Mean while ex-con issued “Order 1”, which stated that all orders from officers had to be counter signed by the leader or chairman of the local soldiers or sailors’ soviet. This lead to a total lack of discipline in both the army and the navy culminating in the KRONSTADT naval base mutiny in July in which 200 officers were killed and 200 held hostage by the sailors, this uprising was caused by the dissatisfaction of the military with Kerensky’s Offensive.
The Provisional Government was made up of a coalition of nearly every political party in Russia, they included the Octoberists, the Kadets, the Social Revolutionaries (SR’s) and the Mensheviks. In the early days of the Provisional Government, before Lenin’s return to Russia, the Bolsheviks supported the provisional Government, however, when Lenin returned he change this fairly rapidly and in his speech to the soviets in April, known as the “April Theses”, Lenin promised an end to war, an era of peace, Land to the people (from the aristocracy), bread for the masses and above all, “All power to the soviets”, which meant that the Bolsheviks would no longer support the Provisional Government. By doing this Lenin had turned the Bolsheviks in to the only opposition party, all the other parties were implicated in the Provisional Government and therefore in the war.
In July when the KRONSTADT naval base mutiny turned in to an armed uprising the sailors looked to the Bolsheviks for leadership which was not forth coming, as a result the uprising became a shambles, the Provisional Government blamed the Bolsheviks, arrested Trotsky, and issued a warrant for Lenin’s arrest. Lenin escaped to Finland and it looked as if the Bolsheviks were finished. That was until they were thrown a life line in the form of the “Kornilov affair”.
In July Miliukov called for a military coup to over throw the government, as a result Kerensky restored the death penalty in a bid to give the Provisional Government some form of power, this failed and on July 24th Kerensky formed the second Coalition (Provisional) Government. In mid August he called a State Conference in Moscow to generate national unity. The conference made no decisions but Kerensky emerged as the dominant political personality and General Kornilov, the new Commander-in-Chief, as the darling of the middle classes.
Kornilov was going to use reliable troops to suppress any Bolshevik uprising, restore order in the capital and discipline in the army. However, Kerensky thought Kornilov was intending on replacing him and as a result Kerensky “switched sides”, he mobilised the Petrograd Soviet, armed the Red Guards and released and armed the Bolsheviks. Kornilov, confused by this betrayal, pressed on, however his troops abandoned him and on September 1st he was arrested. As a result of this Kerensky was discredited and a power vacuum opened up at the top of Russian society once more, only this time the Bolsheviks were ready to take over.
During September the Bolsheviks won the support of the majority of the Petrograd Soviet and on September 25th Trotsky was elected its chairman. When this happened Lenin, who was still in Finland, urged for the seizure of power, however the Bolshevik Central Committee rejected Lenin’s plea.
Lenin returned to Petrograd in early October and on October 10th he addressed the Central Committee and they agreed to consider an armed uprising, but it was at a meeting six days later that an unambiguous endorsement was given. Even so two of the most influential Bolsheviks, Lev Kamenev and Gregori Zinoviev, opposed Lenin’s position and published their objections on October 18th.
During mid October the Bolsheviks had created the Military Revolution Committee MRC) the Petrograd Soviet using the Germany advances as an excuse. As a result Kerensky did not move against the Bolshevik threat until October 24th. The majority of Government soldiers did nothing to halt the Bolsheviks. On October 21st and 22nd the MRC asserted its authority over the Petrograd garrison and within two days Government troops were persuaded to give up key positions, due to this fact Kerensky’s power simply melted away.
Lenin Called for even more deceive action and so on the night of the 24th-25th October Trotsky, Lenin’s greatest ally, had organised the occupation of telephone exchange, the railway stations and the post office. On October 26th Bolsheviks troops stormed the winter palace, where the Provisional Government was in session. The Bolsheviks had overthrown the Provisional Government and seized power.
So as we can see it was not only the actions of the Provisional Government and its leaders but also the actions of the Bolsheviks which lead to the eventual failure of the Provisional Government.
Background flags are in chronological order, on page one, we have the Imperial Russian Flag used from 1858-1883
On page 2 is the Imperial flag used from 1883-1917 and now used as the Russian flag once more.
And finally above we have the flag of the USSR, used between 1917 and 1991.
Why did the Provisional Government fail?
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