Explain why Lenin and the Bolsheviks replaced the Provisional Government as leaders of Russia by November 1917.

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  1. Explain why Lenin and the Bolsheviks replaced the Provisional Government as leaders of Russia by November 1917.

A Government - people who collectively decide what is best politically for a country or part of a country.

Having a Government is a necessity as they are countries political connections to the rest of the world; they make the major decisions, and try to do what is best for the people living in their country. It is a government that deals with finances, wars, education, problems, health care – and these are just a few of things that they are presented with. On top of everything else, they have to try to make the people that they are ‘governing’ as content and happy as they can.

Sometimes, although there is a government, a country may have a monarch, or someone that has presiding powers. The government, therefore, is there to act as advisors. In Russia this government, or parliament, was called the Duma. For three hundred years, a Tsar predominantly ruled Russia. However, in March 1917, the Tsar, Nicholas II abdicated, leaving Russia without a ruler.

So twelve members of the Duma elected themselves to become the Provisional Government – a temporary government that would rule over Russia until a new leader could be found.

So how did the Bolsheviks take the power away from the Provisional Government? As with many situations in history, there wasn’t just one factor, but many that caused the collapse of the Provisional Government.

Dual Power. This is the first factor that affected the Provisional Government. Whilst the provisional government was being set up, in another part of the building The Petrogard Soviet was forming. This was a panel of working class people who came together in the interest of the working class. They wanted to make sure that the Government would be fair and that the working class people of Petrogard would get the most out of the government. There was one catch; the provisional government could not make a decision without the soviet having agreed to it. So in actual fact, the provisional government would have no power if the soviet disagreed with their propositions. What made it worse was that the soviet gained control of the army using Order No. 1, meaning that not only did the provisional government not have total control politically, they also now had no physical power.

To begin with, however, the Dual Power system seemed to work well. This was because the people of Russia seemed to get what they wanted: Political prisoners were set free, the Tsarist Police were abolished, and for the first time freedom of speech was introduced to Russia. So for the Russian people everything seemed to be going great, better, in fact then ever before.

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The Soviet was very powerful, even though it was not the official government. It seemed that the Petrogard Soviet had started a new trend, and Soviets emerged all over the country. This was bad news for the Provisional Government because they were not in control.

Lenin had a small problem with the Soviet, he believed that the Social Revolutionaries, especially Bolsheviks who were a part of the Soviet, were being too co-operative with the government, this obviously disappointed him.

The whole Dual Power system was obviously not going to work: in a way it was like the situation in ...

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