What You’ll Learn in This Episode
- Why the Provisional Government that replaced the Tsar failed to consolidate power in 1917
- How the decision to continue fighting in the First World War proved fatal to the new government
- What “dual powerDual Power The political condition in Russia between February and October 1917 in which power was contested between the Provisional Government (representing the liberal and democratic forces of the February Revolution) and the soviets (councils of workers’ and soldiers’ deputies). It ended when the Bolsheviks seized power in October. The February Revolution of 1917 produced an immediate institutional paradox. The Provisional Government — initially led by Prince Lvov, later by Kerensky — claimed sovereign authority as the successor to the Tsar. The Petrograd Soviet, a council of workers’ and soldiers’ deputies formed simultaneously, held the practical loyalty of the capital’s factory workers and crucially the garrison, which had mutinied against the Tsar. Soviet Order Number One, issued in March 1917, instructed soldiers to obey the Soviet’s orders unless they contradicted the Provisional Government’s — placing the loyalty of the armed forces in an institutional no-man’s-land. For eight months, Russia was governed by this unstable duality: the Provisional Government made decisions the Soviet could block, while the Soviet commanded loyalties it chose not to exercise. The system’s fundamental instability was the question of the war: the Provisional Government committed Russia to continuing the First World War (partly to maintain Allied support and international credibility), while the soviets across Russia increasingly demanded ‘peace, land, and bread.’ The Bolsheviks understood the dual power structure better than anyone and used the Soviet as the institutional base from which to seize power in October, effectively claiming to act on behalf of a Soviet authority rather than seizing the state in their own name. The concept of dual power has influenced revolutionary theory far beyond 1917. It describes a situation that arises in many revolutionary transitions: the collapse of the old order creates a vacuum that cannot be immediately filled by a single authority, and competing power structures proliferate, each with different sources of legitimacy and different social bases. The dual power condition is inherently unstable — the two powers must eventually converge, with one absorbing or destroying the other. In Russia’s case, the outcome was determined by the Provisional Government’s commitment to the war and by the Bolsheviks’ skill in positioning themselves as the instrument of Soviet authority. In later revolutions — Iran in 1979, where Khomeini’s Revolutionary Council coexisted briefly with a provisional government; Egypt in 2011, where the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces coexisted with elected civilian institutions — the dual power phase produced similar instability and similar resolution through the dominance of whichever force controlled armed coercion.” meant in practice — and why it made the Provisional Government unworkable
- How the Bolsheviks exploited the government’s weaknesses to seize power in October 1917
A Government Born in Crisis
When Tsar Nicholas II abdicated in March 1917, power passed not through a planned transfer but through a chaotic scramble among the politicians of the Duma. The Provisional Government that emerged was a committee of liberal and moderate socialist politicians who had not sought revolution but found themselves holding authority in the middle of one. Led initially by Prince Georgy Lvov, a mild-mannered zemstvo administrator, and including the socialist lawyer Alexander Kerensky as its most energetic member, the Provisional Government faced an impossible set of challenges from its first day in office.
The Fatal Decision: Continuing the War
The single decision that did most to destroy the Provisional Government was the choice to continue fighting in the First World War. This was partly driven by obligation — Russia’s allies, Britain and France, made clear that continued financial support depended on Russia staying in the war — and partly by the government’s own liberal nationalism, which recoiled from a separate peace as a betrayal of the democratic war effort.
But the Russian army was exhausted and demoralised after three years of catastrophic losses. The soldiers who had mutinied to bring down the Tsar were not prepared to die for a Provisional Government that looked increasingly like the old order with different letterheads. The June Offensive of 1917, launched by Kerensky in a desperate attempt to demonstrate Russia’s continued military effectiveness, collapsed within weeks, triggering mass desertions and accelerating the radicalisation of the front-line troops.
