The Many Revolutions of 1917
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Transcript of The Many Revolutions of 1917
The Many Revolutions of 1917
Provisional Government
Dual PowerProvisional Government• Middle classes, urban dwellers• Liberal democratic parties• Prince L’vov• Aleksandr Kerensky• Mistakes:• Continued the war effort• Refused to give land to peasants• Failed to solve food supply problem• Delayed calling Constituent Assembly
Revolutionary Petrograd
Dual PowerPetrograd Soviet:–Workers– Soldiers– Executive Committee:• Mensheviks• Socialist Revolutionaries (SRs)• Bolsheviks
– Refused to take power– Failed to see the threat from the
Left
Petrograd Soviet of workers’ and soldiers’ deputies
Lenin returns, April 1917
•Finland Station•April Theses:•No Support for PG•Bourgeois Revolution•Elimination of Army, police and bureaucracy•Pay govt. employees no more than workers•“All Power to the Soviets!”•not Bolshevik power
The Bolsheviks of 1917• Marxists• Almost dead early 1917• Tightly organized, but then mass
party• Led and followed masses• Very good organizers, especially of
soviets.• Split over goals:
– World Revolution: Lenin and Trotsky
– Caretaker govt.: L. Kamenev• Slogans:
“Bread, Peace, Land!”“All Power to the Soviets!”
Peasant Revolutions• Slow to hear• Village skhod ->
soviet• Passed decree• Seized: • Land• Forest
• Fought over the spoils
• Localism
National Revolutions• e.g. Ukrainian
Central Rada• Autonomy• Kerensky and PG
split• Ukrainianized
regiments• But limited
peasants’ support
The July Days• Kerensky’s June offensive failed.• Workers, soldiers, sailors
demonstrated: “All Power to the Soviets!”
• Some Bolsheviks encouraged them.
• Called for end to the war.• Demanded Soviet seize power.• PG cracked down; over 700
wounded and killed.• Bolsheviks blamed; many
arrested.• Lenin fled abroad.