Why did the Provisional Government fail?

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Ben Jonathan Martin

Why did the Provisional Government fail?

In order to answer this question we must first look at what brought about the provisional government in Russia, its policies, the opposition to it, who made up the provisional government and who the opposition to the provisional Government was. Firstly we must understand that the provisional government had no legal right to exist as it appointed it’s self, there were no elections and the now former Tsar, Nicholas II, had disbanded the Duma, Russia’s parliament, two weeks before his abdication. In many ways it was Nicholas’ abdication which caused the Bolsheviks to come to power in October 1917.

The Tsar’s abdication left a power vacuum, which he had intended his brother, Michael, to fill. However, Michael did not wish to become Tsar and as a result Russia had been left without a leader. It is because of this Russia’s Duma set up the Provisional Government Committee, made up of the Duma deputies. The Provisional Government meet in the Tauride Palace, where the Duma had meet since it’s formation in 1905. In the same building the Petrograd soviet held their own meetings, forming their own government, the Petrograd Soviet, otherwise known as ex-con.

It was mainly the provisional government’s policy to continue the war that lead to the problems which caused the popular uprisings of February 1917 which caused the down fall of the provisional. By continuing the war the government where effectively continuing the problems which lead to the Tsars down fall, the war was tying up the railway which lead to food and fuel shortages in the cities. This, among other things, made the war very unpopular and as a result the Provisional government did not have the support of the masses.

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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 ...

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