provisional government overview

• Their 8 aims:

  1. amnesty for political prisoners
  2. freedom of speech
  3. abolition of religious, national or social privileges
  4. abolition of police units and replaced by militia
  5. elections for local councils and Zmestva which everyone can vote for
  6. military discipline
  7. military units that joined revolution, kept their weapons and not sent to front
  8. preparations for constituent assembly
• within a few days being in power all police departments had been abolished and all provincial governers sacked
• political prisoners were released and flocked to Petrograd and Moscow
• two million people joined trade unions in 1917 , these were previously banned by the Tsar
• a visiting American claimed Russia had become 'a nation of a hundred million orators'
• The Petrograd Soviet and the Provisional government were both in the Tauride palace
• on 1st March the Soviet's passed Soviet order number 1:

  1. all military units were to elect committees from members
  2. all military units were to elect representatives to the Petrograd soviet
  3. orders of Petrograd soviet should take priority to PG
  4. weapons to be controlled by military committees and not given to officers
• A workers shouted at Foreign Minister, Miliukov, 'who elected you?'
• Soviets were elected all over Russia
• The Petrograd Soviet in March called for 'peace without annexations or indemnities'; it agreed a policy of 'revolutionary defensism'- a war of defence
• the PG agreed on 27th March a 'declaration of war aims' however Foreign minister Miliukov promised the allies that Russia would continue in the war
• There was a storm of protests in Petrograd, angry demonstrations by armed soldiers at the continued war. This threat of civil war forced Miliukov and minister of war Guchkov to resign
• Miliukov and Guchkov's resign caused Prince Lvov to create a new government in which he invited 6 soviet leaders.
• the first coalition government 1917 included: Kadet's, SR's, Menshevik's, progressive, centrist, popular socialist and obctobrists
• Policy of the new government under Prince Lvov:

  1. delayed national elections to constituent assembly
  2. failed to address peasants demands for land
  3. tried to limit activities of worker's committee's
  4. continued the unpopular war
• In June there was a demonstration by the Soviets to attract support however many people held Bolshevik's posters 'All power to the Soviet's'
• The Russian army was failing, moral was low and there was number 170,000 desertions
• impact of war: Russian army was poorly equipped, lost two major battles in 1914, caused loss of civilian and military morale, Tsar held responsibility for defeats as he had taken charge of army
• main role of PG was to rule until constituent assembly could be elected
• Petrograd Soviet: elected committee dominated by Menshevik's
• Alexander Kerensky was a member of both PS and PG and was the main line of communication
• Soviet controlled: telegraph stations, factories, power supplies and railways
• Lenin takes a train through Germany, during war dangerous, he draws up April Thesis with slogans of Bolshevik's, he says people should not work for PG and this gained successful propaganda