3. Opposition to the Provisional Government

• How many different ethnicities were there in the Russian Empire?

  100
• How many different nationalities were there in the Russian Empire?

  200
• What were the Provisional Government's attitudes regarding the nationalities?

  Answers:

  • Although the liberals and socialist parties had opposed Russification, they supported the civil and cultural rights of minorities, and wanted to maintain the integrity of the existing Russian state.
  • The Kadets were especially determined to do so. The Social Revolutionaries were more open to national demands, but throughout the war, they modified their policies and relied on the argument that the relationship between the Russian government and the nationalities should wait for the Constituent Assembly.
• What did the Third Coalition government, formed on the 25th September 1917, state regarding the nationalities?

  They issued a statement formally recognising the right of self-determination, 'but only on such principles as the Constituent Assembly shall recognise'.
• What did the Bolsheviks state regarding the nationalities?

  They adopted a more accommodating policy towards the nationalities, as Lenin argued that oppressed nationalities might need independence as a prelude to international socialism. He saw it as a means to gain support.
• What percentage of the Russian population did Ukraine consist of?

  22%
• Why was Ukraine important to Russia?

  It produced key resources of grain, coal, and iron, forming part of the border with Germany and Austria-Hungary.
• How did the Ukrainians attempt to gain more autonomy?

  Answers:

  • There was the formation of the Ukrainian Central Rada.
  • In May 1917, Rada leaders sent a delegation to Petrograd to seek the support of the Soviet and the Provisional Government, but received a cold response. In June 1917, they issued a declaration calling for a 'Free Ukraine'.
  • Several concessions were made, allowing some self-government, but the ultimate decisions were to be left to the Constituent Assembly. However, Ukrainian nationalism was relatively fragmented, but they declared full independence in January 1918.
• How did the Finns attempt to gain more autonomy?

  Answers:

  • When the Provisional Government came to power, they accepted Russia's right to temporarily control military and foreign affairs, but also spoke of independence.
  • The Provisional Government and the Petrograd Soviet rejected this argument, saying Finland's status could only be decided by the Constituent Assembly.
  • On the 5th July 1917, the Finnish Parliament passed a law declaring their sovereignty. The Provisional Government forced the parliament to dissolve and scheduled new elections for September 1917.
• How did the Finns attempt to gain more autonomy (card two)?

  Answers:

  • They faced a class divide, with workers demanding better economic conditions. They formed Red Guard units.
  • Meanwhile, the more conservative elites formed their own Home Guard.
  • The country was on the brink of civil war by the time their newly elected parliament met on the 19th October 1917, and declared Finland independent.
• How did Estonia attempt to gain more autonomy?

  Answers:

  • The elected assembly, the Maapaev, pushed for more independence, and relations with the Provisional Government deteriorated.
  • On 25th September 1917, it called for an autonomous Estonia within a federal Russian state. However, they were not united, with support for socialist and non-socialist parties divided equally.
• How did Latvia attempt to gain more autonomy?

  Answers:

  • The Bolshevik dominated Social Democrat party soon became the dominant force, largely because Latvian Germans, Jews, Russians, and Poles made up the middle classes, while the Latvians were largely working class or peasants.
  • Latvia was very industrialised and its peasants were largely landless. The Bolshevik message of peace, bread, and workers' committees, and power to the Soviets were very appealing (especially because part of Latvia had been occupied by the Germans since 1915 and Riga had been captured in September 1917).
• How did Islamic areas attempt to gain more autonomy?

  Answers:

  • They did not have the strong sense of national identity found in the European west of the empire, but did support the February Revolution and calls for cultural and religious autonomy.
  • They saw the revolution as a chance for pan-Islamism and traditional religious leadership.
  • By autumn 1917, Muslim leaders had grown disillusioned by the Provisional Government, as it had failed to provide solutions to pressing social and economic problems, and had refused Muslim leaders any representation in the Provisional Government.
• How did Armenia attempt to gain more autonomy?

  The impact of the 1915 Turkish massacres and the fear of another Turkish attack led the Armenian nationalists to support the Russian government.
• What were the grievances of the workers between May and October 1917?

  Answers:

  • They wanted to raise living standards, guarantee employment, improve working conditions, and reduce the working day to eight hours.
  • They also wanted to halt speculation, arrest profiteers, punish hoarding, control prices, ban lockouts, and support factory committees and trade unions against employers' trade sanctions.
  • There was a growing shortage of fuel and raw materials, so manufacturers cut output, laid off labour, and shut down.
• How did the workers action their grievances between May and October 1917?

  Answers:

  • Through factory committees, trade unions, and workers' militia.
  • Strikes were initially concentrated among the skilled, relatively highly paid workers who could wring concessions. The strikes embraced factories where workers had less bargaining power.
  • Demand for the ‘kopeck’ dailies collapsed and workers turned to the class analyses offered by the soviet and socialist press.
• How did the elites respond to the workers' grievances between May and October 1917?

  Answers:

  • Many larger Petrograd employers made blatant use of the lockout to bring workers to heel and through the press loudly broadcast their resentment against working-class presumption.
  • Factory committees asserted the right to verify employers’ claims that raw materials could not be procured, that production must be run down, that workers must be laid off, and encroached further and further onto the sphere of management.
• How did the Provisional Government respond to the workers' grievances between May and October 1917?

  Answers:

  • The government was poorly equipped to adopt the far-reaching programme of state-regulation urged by Menshevik economists.
  • Liberal ministers were susceptible to fierce, ill-coordinated pressure from industrialists against such intervention, and specifically against controls on the price of manufacturers.
  • This vitiated repeated efforts to fix the price of grain and eventually drove the government to make forlorn attempts at forced requisitioning from the countryside.
• What were the grievances of the peasants between May and October 1917?

  Answers:

  • They wished for the abolition of private landownership without compensation.
  • Unlike the soldiers and the workers, they were not driven to replace the coalition, but simply emasculate its power in rural areas.
  • They become more violent, but their demands do not change (desire for land).
• What were the actions of the discontent peasants between May and October 1917?

  Answers:

  • From May, unrest in areas where there was significant private landholding had reached serious proportions.
  • Apart from a brief decline during harvest, peasant disturbances became even more widespread, and, from September, increasingly violent.
  • Besides seizing land, groups of peasants helped themselves to the timber, the livestock, the machinery, and the crops of private estates.
• How did the Russian elites respond to the peasant grievances?

  Answers:

  • In early May, an All-Russian Congress of Peasant Soviets faithfully endorsed the peasant demand for the abolition of private landownership without compensation, but at the same time insisted that this be brought about by legal means and condemned arbitrary seizures.
• How did the Provisional Government respond to peasant grievances?

  Answers:

  • Lvov and his colleagues were more willing to envisage drastic land-reform than liberals anywhere else in Europe, but they were determined that it should be orderly, that private landowners should be duly compensated, and that action should be delayed until the Constituent Assembly.
  • They set up a hierarchy of Land Committees to gather information for eventual use by the Constituent Assembly and to place the zemstvos on a fully democratic basis. They sanctioned the use of force to quell agrarian disturbances.