrograd Soviet) - government forces tried to disperse the armed protesters leading to two days of riots

Question 5

What were the main consequences of the July Days?
Who was blamed?
(4)

Answer 5

The Government started a propaganda campaign accusing Lenin of being a German spy so Lenin and Stalin fled to Finland to escape arrest but Trotsky and Kamenev were arrested.

Prince Lvov resigned leaving Kerensky to form a ‘ government of salvation of the revolution’

Office for Pravda were closed.

Bolsheviks blamed for the bloodshed.

Question 6

In August 1917 who did Keresky and the government appoint to take control of the army and why?

Answer 6

Kornilov - in an attempt to restore domestic order (death penalty was reinstated as the only way of controlling the troops)

Question 7

What did Kornilov want?

Answer 7

With no sympathy for revolutionaries he demanded Petrograd be placed under military control and the death penalty was reinstated as way of controlling troops.

Question 8

What was Kerensky’s reaction to Kornilov’s demands?

Answer 8

He refused (knowing the workers of Petrograd would resist)
He them dismissed Kornilov as Commander-in-Chief

Question 9

What was Kornilov’s response to his dismissal?

Answer 9

He ordered a detachment of troops to march on Petrograd - Kerensky presumed military takeover so was forced to ask the Petrograd Soviet to defend the capital (he didn’t have an army) - through this he agreed to arm red guards to defend the capital (many Bolsheviks were now released from prison and armed)
Kornilov’s supply lines were cut and coup leaders arrested

Question 10

What was the role of Trotsky?

Answer 10

He was head of the Petrograd soviet and had only joined Bolsheviks in June
He also headed the MCR (formed after Kornilov coup) = armed group along military lines that was formed to protect Petrograd from attempted military takeover

Question 11

In mid-October what did the PG attempt to do and what did Trotsky use?

Answer 11

Shut down the two Bolshevik newspapers based in Petrograd.

Trotsky used fear about Kerensky’s orders as a pretext to get the MCR ready for ‘defensive action’ - in reality was preparing them to seize power

Question 12

What does MRC stand for?

Answer 12

Military Revolutionary Committee

Question 13

Since Lenin’s return how did he play an important role in undermining the PG (2)?

Answer 13

April Theses=direct attack on its policies and authority -persuaded majority of Bolsheviks to abandon support for PG.

Encouraged establishment of 41 Bolshevik newspapers across Russia (spread his radical message and books Bolshevik popularity.

By end of September Bolsheviks dominated Petrograd Soviet and he continued to demand ‘all power to the soviets’

Question 14

In August what did the PG announce and what was Lenin’s reaction?

Answer 14

There would be elections for a new constituent assembly in November - Lenin knew Bolsheviks wouldn’t do as well as social revolutionaries - determined to seize power before then

Question 15

When and why did Lenin secretly return to Petrograd

Answer 15

10th of October in order to persuade the Bolshevik Central Committee to support an armed seizure of power in Petrograd

Question 16

Who was given the role of planning the uprising in detail?

Answer 16

Trotsky

Question 17

Why was the PG’s minister of war (Milyukov) sacked in April 1917 and what was the outcome

Answer 17

He wanted to make territorial gains not just defend Russia and this outraged the socialists in the Soviet so he was forced to resign.

Question 18

What were the reasons for the June offensive?

Answer 18

Britain and France requested strongly that Russia take the pressure off them - treaty obligations
Patriotic Russian society didn’t want to surrender to Germans.

Question 19

When was the June offensive?

Why did it fall apart on the front line?

Answer 19

16th of June for three days but began to fall apart as soldiers killed officers rather than fight

Question 20

What were the national minority demands?

Why was Ukraine’s independence controversial?

Who granted Ukraine to it’s population?

Answer 20

Many places called for independence including Poles and Finns
Biggest problem = Ukraine - most valuable farmland however moderate socialists in the government granted them this

Question 21

What were the three deteriorating economic problems and how did each one affect the PG?

Answer 21

Railway system showed signs of collapse
Fuel shortages led to factories laying off workers (100,000 between Feb and Sep)
Food crisis = critical despite PG increasing price they would pay by 100% peasants wouldn’t bring it to centre

Question 22

How did PG attempt to deal with food crisis?

Answer 22

Sent out punishment brigades into countryside to requisition grain but only made peasants more hostile

Question 23

Why did the PG begin to lose the support of the workers?

Answer 23

They had expected social reform after Feb with higher wages, better conditions and shorter hours but instead wages were becoming worthless

Question 24

Why was Lenin torn in the July days?

