The October Revolution

Question 1

What were two big weaknesses of the Provisional Government?

Answer 1

1) It was not an elected body = lack legitimate authority

2) Was limited by its unofficial partnership with the PS

Question 2

What was the Petrograd Soviet’s role?

Answer 2

Regarded its role as supervisory, checking that the interests of the soldiers and workers were fully understood

Question 3

Where were soviets set up after the February revolution?

Answer 3

In all the major towns and cities of Russia

Question 4

What happened to decrees of the PG in regards to military affairs?

Answer 4

They were binding only idk they were approved by the PS

= PG did not have control of its army

Question 5

What was the feeling in Russia after February?

Answer 5

Excitement = felt as if a new era had dawned

- Political groups felt that Russia had entered a period of real freedom

Question 6

What parties were not represented in the PG in its early weeks?

Answer 6

The Bolsheviks and the monarchists

Question 7

What was the relationship between the PG and PS like?

Answer 7

At the begging both were in harmony but as the year progressed the PG moved increasingly to the right while the PS increasingly to the left

Question 8

What were 4 of the PG early progressive measures?

Answer 8

1) Recognition of TUs
2) Amnesty for political prisoners
3) 8 hour working day
4) Grating of full civil rights and religious freedoms

Question 9

What was the People’ Milita?

Answer 9

A new set of volunteer law-enforcement officers drawn from ordinary people = replaced the Okhrana

Question 10

What Bolsheviks wanted to cooperate with the PG and who didn’t?

Answer 10

• Stalin and Kamenev (felt this way about other parties too such as the Mensheviks) wanted to cooperate
• Lenin argued the Bolsheviks should not cooperate

Question 11

What was accommodationism?

Answer 11

The idea that the Bolsheviks should accept the situation that followed the Feb R. cooperating with the PG and being prepared to work with other revolutionary parties

Question 12

What did Lenin claim the February revolution had created?

Answer 12

A ‘parliamentary-bourgeois republic’

Question 13

What did the April Thesis include?

Answer 13

• abandon all co-operation with other parties
• work for a true revolution
• over throw PG

Question 14

How did the slogan ‘peace, land, bread’ include the basic problems confronting Russia?

Answer 14

Peace = continuing war with Germany
Bread = chronic food shortages
Land = disruption in the countryside

Question 15

Why did Lenin want ‘all power to the soviets’?

Answer 15

Believed the ministers governed only in the interests of their own class:

• didn’t want to end the war as brought them profits
• didn’t want to supply food to the Russian peoples who they despised
• didn’t want to reform land holding which guaranteed them their property

Question 16

Why was the PG forced to continue fighting the war?

Answer 16

Needed the supplies and war-credits from the western allies it had become dependent on

Question 17

What did the PG preoccupation with war prevent?

Answer 17

It from dealing with social and economic problems

Question 18

What was the major offensive in June?

Answer 18

On the south-western front but failed badly

- low moral was weakened by Bolshevik agitators = encourage soldiers to disobey orders

Question 19

During the offensive what did General Kornilov call for?

Answer 19

The PG to direct its entries to crushing political subversives at home

Question 20

In summer 1917 what were the signs that the PG was loosing control?

Answer 20

• spread of soviets
• worker-control over factories
• widespread seizure of land by peasants
• creation of breakaway national minority governments - e.g. in Ukraine

Question 21

What were the July Days?

Answer 21

Ministerial clashes coincided with street demonstrations

= public protest due to failure of the June offensive

Question 22

How were the Bolsheviks involved in the July Days?

Answer 22

Came to the aid of the workers and the Kronstadt sailors

Question 23

What important facts did July Days reveal?

Answer 23

• the opposition movement was disunited
• Bolsheviks were still far from being the dominant party
• PG still had the strength to put down an armed demonstration

Question 24

What did Kerensky do after he became PM on 8th July?

Answer 24

Closed down Pravda and arrested many Bolshevik leaders

= Lenin fled to Finland

Question 25

What did the February revolution cause the peasants to believe?

Answer 25

That they would soon benefit from a major land redistribution
= no such thing happened causing peasants to take law into their own hands + seized property

Question 26

What was the Land Commission?

Answer 26

Set up by the PG with the intention of redistributing land

Question 27

What was the Bolsheviks view of the peasantry?

Answer 27

Viewed them as ‘the pack animal’ of history

Question 28

How did the Bolshevik policy of ‘Land to the Peasant’ effect the SRs?

Answer 28

Caused them to split, Left SRs sided with the Bolsheviks on all major issues

Question 29

What was the Kornilov affair?

Answer 29

Kornilov informed Kerensky that he was brining his loyal troops to Petrograd to save the PG from being overthrown by socialists
= Kerensky turned against him when he realised he intended to over throw the PG and impose military rule

Question 30

What part did the Bolsheviks play in the Kornilov affair?

Answer 30

Kerensky released them from prison and they were willing to fight against Kornilov

Question 31

What stopped Kornilov’s advance?

Answer 31

The railway workers refused to operate the trains to bring the army to Petrograd

Question 32

How had the Bolsheviks gained from the Kornilov affair?

Answer 32

• able to present themselves as the defenders of Petrograd and the revolution
• showed the PG’s political weakness and its venerability to military threat

Question 33

How many Bolsheviks were there in the Moscow and Petrograd soviets by September?

Answer 33

They had the majority

Question 34

What was ‘Pre-Parliament’?

Answer 34

Would have had authority to advice the government before the CA - Bolsheviks walk out while the policy was being discussed

Question 35

When did Lenin return from Finland?

Answer 35

7th October

Question 36

How did Kerensky start the coup in October?

Answer 36

Ordered a pre-emptive strike against the Bolsheviks on 23rd October
- Bolshevik newspapers closed down and an attempted round up of leaders

Question 37

How long was the October Revolution?

Answer 37

25th-27th

Question 38

How did the Bolsheviks not seize power?

Answer 38

It fell into their hands

Question 39

What was the Military Revolutionary Committee? (MRC)

Answer 39

Was set up by the soviets to organise the defence of Petrograd against a possible German attack or another Kornilov type assault
= one of the main reasons for the success of the rev

Question 40

Why was the PG not considered worth fighting to save?

Answer 40

• economically incompetent and militarily incapable
• support had evaporated
• couldn’t arouse genuine enthusiasm

Question 41

Why did no other parties mount a challenge to the Bolsheviks?

Answer 41

1) had accepted the Feb rev as genuine = co-operated with the PG + willing to make a coalition
2) weakened by their support for the war

Question 42

Were the Bolsheviks or Mensheviks more consistent in their Bolshevism?

Answer 42

In strictly theoretical terms the Mensheviks were

Question 43

Why was it the case that in Russia the power would go to the most ruthless party?

Answer 43

The arts of negotiation and compromise had not developed in Russia = politics was a simple question of who would gain power and assert it over others