What were the factors affecting the Provisional Government’s work?

Question by Jess: What were the factors that helped/did not help the Provisional Government in Russia work?
What factors were there that helped/did not help the Provisional Government(set up after 1917 feb revolution) in Russia to work?
(ie: didn’t help – refused demands of peasants/soldiers etc)

thanks for any help

Answers and Views:

Answer by Spellbound
The four features that really hamstrung the Provisional Government were:

The establishment of the Petrograd Soviet (a council of worker’s, sailor’s and soldier’s deputies) that was composed of socialist parties – notably, the Mensheviks, Left Socialist Revolutionaries and the Bolsheviks). This organisation held “Dual Power” with the Provisional Government and represented an alternative source of authority and political leadership.

Russia’s involvement in the war, especially after the failure of the July Offensive, this compounded many Russian’s concerns about the war – Russia was doing very badly in the war and many wanted Russia to withdraw from the fighting.

The land issue, many peasants wanted to own the land where they worked. They hoped that the Provisional Government would give them the land – it didn’t, and many land owning aristocrats were still taking rents.

Hunger, the Provisional Government failed to ensure that food supplies to the cities were maintained. Millions of peasants were now in the army and crops were not sowed or harvested. On top of this, the chaotic situation in the countryside saw the food distribution systems breakdown.

Lack of legitimacy, this was possibly the Provisional Government’s biggest problem. The government was mostly composed of the deputies from the last Tsarist State Duma, and, as such, had not been elected to office since the February Revolution. The Petrograd Soviet was elected – by workers, sailors and soldiers so was seen as a genuinely democratic institution. To make matters worse for the government the Bolsheviks began to call for elections to a Constituent Assembly – a new government for Russia. The government refused these elections until after WWI was over.

See:
The October Revolution by Roy Medvedev
The Russian Revolution by Sheila Fitzpatrick
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/RUSmarchR.htm
http://soviethistory.org/index.php?page=subject&SubjectID=1917july&Year=1917
http://soviethistory.org/index.php?page=subject&SubjectID=1917october&Year=1917

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