Emilia Perkins Year 11 History THE MOST IMPORTANT REASON THE THE PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT FAILED WAS DUE

TO THE CONTINUATION OF THE WAR

After the abdication of the Tsar, the Duma which was the provisional government took over the government. Apparently, at first sight this seemed to be the solution for Russias problems. But this was not true at all, the Duma had to deal with issues such as having to take the decision for Russia to continue the war or make peace, to distribute land to make peasants who had already taken them and tell them to wait until elections were held and choosing the best way to get food for workers in cities who were starving. At the end the Duma was not able to solve these problems and this was proved by the short period of time the Duma was able to hold the power in the government which was 8 months, march-november 1917. However, there were 8 main factors which contributed to this failure in the provisional government. The Duma was affected by the government as they were not so smart taking the decision of letting the Petrograd Soviet gain power and letting his organization of soviets take orders for them. The PV attempts to reduce the terrible conditions in Russia such as hunger and inflation were useless because the war did not end. Peasants were extremely mad as the government sent troops to take their land away from them. The Duma allowed freedom of speech and political prisoners to be released, this created a lot of problems for the Duma as they tried to plan an under attack. The army leader Kornilov was another factor who affected the Duma as he tried to attack the provisional government and so as the Bolsheviks. Nevertheless the main factor who affected the Dumas provisional government which was the war; the war was the main cause for other problems to evolve.

Firstly, at that time Russia was dealing with a dual government. This was given due to the Petrograd Soviet. The Petrograd soviet was very powerful, they had the support from workers in key industries such as coal mining , water and many from the army. Therefore this made many workers listen to the Petrograd Soviet, They were so powerful that it even built up a big and wide network which obeyed orders from them. One and probably the most important order which it had to be followed was order number 1 which consisted in prohibiting soldiers and workers to ovey the provisional government unless the soviets agreed. This order was extremely bad to the provisional governments balance. Firstly because if the provisional government wanted the workers and soldiers to obey a very important order who might have been probably the best for any type of problem, the people needed to first see if the soviets approved that order befor they could do it. The worst part of all is that some members of these soviets were angry revolutioners who had no experience in politics, therefore they would just say no to any order the PV implied if they wanted to, even though it might have been the best. Unfortunately, the provisional government did nothing to try and end the power of the soviets when they could have done it, they let the soviets gain more power than them.

Even though the Tsar regime had collapsed, the terrible conditions in Russia kept being annoying for the people. Due to the fact that the war did not end, money started to lose its value and it was not worth it what it should have had. Therefore inflation was caused; inflation meant many people unemployed or many people without enough money to sustain their families. As inflation was caused and people were not able to sustain their families properly nor give them their proper needs, hunger was caused. People were starving on streets as they were before, they had nothing to eat. This meant that the provisional government did not manage nor care to end the food shortages going on as well as the inflation. Once again this meant to hundreds of people claiming the provisional government for the lack of food and the lack of improvement in Russia. Besides, diseases started to spread across Russia. One disease caused due to the war was gout and it affected the muscular joints of the people as it created swelling in their bones.

This was as well created by the secondary war effects as soldiers had to do a lot of exercise and at the end they were not able to win. This created a un balanced provisional government as it started gaining more haters than followers.

One of the main things the provisional government offered to the Russian people, was land for the peasants as it was considered that they deserved some land that used to belong to the nobles as they worked in those lands. At first, peasants took their piece of land thinking hat was normalbecause they deserved it, but as time passed the people were surprised by looking the way the provisional governmentsent troops to take back the land of these people. One example is the anarchy in the countryside, as they were considered to be more wealthy and higher in the social pyramid, they were allowed to take back the land who was taken by the peasants. This created a massive discontent in the people as they thought they were not given what they were initially offered by the provisional government.

As soon as Lenin arrived at the Petrograd stations, he started promoting his idea. He started to persuade the people and encouraging them to join him in a second revolution in his Blosheviks programme. Lenin was able to gain a lot of followers specially soldiers and sailors who entered and tried to attack the Petrograd Soviets in the July Days, in 1917. After this big issue Lenin was sent to jail, unfortuynately the provisional government allowed freedom of speech and realasement of political prisioners. This allowed the Bolsheviks to promote their slogans which immediately contrasted to the Provisional Government and therefore it made the PVfailures stand out. Some of these slogans said Peace, land and bread and All powers to the soviets. Due to the fact that these slogans revealed the disadvantages of the Duma, many people started following the Bolsheviks. In a short period of time (4 months) the Bolsheviks was able to gain support up to 200 000 people. This affected the provisional government as they lost a big amount of thei followers, and those who were once followers, were now against the provisional government and ready to plan an under attack.

Nevertheless, Lenin and the Bolsheviks were the only groups against the provisonal government. In august 1917, Kornilov who was a general commander of the petrograd military district tried a right wing, pro-tsar army. The soldiers were tired of the problems who affected them by the bad decisions taken by the Duma such as continuing the war. Due to the fact that the provisional gvernment did not obviously count with the army7 to defend them, they had to seek help for the Bolsheviks. Thanks to the Bolsheviks, the PV was able to be safer. However, the Bolsheviks were able to become more popular towards them. Once again the Duma did nothing to stop this from hapening, instead they made more people to become haters and opponents. As it can be observed previously, all of the previous factors mentioned above are somwhow related to the war. Therefore the war can be considered to be as the main factor that contributed towards the quick fall of the Provisional Goverment. The Duma took the worst decision they could ever take which was continuing the war. Russia attacked AustriaHungary and some german land, they were winners. Unfortunately, germans then decided to take back on the Russians by moving into Russian territory. Nearly thousands of Russian soldiers were murdered, these created a huge discontent in the soldiers. They were deserted and there was a mutiny between these soldiers against the Duma. Despite this, the provisional goverment decided to stop this by setting up death squads ready to kill the deserters (october 1917) Soldiers were very angry tha they even started deserting, going home, not willing to follow general orders, killing the landlords and taking land from the nobels.

During the period March-November 1917 there were many issues which the Provisional Government had to deal but at the end they were not able to handle all of those problems, as a result the Provisional Government was only able to hold 8 months in power. The unbalanced gvernement created by the Soviets who according to the rules had to approve the law in order for

people to follow it. This created unstability as the soviets had all the pwer and some of the soviets in that group are not specialized and they might dissapprove any law they didnt want to even if it was the right decision. The terrible conditions created by the war and by inflation such as hunger were upseting more the people as they did not see a change from when the Tsar ruled. They still did not have enough money to sustain their families. The poor peasants were constantly suffering as they were taken away the land they were first promised they were going to have once as they deserved to. The Bolsheviks and the Kornilov were two other factors wh really affected the provisional goverment as they took followers from the prvosional government and turned them into opponents. Nevertheless, the main reason which affected the Duma was the war. Losing the war against germany and having as a result thousands of soldiers dead, lead into many soldiers against the provisional government. This is he most important factor because having your own people which is the army to drop down against the government and not willing to support you if there is any attack, instead ready to attack any time they want to would indeed create an unbalanced givernment. The PV would be so busy trying to solve the situation with the army that they would not even care about other problems such as hunger or inflation. Due to the war many problems were given off, and the provisional government was able to become weak and to lose many followers.