Dual Power and Its Contradictions
The Provisional Government’s authority was fatally undermined from the start by the simultaneous existence of the Petrograd Soviet. This council of workers’ and soldiers’ delegates held real power on the ground — it controlled the railways, the telegraph network and the loyalty of the Petrograd garrison — while the Provisional Government held nominal political authority and international recognition. Soviet Order Number One, issued in March 1917, effectively placed military discipline in the hands of the Soviet rather than the officer corps.
Every major decision the Provisional Government took had to be negotiated with or against the Soviet. When Foreign Minister Pavel Milyukov sent a note to Russia’s allies in April 1917 confirming Russia’s commitment to the war, the resulting public outcry forced both his resignation and that of the War Minister. The government staggered from crisis to crisis, unable to deliver either the peace the soldiers wanted or the land reform the peasants demanded.
The July Days and the Kornilov Affair
In July 1917, a spontaneous uprising of soldiers and workers in Petrograd — the “July Days” — briefly threatened to sweep away the government entirely. The Bolsheviks, caught off guard by its scale, neither led it nor fully opposed it. The government suppressed the uprising and used the occasion to arrest Bolshevik leaders, temporarily weakening Lenin’s party. But the respite was short-lived.
In August, General Lavr Kornilov — the army’s commander-in-chief — attempted what appeared to be a military coup against the Provisional Government. Kerensky, who had become Prime Minister, was forced to release the Bolsheviks and arm their Red GuardsRed Guards Full Description:The Red Guards were the instrument through which the leadership bypassed the established bureaucracy to unleash chaos on society. Encouraged to “rebel is justified,” these groups engaged in humiliated public “struggle sessions,” violent raids on homes, and the physical abuse of teachers, intellectuals, and local officials. Critical Perspective:The mobilization of the Red Guards represented the weaponization of the youth against the older generation. It exploited the idealism and energy of students, channeling it into mob violence and destruction. This resulted in a “lost generation” who were denied formal education and sent to the countryside, their futures sacrificed for a political power struggle. to defend Petrograd. The crisis revealed the complete bankruptcy of the government: it now depended on the very revolutionary forces it had been trying to contain. By October, the stage was set for the Bolshevik seizure of power.
Why It Matters Now
The Provisional Government’s failure is a textbook study in the problems facing moderate reformers during revolutionary crises. It tried to be all things — to maintain the war, to satisfy radical social demands, to uphold democratic norms — and ended up satisfying no one. The lesson that many drew from its fate was that in a revolutionary situation, half-measures are fatal. Whether that lesson is correct — or whether a different set of choices might have saved the government — remains one of the great counterfactual questions of twentieth-century history.
Key Figures
- Prince Georgy Lvov — First Prime Minister of the Provisional Government. A liberal reformer temperamentally unsuited to revolutionary politics, he resigned in July 1917.
- Alexander Kerensky — The dominant personality of the Provisional Government, serving as Minister of Justice, then War Minister, then Prime Minister. His decision to launch the June Offensive proved catastrophic.
- Pavel Milyukov — Liberal Foreign Minister whose April Note confirming Russia’s war aims triggered mass protests and forced his resignation.
- General Lavr Kornilov — Commander-in-chief whose August coup attempt fatally discredited the officer class and forced Kerensky into dependence on the Bolsheviks.
- Vladimir Lenin — Returned from exile in April 1917 with the April Theses demanding immediate Soviet power and peace. Identified correctly that the Provisional Government’s contradictions made it vulnerable.
Timeline
March 1917 — Tsar abdicates; Provisional Government formed under Prince Lvov; Petrograd Soviet established simultaneously
April 1917 — Lenin returns to Petrograd; Milyukov Note crisis forces cabinet resignations
June 1917 — June Offensive launched; collapses within weeks with heavy losses
July 1917 — “July Days” uprising suppressed; Bolshevik leaders arrested; Kerensky becomes Prime Minister
August 1917 — Kornilov Affair; Kerensky forced to arm the Bolsheviks to defend Petrograd
October 1917 — Bolsheviks seize power; Provisional Government falls
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