The Enquiry Frame

The central enquiry is: why did the Provisional Government fail to turn the February
Revolution into a stable democratic settlement, and why were the Bolsheviks able to replace
it in October 1917?

The answer is not simply that the Provisional Government was weak or that Lenin was clever.
Both are true, but too thin. The deeper pattern is that the Provisional Government inherited
formal responsibility without secure coercive power; tried to govern through delay on land,
war and constitutional questions; and faced opponents who could turn each crisis into a
test of legitimacy. The Bolsheviks did not create every crisis, but they learned faster than
their rivals how to exploit them.

For assessment, this row supports AO1 depth essays and AO2 source evaluation. Strong answers
should explain interaction: war shaped land hunger, land hunger weakened army discipline,
dual power turned every policy into a legitimacy crisis, and Bolshevik agency mattered most
once the state had lost the will and means to defend itself.

Dual Power and Early Reform

The phrase dual power means more than "two governments". It describes a divided
authority after February 1917: the Provisional Government possessed formal state
responsibility, while the Petrograd Soviet had practical influence over workers, soldiers
and much of the revolutionary street. That division made sense in March because both sides
feared counter-revolution. It became dangerous because the two institutions had different
social bases, priorities and sources of power.

The first Provisional Government grew out of the Duma's Provisional Committee and was
announced on 2 March. It was headed by Prince Georgy Lvov and was dominated by liberal and
moderate propertied politicians, especially Kadets such as Pavel Milyukov, and conservative
liberals such as the Octobrist Aleksandr Guchkov. Its great exception was Alexander
Kerensky, a socialist-leaning lawyer linked with the Socialist Revolutionaries, who became
Minister of Justice while also having a position in the Soviet. This gave the government a
bridge to the revolutionary movement, but not control over it.

The Petrograd Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies was different in composition and
purpose. It drew authority from workers, soldiers, socialist activists and regimental
delegates. In spring 1917 it was not yet Bolshevik-led: Mensheviks and Socialist
Revolutionaries were stronger at first. Their aim was to defend the revolution, secure
democratic freedoms, protect soldiers and workers, and press for a peace without annexations
or indemnities. They often believed Russia needed a bourgeois democratic stage before a
socialist revolution, which is why they did not simply seize power in February.

The Provisional Government had some important support. It was recognised by Russia's allies,
could work through parts of the old bureaucracy, and appealed to liberals, professionals,
zemstvo activists, officers, industrialists and many people who wanted orderly democratic
government. Yet its power was always thinner than its responsibilities. The Petrograd Soviet
had influence over the garrison, railway workers and telegraph workers. Order No. 1, issued
on 1 March, told soldiers to obey officers and the government only when orders did not
contradict the Soviet. That did not destroy discipline by itself, but it symbolised the new
truth: coercive power now depended on revolutionary consent.

Early reforms were real and should not be dismissed. The government proclaimed political
amnesty, freedom of speech, press, assembly, union organisation and strikes. It removed many
legal restrictions based on class, religion and nationality. It promised a Constituent
Assembly elected by universal, equal, direct and secret suffrage. It replaced the tsarist
police with local militia, encouraged local self-government, introduced jury trial reforms
and initially abolished capital punishment. For a country that had been autocratic weeks
earlier, this was a dramatic liberalisation.

The problem was that these reforms widened political freedom faster than they created
settled authority. Newspapers, soviets, factory committees, soldiers' committees and party
organisations could now mobilise openly. The government had made Russia freer, but it had
not made itself legitimate enough to decide the biggest questions: war, land redistribution,
nationality demands and control of industry. Because it called itself provisional, it kept
deferring those issues to the future Constituent Assembly. In exam terms, early reform was
both an achievement and a weakness: it increased democratic possibility while reducing the
government's ability to command obedience in a revolutionary crisis.

For AO2 source work, a government declaration from March 1917 is valuable for showing the
liberal hopes of the new regime, but limited because it tells us more about promises than
capacity. A Soviet order or soldiers' resolution may be better evidence for where practical
power lay.

War Opposition and July Days

The central source of opposition to the Provisional Government was the war. Almost every
political conflict in 1917 ran through the question of whether Russia should continue
fighting. The government could not easily leave the First World War: it depended on Allied
recognition and loans, feared German victory, and inherited treaty commitments from the old
regime. But the revolution had been driven partly by bread shortages, military exhaustion
and anger at sacrifice. Continuing the war meant continuing the very pressure that had helped
destroy the tsar.

