For a long time since, the people had been displeased with the Provisional Government – in the midst of a radical and revolutionized society, elements from the overthrown Czarist system were hardly desirable in government. It was however tolerated by the people, and more specifically by the Petrograd Soviet, which chose not to risk its power over the people and rather act “behind the scenes”. So went the infamous system of ‘dual government’. However, this situation could not be kept up, as the people soon came to realize that still many of their demands were not being carried out: an end to the Russian war effort, the calling up of the Constituent Assembly, and a solution to the land issue. By failing to solve these problems, or at least to initiate some kind of action, it was the government itself that provoked the people to react against them (and also against the Petrograd Soviet, which was cooperating with the government and seemed not to push for the addressing of these demands) and essentially drove themselves into a dead end. There is proof from past situations of unrest, that when the people reached a critical point, where they would directly defy law and order (which was happening at the time in the form of peasants in the countryside taking land for themselves) only a concession from the Czar could step down the unrest – Nicholas II failed to do this, resulting in the March revolution, and in the same way the Provisional Government had begun a trail down a similar path. It is not, however, that this sense of inaction and continuity had an effect so profound on the people that they chose to revolt again, but rather that it left the Provisional Government vulnerable to any sort of unexpected crisis. Such an event would be the last straw that would not only put the government off balance, but probably also render the government incapable of offering a solution, something that would act as an excuse to the people as to why exactly it was that that the Provisional Government (and its side-kick, the Petrograd Soviet) needed to be removed from power, as had happened with the Czar when he assumed the position of Commander-in-Chief: the people had long been discontented, but it was only once they he could be directly blamed for failure that he was thrown out. In the midst of this chaos and confusion, the Bolsheviks were the only party which was not cooperating with the Provisional Government, and was therefore the only political representative that anyone who did not support the Provisional Government had, essentially meaning that in the case of the above scenario, the only alternative were – apparently – the Bolsheviks. In this scenario, therefore, whereas before the workers, soldiers and peasants dispersed into the plenitude of political parties and ideologies, they were now directed towards just one, giving it considerable power over the rest. Indeed, records show that a rise in support for the Bolsheviks had begun not after the Kornilov affair where the government was disgraced, and therefore support for them was expected to rise, but also from before, since July.
However, as due course, the Kornilov affair provided this eminent crisis: in an attempt to restore order in St. Petersburg, Kerensky gave General Kornilov the power to impose martial law, but at the last moment decided that he was moving into a coup d’état, and was desperately seeking troops to go against him. This confusion and insecurity proved catastrophic on two levels: firstly, Kerensky’s panicky and indecisive attitude caused him to lose a great deal of support – the soldiers felt cheated by an officers’ plot and refused to fight for the government anymore, while the workers now mistrusted the Soviet, as in their eyes they were the collaborators and agents of the bourgeoisie. Secondly, the Kornilov affair gave the Bolsheviks an important role in the power game: it was the Bolsheviks who stepped in to save the day, and in this way gained huge popularity, which resulted in their election as a majority in the Petrograd Soviet (the most critical and important of them all, and a necessary component of the October revolution). Had the Kornilov crisis not occurred, the Bolsheviks had no other likely opportunity to gain this much power, and especially not this fast. Here we see how coincidental Bolshevik power was: they had never had a steady, large power base or a serious role in politics – the Bolsheviks had long been considered an extravagant group of extremists, particularly after the July Days. What we therefore derive from this is that despite the fact that most of their supporters were rather temporary and did not actually want the Bolsheviks as Bolsheviks to be in power, the party did actually have masses of workers – displeased with the existing government and seeking an alternative solution – and of peasants – seduced by Bolshevik promises of land – after August 1917. What we further derive, is that as a result of this dual government, whoever controlled St. Petersburg, also controlled the political situation all over Russia: this in itself does not demonstrate the democratic and popular domination of the majority. Therefore, it cannot be said that the October revolution was not “popular”, as it was this action of the people that gave the Bolsheviks their opportunity to push the Provisional Government and the Soviet out of power, and take the seat for themselves.
Of course, the attitude of the party itself also played a role in how the Bolsheviks were perceived by the people: they could easily offer what the masses were asking for, as they had absolutely no realistic responsibility of actually needing to carry it out. It was therefore easy for them to promise “Peace, Land and Bread”, because they did not have the political attachments that would require them do so, as the Soviet and the Provisional Government did. They did not, as Kerensky and the Soviet were required to do, need to consider the fact that ending the war meant a treaty that would crush the country’s economy; or how immediately telling the peasants they could take over land and consider it theirs could easily lead to clashes between them; or how it wasn’t that the government wanted to starve the cities, but rather that the peasants were refusing to bring in grain, because they were not getting the representative price, but the state simply did not have enough money to pay the asking price – yes, the Bolsheviks could promise the masses what they were not in any “authorized” position to give. Lenin’s April Theses expressed this utopian and unrealistic attitude of the Bolsheviks, and although at the time it was booed and brushed off as highly non- pragmatic, this acted as a critical landmark, in the sense that when four moths later a restless crowd was stuck for an alternative to the existing government, these beliefs of the Bolsheviks made it that much easier for them to side with the people, and draw them in with an attitude of “we are the only ones who believe your demands should be done, and they would be done if we were in power”. In this way, Lenin’s April Theses set the scene for things to come, presenting the Bolsheviks in a knowing light, an ideology that cared for the people. The result? A very sudden increase in popularity that the Bolsheviks had never before known, and probably did not expect either at that moment. However, this was the factor that pushed the Bolsheviks into carrying out the October coup: at any point before this sudden surge of support, the Bolsheviks were not even considering themselves a political power to be reckoned with, let alone actually taking power all for themselves – in the July Days, the sentiments of the leading Bolshevik members veered from ”wait and see” (Lenin) to “what are they doing?!” (Kamenev and Zinoviev).
For this reason, the revolution can be considered popular: in taking power, the Bolsheviks did so with the support of the people, as a result of their promises to provide them with what they needed. They did not force the people to “vote Red”, and despite the fact that Bolshevik support was not uniformly that high all over Russia, this did not matter, since in October 1917 their position in the St. Petersburg Soviet was equal in power as if they had been in actual government – they were only missing the name, and the October Revolution consisted of using their existing power to procure that as well. As far as contemporary Russian society after March 1917 was concerned, the government was popular as long as it was offering them what they wanted – if it didn’t, it had to be removed. This is the difference between the Bolsheviks and the previous governments: they had managed to keep it. The fact solidly remains though, that at the time, the Bolsheviks were the leading power in the Soviet, and therefore in St. Petersburg, and therefore all over Russia.