Western Civilization - History Of European Society

550 Chapter 27

During its brief existence, the Provisional Govern-
ment faced numerous problems. It remained at war with
Germany, and the governments of Britain, France, and
the United States (whose help Russia desperately
needed) all wanted it to remain part of the wartime
coalition that could now be described as a democratic
alliance against autocracy. The Provisional Government
may have sealed its own fate in April 1917 when For-
eign Minister Milyukov reaffirmed the Russian promise
to the Allies to remain in the war, in a document known
as the Milyukov Note. Nor did the government have an
easy solution for the shortages of food and other criti-
cal supplies. In the spirit of a democratic revolution, the
Provisional Government recognized the independence
of Poland and Finland, established the eight-hour work-
day and granted freedom of religion, but the war never
allowed it to consolidate a hold on Russian public pop-
ularity. The Petrograd Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’
Deputies, meanwhile, still held the backing of those
critically important groups, while the continuation of
the war caused support for the Provisional Government
to dwindle rapidly.

The October Revolution of 1917

The most tenacious opposition to the Provisional Gov-

ernment came from Lenin and his supporters in the Bol-

shevik faction of revolutionary socialism. Lenin had

spent the war in exile in Switzerland until his clandes-

tine return (aided by the Germans, who hoped his

politics would weaken Russia) in April 1917. He ex-

pounded a simple, yet highly effective program (see

illustration 27.5) known as the April Theses: (1) imme-

diate peace, even at the cost of a harsh German treaty;

(2) immediate redistribution of land to the peasants;

(3) transfer of political power from the Provisional

Government to the soviets; and (4) transfer of the

control of factories to committees of workers. The

promises of the April Theses (especially peace) con-

trasted vividly with the policies of the Provisional

Government (especially the Milyukov Note). Lenin’s

program of land and peace first won the Bolsheviks a

majority on the Moscow Soviet and made Lenin’s fore-

most lieutenant, Leon Trotsky (whose real name was

Lev Bronstein), the head of the Petrograd Soviet by the

early autumn of 1917. Trotsky, a Ukrainian Jewish peas-

ant who had entered radical politics as a teenager, was a

leader of the revolution of 1905, and one of the most

effective leaders of the Bolshevik revolution.

Even with the appeal of the April Theses, the Bol-

sheviks had the support of only a small minority of Rus-

sians. When the Petrograd Soviet of Workers’ and Sol-

diers’ Deputies held a Panrussian Congress in June and

July 1917, only 105 of 822 delegates were Bolsheviks,

who were far outnumbered by both Mensheviks and

rural radicals just among the revolutionary parties.

Lenin and Trotsky responded by forming a Military

Revolutionary Committee to prepare for a second Rus-

sian revolution of 1917 and created their own military

force—the Red Guards—composed of soldiers from

the Petrograd garrison and armed workers, forces that

were essential in open battles against Kornilov’s troops.

A Bolshevik party congress held in August 1917 re-

solved upon the conquest of power by an armed insur-

rection, though most of the party was unprepared for

action. Lenin and Trotsky won the backing of the

party’s leadership (the Central Committee) after the

Russian army suffered more reverses, and they orches-

trated a minutely planned coup to seize power in Petro-

grad in early November (October in the old-style

calendar). Two days of violent fighting gave the Bolshe-

viks control of the Winter Palace and then of Petro-

grad. The Bolshevik revolution spread to Moscow on

the third day, and within a week soviets of workers and

Illustration 27.5

Lenin Exhorting the Crowd.Among the strongest weapons

that Lenin and the Bolsheviks had against Kerensky and the Pro-

visional Government was the simple call for peace, a weapon that

could be used in repeated speeches in the street. This photo-

graph of Lenin addressing the revolutionary crowd in Moscow

later became famous because of a secondary detail: The figure

standing on the steps and facing the camera is Trotsky, who was

edited out of most subsequent versions of this picture to hide his

prominence in the revolution.