Different groups meant different things by "defence of the revolution".

Lenin returned to Petrograd on 3 April and immediately pushed the Bolsheviks onto a more
radical line. His April Theses rejected support for the Provisional Government, called for
power to pass to the soviets, demanded peace, land redistribution through peasant soviets,
and attacked moderate socialists for cooperating with liberals. This was not instantly
popular even inside the Bolshevik Party. Many Bolsheviks had assumed that the February
Revolution would be followed by a period of democratic development. Lenin's importance was
that he gave the party a distinctive strategy: refuse responsibility for the existing state,
connect war with capitalism and land hunger, and wait for the soviets to become the vehicle
of a second revolution.

The Milyukov crisis proved how explosive war policy had become. The Foreign Minister,
Pavel Milyukov, reassured the Allies in April that Russia remained committed to the war and
to victory. To workers and soldiers who had heard talk of a democratic peace, this sounded
like a return to old imperial war aims. Demonstrations broke out in Petrograd on 20-21 April.
Milyukov and Guchkov resigned in early May, and the first coalition government was formed,
bringing socialist leaders into ministerial office. This mattered because it blurred the
line between government and Soviet. Moderate socialists gained influence, but they also
became responsible for failures that could no longer be blamed only on liberals.

Kerensky, now Minister of War, believed a successful offensive could restore army morale,
improve Russia's bargaining position and prove that revolutionary Russia could fight. The
June Offensive began on 18 June in Galicia. It produced some early gains, then collapsed as
discipline broke down and German counter-attacks drove Russian forces back. The military
failure became a political disaster: it confirmed Bolshevik arguments that the war was
unwinnable and deepened soldiers' distrust of officers and ministers.

The July Days followed on 3-5 July. Armed workers, soldiers and Kronstadt sailors
demonstrated in Petrograd with slogans such as "All power to the soviets." The Bolshevik
leadership did not fully plan the rising, and Lenin hesitated because he knew power seized
prematurely might not be held across Russia. Nevertheless, Bolshevik activists were involved
and the party became associated with the unrest. The government used loyal troops to restore
order, raided Bolshevik offices, closed newspapers and accused Lenin of German connections.
Lenin fled to Finland; Trotsky and other Bolshevik leaders were arrested.

In the short term, July seemed to rescue the Provisional Government and damage the
Bolsheviks. In the longer term, it showed that the government survived by crisis management,
not by consent. It also moved Kerensky into the premiership on 8 July. A strong essay should
therefore avoid treating July as a simple Bolshevik failure. It was a temporary defeat for
the Bolsheviks, but it revealed how closely war, urban unrest and government legitimacy were
now bound together.

Kerensky's Government and Social Crisis

Kerensky became Prime Minister after Lvov resigned in July. His government is often called
the second Provisional Government in this Edexcel row because it marked a new phase:
Kerensky was the central figure, socialists were more prominent, and the government tried to
act as a national coalition against both counter-revolution and revolutionary extremism.
For this row, treat July-October as the Kerensky phase of the Provisional Government:
there was a reshuffled coalition after the July crisis and another attempted coalition after
Kornilov, but neither created a stable base of authority.

The membership of the new government reflected compromise rather than coherence. It included
moderate socialists such as Socialist Revolutionaries and Mensheviks, alongside liberals and
non-party specialists. Kerensky himself combined the premiership with the role of Minister of
War. Figures associated with the socialist movement held posts connected to labour,
agriculture, food supply or internal affairs, while liberal and professional ministers
remained important in finance, foreign affairs, trade and administration. This composition
was meant to broaden support. In practice it meant that every decision risked alienating one
part of the coalition.

Kerensky had personal strengths: he was a gifted speaker, had revolutionary credentials, and
seemed able to stand between left and right. But his position was almost impossible. To the
right, he looked too dependent on soviets and soldiers' committees. To the left, he looked
too committed to war, property rights and delay. To soldiers, he promised revolution and
discipline at the same time. To peasants, he promised land reform later, while they wanted
land now.

Industry made the crisis visible in the cities. War disrupted transport, fuel and raw
materials. Inflation reduced real wages. Factories faced closure, lockouts, falling output
and conflict between owners and factory committees. Workers demanded an eight-hour day,
better pay and workers' control; employers complained that discipline and production were
collapsing. The government could neither fully support workers' control nor restore old
managerial authority without provoking resistance. Urban food shortages therefore became
political evidence that the government could not govern.

