In between revolutions

Question 1

What was the provisional government?

Answer 1

• A group of wealthy aristocrats, political members and groups who favored a constitutional monarchy (liberals, moderate socialists and kadets) led by Prince Lvov
• It was meant to be temporary as elections were going to be held for a new constituent assembly
• It was legitimate as it had Mikhail’s blessing
• It was set up in the Duma chamber in the right wing of Tauride palace

Question 2

What was the Petrograd soviet?

Answer 2

• The believed the provisional government was tainted by tsardom and saw themselves as the more democratic organisation
• They were located in the left wing of Tauride palace with intellectuals, Mensheviks, SRs and some Bolsheviks
• Out of the first 42 committee authority only 7 members were workers
• it lacked confidence to assume direct control and only had a sense of unity with the provisional government through Kerensky

Question 3

Whilst they made no attempts to redistribute land, what did the provisional government agree upon?

Answer 3

• amnesty for political prisoners
• civil liberties
• the abolition of legal distributions on class, religion and nationality
• freedom to organise trade unions and to strike

Question 4

What additional freedoms were given in April?

Answer 4

• freedom of press and religion
• abolishment of the death penalty on the front
• replaced the tsarist police force with people’s militia
• dismissed provincial governors giving their work to the Zemstva

Question 5

What did the Dual authority agree on?

Answer 5

• The soldiers and workers should obey them through the order no 1
• They should work together

Question 6

How did their attitudes differ on army deserters?

Answer 6

• Government wanted to discipline them and restore order to the countryside
• Soviets wanted them to defy authority and assert their rights

Question 7

How did their attitudes differ on war?

Answer 7

• Government wanted an all - out effort to win the war as they felt bound to the triple alliance and French loans
• Soviets wanted the war to end as soon as possible without annexation of territory by the Germans

Question 8

What happened in April 1917?

Answer 8

Milyukov announced that Russia would continue to fight in the war leading to protests by the soviet and the people pushing Milyukov and Guchkovto to resign. They were replaced by socialists as Chernov became minister of agriculture and Kerensky as minister of war. By July, Kerensky became prime minister

Question 9

Why didn’t the elections proceed?

Answer 9

By July, it was clear that the SR and soon Bolsheviks would win the votes of the people as well as policy changes such as land redistribution. The soviet offered no alternate forms of leadership as their priority was protecting the rights of the workers and peasants to proceed onto stage 5 of Marx theory

Question 10

What as the Bolshevik party like by the revolution?

Answer 10

There were 23,000 members with only 40 representatives in the soviet of 1500 as the major leaders were in exile

Question 11

Who returned by mid - march?

Answer 11

Kamenev and Stalin (man of Steel) returned from Siberia taking control of the party newspaper Pravda (truth) which reflected left - wing socialist beliefs as they supported the provisional government

Question 12

How did Lenin return on the 3rd of April?

Answer 12

He travelled to cheering crowds in Finland station where he gave a speech from Switzerland after enlisting the help of Germans to provide a sealed carriage with 31 comrades

Question 13

Why did the Germans help Lenin?

Answer 13

They saw him as a military tactic as he would stir up trouble diverting Russia from the war

Question 14

What has Figes proposed?

Answer 14

Workers cheered Lenin for the prospect of free beer on Easter weekend rather than for him

Question 15

What were Lenin’s letters from afar?

Answer 15

From the 7th - 26th of March, he wrote these letters pushing a second revolution to take Russia into stage 5 of Marx theory

Question 16

How did Lenin’s ideology differ from other socialists?

Answer 16

He believed that the Russian middle class was too weak to carry through a full bourgeoise revolution and that to allow the middle class to continue in power prevented revolution therefore he pushed a permanent revolution

Question 17

What did the April thesis state?

Answer 17

• No support for the provisional government
• give power to the soviets
• to end the war
• all land should be taken over by the state and re - allocated to peasants by local soviets
  which can be summarised as peace, bread and land

Question 18

What did peace symbolise?

Answer 18

• There wasn’t a leader to push the war
• Experienced leaders are dead
• Less debt to France if they didn’t go to war
• Largest impacts felt by the lower classes as they were the ones on the frontline
• Less casualties, damaged national pride and identity

Question 19

What did bread symbolise?

Answer 19

• Bread is being rationed causing queues and it acted as a catalyst for the February revolution
• Creating socialism
• They saw the tsarist influenced provisional government as less democratic as them so Lenin called for the people not to support them
• Aligning with the original sims of the Soviet as they organised food supplies for Petrograd

Question 20

What were the benefits for the upper class?

Answer 20

• challenging autocracy
• he provided the responses to the problems that the provisional government needed to solve

Question 21

Why did the social democrats criticise Lenin?

Answer 21

• He was out of touch as his radical proposals would do more harm than good
• He was in pay of the Germans
• It was undermining the February revolution and according to Mensheviks provoke a right - wing reaction
• It was unrealistic to oppose the provisional government

Question 22

How did Lenin manage to get his way?

Answer 22

• Skills of persuasion and compromise
• Threats of resignation
• Appeals to the rank and file
• He wore a worker’s cap to party and factory meetings wearing a worker’s hat and changing his ideals away from a civil war as many people did not want it
• A shift towards the left in government
• Sheer force of personality allowed him to win the majority of the central committee of the Bolshevik party
• The Bolsheviks did well in the June elections as a consequence

Question 23

What did Lenin claim personal credit for in his speeches?

Answer 23

• The peasant’s seizure of land in the countryside (occurred in the absence of authority)
• The anti - war demonstration in Petrograd (following Milyukov’s announcement

Question 24

What happened at the All Russian congress of Soviets on the 3rd of June?

Answer 24

543 to 126 voted in confidence of the provisional governemnt

Question 25

What happened in the June demonstrations?

Answer 25

It was called by the leaders of the Petrograd soviet to attempt the out maneuver of the Bolsheviks however Bolshevik banners still dominated the march