Answer 24

The Kronstadt sailors organised their own demonstration - he could neither condemn the action nor fully support it as a premature revolution would risk defeat
Bolsheviks tried to make it a peaceful protest but shots were fired threatening to undermine Lenin

Question 25

Who crushed the July days demonstration?

Answer 25

The PG supported by Mensheviks and SR’s

Question 26

Who supported / opposed Kornilov?

Answer 26

Bolsheviks organised a general strike, even Mensheviks and SR’s opposed Kornilov’s measures.

Those on the right - especially landowners and businessmen who thought PG had done little to protect their rights - supported Kornilov as well as the moderate Kadets saw military takeover as preferable to socialist regime.

Question 27

Why was the Kornilov Coup good for the Bolsheviks?

How much had there membership increased by October?

Answer 27

Many had been released from prison and they now had a reputation as the only ones able to save Petrograd from Kornilov.

Began to get elected in more urban soviets.

Membership = 23,000 in Feb was 200,000 by start of October (x10)

Question 28

How many red guards were the by October?

Answer 28

10,000 red guards

Question 29

What happened in September in terms of Bolshevik support in soviets?

Answer 29

They won majority in both the Moscow and Petrograd soviets and Trotsky became chairman of the executive committee of Petrograd soviet

Question 30

Which Bolsheviks didn’t support the uprising and why?

Answer 30

Kamenev and Zinoviev as they didn’t think Russia was economically ready and wanted to wait for CA elections

Question 31

What did Trotsky do to prepare for revolution?

Answer 31

Sent Bolsheviks speakers round factories to gain support.

Set up MCR on 16th October.

Committee came to control 200,000 Red guards 60,000 Baltic sailors and 15,000 soldiers.

State of mutiny and revolution was established even before it officially began on 25th Oct.

Question 32

What did Trotsky manage to persuade Lenin to do?

Answer 32

Persuade Lenin to postpone the date of the uprising

Question 33

What is not clear about the July days?

Answer 33

Whether the rebellion was formed by the Bolsheviks as Lenin had been on holiday when it broke out and claimed the demonstration were spontaneous , he immediately returned but quickly fled in disguise remaining in Finland until October , Trotsky had not immediately committed himself to the Bolshevik cause having returned to Russia in May but he was elected to the executive committee of the All Russian … and was accused of stirring up the July days and was imprisoned (in prison he became a committed Bolshevik)

Question 34

What social problems had happened leading up to the July days?

Answer 34

Feb - June, grain prices had doubled in Petrograd,

shortages of fuel and raw materials had forced the closure of 586 factories with the loss of 100,000.

By October prices 755% above pre war levels.

Question 35

What triggered the Kronstadt sailors to take action?

What did the sailors do?

Answer 35

Workers demanded price controls but the PG was too scared to act against the industrialists so 20,000 armed Kronstadt sailors took to the street with workers and soldiers joining them attacking shops, seizing railway stations etc

Question 36

Why were the PG unpopular in the summer of 1917?

4/5

Answer 36

Although the government granted an 8 hour day, real wages fell rapidly as prices rose.

Factory owners given right to dismiss strikers by factory soviets = angered workers.

Continuation of war and failure to redistribute land =
loss of support on countryside (seized land anyway).

Elections arranged for November but there was suspicion the bourgeois government was delaying further democracy to preserve own power
Bolsheviks benefitted most from this.

Question 37

What did Kerensky do on the 5th of October and what was the outcome?

Answer 37

Sent some more of the more radical army units out of Petrograd to prepare for front line service
It was done out of fear of a Bolshevik uprising but inflamed political atmosphere as many claimed Kerensky was abandoning the capital to let it fall to the Germans

Question 38

Despite Trotsky eventually backing Lenin’s plan who refused?

Answer 38

Zinoviev and Kamenev (they published their views in the Newspaper Novaia zhin declaring that if they took power now and were forced into a revolutionary war the majority of soldiers wouldn’t support them.

Question 39

What were some key causes of the October Revolution?

Answer 39

Weakness of the PG
Defeat in WW1
Deteriorating economic situation 
Resentment of soldiers, workers, and peasants
Political manoeuvres by Bolsheviks

Question 40

How did Kerensky attempt to take action against the Bolsheviks?

Answer 40

23rd October, ordered the printers of two Bolshevik newspapers Pravda and Izvestia to cease activities, to attempt to restrict the power of the MRC and to send troops to raise the bridges linking Petrograd to the city centre

Question 41

What prevented Kerensky from taking this action against the Bolsheviks?

Answer 41

Troops loyal to the Bolsheviks claimed that his actions were a betrayal of the soviet and an abandonment of the principles of the Feb/March revolution - this gave the Bolsheviks an excuse to act