October Revolution Flashcards
Causes - Dual Authority
- Term used to describe the balance of power between the Provisional Government and the Petrograd Soviet
• Provisional Government and Petrograd Soviet of Workers and Soldiers Deputies took control- a confused variety of bodies all claiming to represent the people
• Soviet’s ‘Order No.1’ said that the soldiers and workers should obey the PG but only when the Soviet agreed with the PG- many disagreements. The Soviet encouraged peasants and workers to defy authority and pursue their ‘rights’ this meant the bodies were often in complete opposition to one another
• Milyukov (Foreign Minister of PG) forced to resign when he said Russia would stay in the war until ‘just peace’ had been won. Petrograd Soviet led pressure for him to resign
• As time wore on the PG moved increasingly to the Right and the Petrograd Soviet to the left
Causes - Lenin
• At time of Feb Rev Bolsheviks were only a small party of 23,000 members. Only had 40 representatives in the Soviet of 1500 and all their major leaders were in exile
• Stalin and Kamenev were the first to reach Petrograd after Nicholas II abdication- they accepted the idea of cooperating with the PG (accomodationism). Following Lenin’s return 3rd April the Bolsheviks began to forge their own path
• ‘Letters from Afar’ written between 7 and 26 March- made it clear Party’s job was to lead the people into a second revolution. Condemned PG as a ‘parliamentary-bourgeois republic’
• April Theses released 4th April insisted Bolsheviks were the only true revolutionary proletarian party and urged for the real proletariat revolution to begin.
• Promised; war brought to an end, power transferred to soviets, all land taken over by the state and re-allocated to peasants (land problem appealed to large proportion of peasants)
• ‘peace, bread and land’ and ‘All power to the soviets’
• From mid-Sept, Lenin (in Finland) bombarded 12-man Central Committee with letters demanding to prepare for revolution- Kamenev and Zinoviev urged restraint with this urging them to wait until the Constituent Assembly elections
• 10th October Lenin returned and finally succeeded in persuading the committee that an ‘armed rising is the order of the day’
Causes - Failures of the Provisional Government
Government failures
• Failed to end the war- Kerensky tried to turn it into a revolutionary crusade. He went ahead with the June Offensive in 1917, it failed badly and whole regiments mutinied or deserted
• The failed attempt at an uprising in the July Days showed the Provisional Government still had the strength to put down an armed insurrection and brought credit to Kerensky- Bolsheviks appeared to be crushed at this point but Kornilov Affair undermined these gains
• Kornilov informed Kerensky he was bringing his loyal troops to Petrograd to save the Provisional Government from an attempted German overthrow. Kerensky did not believe Kornilov and called on all loyal citizens to take up arms- Bolsheviks were released from prison, collected weapons and were ready to defend Petrograd. Railway workers refused to transport Kornilov’s army but the Bolsheviks were able to present themselves as defenders of Petrograd
• Land issue- chronic problem since 1861 emancipation. Huge disturbances in the countryside throughout 1917. PG set up a Land Commission with object of redistributing land but little progress was made. This made Lenin’s message resonate even more
Causes - Paradoxical Situation
• Inherited a situation that any government would have struggled with
• No choice but to fight on as they would no longer receive war-credits from the western allies and Tsardom had left Russia virtually bankrupt
• This strain proved unsustainable as its preoccupation with the war prevented the government from dealing with Russia’s social and economic problems
Causes - Trotsky
• 9th October following the Kornilov Affair the Soviet adopted a resolution to create a ‘military revolutionary centre’ to protect Petrograd.
• Largely organised the revolution, sent Bolshevik speakers around factories to whip up support
• Military Revolutionary Committee- himself and Dzerzhinsky set it up. 66 members and 48 were Bolsheviks.
• He massed troops in the Bolshevik headquarters- Red Guards, former soldiers and policemen
• Commisssars were sent to all Petrograd garrison units and 16 out of 18 declared their allegiance to the
Soviet, rather than the Provisional Government
• Committee had in control 200,000 Red Guards, 60,000 Baltic sailors and 150,000 sailors of the remaining Petrograd Garrison units
Causes - Attack on the Provisional Government
• During the evening of 24th October the MRC began its attack
• Soldiers who had previously served the Provisional Government offered little resistance and the Petrograd Garrison backed the uprising
• Soldiers loyal to the MRC occupied the post and telegraph offices, as well as railway stations. The Bolsheviks
therefore extended their control over the city’s infrastructure, preventing the Provisional Government from getting help
• Trotsky and the Red Guards successfully arrested the majority of the Provisional Government. The Winter
Palace was defended by a small number of female troops who were outnumbered.
• 25th October, the MRC announced the Provisional Government had been ‘deposed’. Kerensky fled to
America
Establishment of Bolshevik Authority
• Lenin had always stated that he wanted power to be given to the soviets. However, these were multi-party organisations and Lenin did not want to share power with the SRs or Mensheviks
• Some SRs and Mensheviks walked out of the Second All-Russian Congress, 25th October, when they realised the new government was going to be Bolhsevik dominated. This played into Lenin’s hand as it reduced their representation at the Congress and allowed Lenin to get support to create a new Bolshevik-dominated government
• Congress voted to create a new constitution with Sovnarkom at the top- Lenin was to be chairman and overall leader
• Below Sovnarkom was the All-Russia Congress of Soviets, which the Bolsheviks dominated
• At the bottom of this new government organisation were representative from cities, villages and local soviets
• The first decrees issues before December 1917 ended Russia’s fighting in WWI and the Decree on Land authorise peasant land seizures
Sovnarkom
The council of Peoples Commissars that was at the top of the new constitution
