Provisional+Government+and+Communist+Dictatorship

=**__ The Provisional Government __**=

Background Informations:
The provisional government was the government created by Prince George Lvov and led by Alexander Kerensky after the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II (March 15, 1917) and after the February/March Revolution.

As leader of the provisional government, Kerensky wanted to continue in the war even though fellow Russian citizens weren't very willing or happy about it

Petrograd Soviet:
-The provisional government shares power with the Petrograd Soviet of Workers' and Solders' Deputies. -Petrograd Soviet (meeting of 2,000-3,000 workers, soldiers, and socialist intellectuals) -Issued many radical orders, which weakened the power of the provisional government -Issued Order No. 1 --> took power away from officers and gave it to the elected committees of common solders -The purpose of Oder No.1 was to prevent counter-revolution, although it later led to the fall of army control

The Provisional Government was very temporary. It lasted 8 months until the Bolsheviks took over.



(1917) Vladimir I. Lenin
 * The April Theses: A Blueprint for Revolution **

When Vladimir I. Lenin (1870-1924) returned to Russia in April 1917 from his exile in Switzerland, aided by the German army, his Bolshevik party was a small fringe element in the political chaos of Petrograd, the capital. The Bolsheviks had scant representation and power in the Petrograd Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies, the spontaneously generated assembly that had arisen during the February Revolution that had toppled the tsarist regime. The Bolsheviks had few followers among the workers and soldiers of the capital and none to speak of among the vast Russian peasantry. Official power had passed to the Provisional Government, which was originally dominated by liberals and later included moderate socialists such as its last leader Alexander Kerensky (1881-1970), a member of the peasant-oriented Social Revolutionaries. The Bolsheviks were virtually invisible. From this humble base, Lenin would build his power and eventually seize control. The ultimate success of Lenin's Bolsheviks in November 1917 can be attributed in no small part to the mistakes of the Provisional Government: continuation of the war effort by a state virtually destroyed by the war; failure to accept the peasantry's spontaneous confiscation and redistribution of great landed estates; and insistence on democratic and liberal policies in the face of implacable, revolutionary enemies. On the other hand, one cannot ignore the inspired leadership of Lenin and his top lieutenant Leon Trotsky (1879-1940) as an important factor in the Bolshevik victory. Immediately after his arrival in Petrograd (the city's name had been changed from the Germanic-sounding St. Petersburg earlier in the war), he presented his battle plan, the so-called April Theses, to the Bolshevik party leadership. The Theses were reduced to three key slogans to be broadcast to the Russian people: peace, land, and all power to the soviets (legislative assemblies that had sprung up all over Russia, just as in Petrograd). The Theses themselves, excerpted here, were much more detailed. 

Note to the U.S. Government from the Russian Democratic Government (via the Russian Ambassador to the U.S. Boris Bakhmeteff, 23 June 1917) "The Provisional Government, rejecting, in accord with the whole people of Russia, all thought of separate peace, puts it openly as its deliberate purpose the promptest achievement of universal peace; such peace to presume no dominion over other nations, no seizure of their national property nor any forced usurpation of foreign territory; peace with no annexations or contributions, based upon the free determination by each nation of its destinies. Being fully convinced that the establishment of democratic principles in its internal and external policy has created a new factor in the striving of allied democracies for durable peace and fraternity of all nations, the Provisional Government will take preparatory steps for an agreement with the Allies founded on its declaration of March 27th. The Provisional Government is conscious that the defeat of Russia and her allies would be the source of the greatest misery, and would not only postpone but even make impossible the establishment of universal peace on a firm basis. The Provisional Government is convinced that the revolutionary army of Russia will not allow the German troops to destroy our allies on the western front and then fall upon us with the whole might of their weapons. The chief aim of the Provisional Government will be to fortify the democratic foundations of the army and organize and consolidate the army's fighting power for its defensive as well as offensive purpose."

media type="youtube" key="FzUgDL54u_k" height="315" width="560" VIDEOS: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FzUgDL54u_k

=__ The Communist Dictatorship __=

B ackground Information:
-Russia was in a very bad state after the damage from World War I, Russian Revolution and Civil War. -Factories were crushed, half the working class was gone and millions died from famine, disease, and war. -Many people emigrated to other countries to get away from the havoc. -In order to get the peasants production rolling again, Lenin allowed more free enterprise -Russia (according Marxist view) would need to develop through a capitalist phase before it was ready for socialism -Joseph Stalin as well as Vladimir Lenin had control over Russian communism at some point -Around the 20th century, a party called The Russian Socialist Democratic Party was created by some reformers -Among these people was Lenin and others that were of the same beliefs were under Marx influence -They looked at the piece that Marx and Engles created (the Communist Manifesto) as their guide -Later they created a "dictatorship of the proletarian" as Lenin would call it -In 1903 the Socialist Democratic Party slit into two groups: the Bolsheviks (Russian for "majority") and Mensheviks (Russian for "minority") -The Bolsheviks were led by Lenin and they were more radical than the other -They were for an armed revolution against the tsar -This forced to Tsar Nicholas II to create a duma (body of representatives)









media type="youtube" key="otX9r5aun5U" height="315" width="560" VIDEOS: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otX9r5aun5U