Agriculture made the crisis visible in the countryside and the army. Peasants wanted
landlords' estates redistributed. The government argued that only a Constituent Assembly
could make a legitimate national land settlement. That was legally cautious but politically
dangerous. Peasants and returning soldiers increasingly took matters into their own hands:
they seized land, cut timber, withheld grain, attacked estate property and ignored official
restraint. Since soldiers were mostly peasants in uniform, land hunger encouraged desertion.
The village and the front pulled each other apart.

Kerensky's government therefore suffered from a double bind. If it acted decisively on land,
it risked alienating liberals, landowners and the legal principle of the Constituent
Assembly. If it delayed, it lost peasants and soldiers. If it pushed the war, it deepened
social collapse. If it sought peace without Allied agreement, it risked military disaster and
international isolation. This is why "weakness" is not enough as an explanation. The
government was trapped by the incompatible expectations of the forces that had made February
possible.

For exam judgement, the second Provisional Government matters because it shows that changing
leaders did not solve the structural problem. Kerensky's premiership briefly looked like a
personal answer to dual power. By autumn it had become proof that charisma could not replace
land, bread, peace and command of armed force.

Kornilov and Bolshevik Recovery

The Kornilov Affair was the decisive August crisis. General Lavr Kornilov, appointed
Commander-in-Chief in July, represented the desire of many officers, conservatives and
property owners for restored discipline and order. They feared army collapse, land seizures,
national disintegration and Bolshevik influence in the streets. Kerensky also wanted order,
but he needed to remain the defender of the revolution. This created a dangerous ambiguity:
both men wanted a stronger state, but each suspected the other of wanting personal power.

In late August, Kornilov ordered forces under General Krymov towards Petrograd. The exact
intentions and communications remain debated: was Kornilov attempting a military coup, acting
on confused signals from Kerensky, or seeking to crush the Soviet and impose order under the
government's authority? For A-Level argument, the key point is the effect. Kerensky denounced
Kornilov as a traitor and appealed to the left, the Soviet, railway workers and armed workers
to defend Petrograd.

The affair collapsed without a major battle. Railway workers disrupted the movement of
troops; Soviet activists and agitators persuaded soldiers not to advance; Krymov's force
lost coherence. Kornilov was arrested, and Krymov later killed himself. Kerensky survived,
but survival came at a steep political cost.

The impact on the Provisional Government was severe. The right felt betrayed because Kerensky
had turned on the army commander. The left distrusted Kerensky because the crisis suggested
that counter-revolution might come from within the military establishment. Officers were less
willing to defend the government in future. The government looked dependent on the very
radical forces it had repressed after the July Days. In other words, Kerensky defeated a
threat from the right by strengthening the left.

The impact on the Bolsheviks was even more important. The party could present itself as the
defender of the revolution against counter-revolution. Bolshevik prisoners were released,
Red Guards gained weapons and legitimacy, and the charge that Lenin's party was simply a
German tool lost force. By September the Bolsheviks were gaining majorities in key soviets,
including Petrograd and Moscow, and Trotsky became chairman of the Petrograd Soviet. Their
political recovery after July was astonishingly rapid because Kornilov made their warning
about counter-revolution look plausible.

Kornilov was therefore a turning point, but not in isolation. It mattered because it came
after the Milyukov crisis, the failed June Offensive, the July Days, and months of unsolved
land and food problems. A strong judgement might say that Kornilov did not cause the
Provisional Government's weakness; it destroyed the possibility that Kerensky could rebuild
authority by balancing left and right.

October Seizure and New Government

The October Revolution was both a mass political moment and a disciplined seizure of power.
It depended on broad anger at the Provisional Government, but it was not an unplanned
spontaneous rising like February. Lenin and Trotsky were crucial because they turned the
government's weakness into a practical timetable for insurrection.

Lenin's influence on the Bolshevik Central Committee was decisive. From hiding, he argued
that the party must not wait for the Constituent Assembly or allow Kerensky to recover. He
believed delay would waste the opportunity created by Bolshevik majorities in key soviets,
army disintegration and urban crisis. On 10 October the Bolshevik Central Committee voted
for armed insurrection. The vote was not unanimous: Zinoviev and Kamenev opposed the timing
and warned against a premature seizure. Lenin's victory inside the party matters because it
shows agency. The Provisional Government did not simply fall; Bolshevik leaders chose to
push it over.

The Constituent Assembly elections complicate the idea of October as democratic
revolution. The Provisional Government had promised a nationally elected assembly to decide
Russia's future, and the Bolsheviks also allowed the elections to go ahead after taking
power. Voting took place on 12 November, after the October seizure. The Socialist
Revolutionaries, with deep peasant support, won about 40 percent of the vote and a majority
of seats; the Bolsheviks won a little under a quarter nationally, though they were much
stronger in Petrograd, Moscow, major industrial centres and parts of the army. Use this
carefully: the election was after October, so it did not cause the seizure of power, but it
shows the limits of Bolshevik national mandate and explains why Bolshevik leaders preferred
Soviet authority to parliamentary authority.

Trotsky's role was to make the insurrection look like the defence of Soviet legality rather
than simply a party coup. As chairman of the Petrograd Soviet, he helped organise the
Military Revolutionary Committee, officially created to defend Petrograd from German threat
and counter-revolution. In practice, the MRC gave the Bolsheviks a command structure over
Red Guards, soldiers and key units of the Petrograd garrison. It allowed orders to be issued
in the name of the Soviet, not merely the Bolshevik Party.

The immediate trigger came when Kerensky tried to act against the Bolsheviks on 24 October,
including moves against Bolshevik newspapers and the MRC. The MRC responded by occupying key
points in Petrograd: bridges, railway stations, the telegraph, the telephone exchange, the
state bank and government offices. Much of this happened with limited bloodshed because the
government had little reliable force. Kerensky left Petrograd to seek troops from the front,
while ministers remained in the Winter Palace.

On 25 October, the Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets opened. The Bolsheviks wanted the
Congress to ratify what the MRC had already made possible. During the night of 25-26
October, forces loyal to the MRC took the Winter Palace and arrested the remaining ministers
of the Provisional Government. The cruiser Aurora and the Peter and Paul Fortress became
symbols of the seizure, though the actual military resistance in Petrograd was limited.
Menshevik and moderate SR delegates denounced the action and many walked out of the
Congress, which made Bolshevik dominance easier.

The new Bolshevik government was formed as the Council of People's Commissars, or
Sovnarkom, with Lenin as chairman. Trotsky became Commissar for Foreign Affairs and Stalin
became Commissar for Nationalities. The Bolsheviks presented the government as provisional
until the Constituent Assembly met, and immediately issued decrees on peace and land. This
was politically brilliant: peace appealed to soldiers, land to peasants, and Soviet power to
workers and soldiers in the cities. Yet it also revealed the central tension of October:
power had been taken in the name of the soviets, but real direction increasingly lay with
the Bolshevik Party.

For source evaluation, Lenin's late-October writings are valuable for showing urgency and
party strategy, but they exaggerate the inevitability of Bolshevik victory. A hostile
liberal or Menshevik account may stress conspiracy and illegality, but may underplay why so
few people were willing to defend the Provisional Government.

Argument and Judgement

A top answer on The Provisional government and its opponents, February- October 1917
will usually balance four explanations.

First, the Provisional Government lacked secure authority from the start. Dual power meant
that it carried responsibility for government but depended on the Soviet, soldiers and
workers for practical enforcement. Early reforms were genuine, but they created a freer
political arena in which opponents could organise.

Second, war was the central destabilising issue. It caused the Milyukov crisis, shaped the
June Offensive, fuelled soldiers' radicalisation and worsened food, transport and industrial
problems. Land hunger and army discipline cannot be separated because soldiers were often
peasants waiting for the village settlement.

Third, Kerensky's government failed to convert coalition into authority. The July reshuffle
and the inclusion of socialists broadened formal membership, but it also spread blame. By
autumn, liberals, officers, workers, soldiers and peasants all had reasons to distrust the
government.

Fourth, Bolshevik agency mattered. Lenin supplied ideological clarity and the insistence on
insurrection. Trotsky supplied organisation through the Petrograd Soviet and the Military
Revolutionary Committee. The Bolsheviks succeeded because their slogans matched popular
grievances, and because they were willing to act when moderate socialists hesitated.

The strongest overall judgement is that the Provisional Government was not doomed in March,
but it became increasingly trapped by its own provisional nature. It delayed the decisions
that mattered most while continuing the war that made delay impossible. Kornilov then
destroyed Kerensky's attempt to balance left and right, and October turned governmental
collapse into Bolshevik power. In an essay, avoid saying simply "the Bolsheviks were popular"
or "the government was weak". Say instead: the government lost authority through war, land
delay and dual power; the Bolsheviks converted that loss of authority into power through
Lenin's timing, Trotsky's organisation and the Soviet claim to legitimacy.