Why was the provisional government unable to satisfy the peasants/proletariat between March – October in 1917?
I will be examining why the provisional government failed to fulfill the needs of the peasants and proletariat, and why the peoples views of the provisional government changed over the months.
If we examine the state of affairs in Russia, we can see that the war played an active effect on the people and the provisional government. We knew that the people of Russia didn't want to carry on with the war, as many people were killed and couldn't cope with the rations and taxes that the war had brought with them. The provisional government refused to back out of the war, continuing the Tsars regime. Had the provisional government pulled out of the war, it would have disappointing the allies, and be forced to pay and sign a peace treaty with Nazi Germany, something that the provisional government did not want. This shows us that the provisional government were not only Tsarist, but didn't want to use the power that they had to take responsibility of the peoples opinions and end their part of the war.
The provisional government had promised the people that elections for a new Tsar would be held as soon as possible, as it was only temporary. However, they continued to fight against the war and ignore the cries of people asking for elections. As a consequence, this lead to a major loss of support amongst the masses.
The rival of the provisional government was the Petrograd Soviet, which proved it had greater power and authority than the provisional government. In March, the Soviet issued an order, which directed the military to obey the Soviet only, and not the provisional government. This shows that as a consequence of less supporters, the provisional government were loosing it's ability to keep it's people, and it's military in place.
The April Theses, issued by Lenin, offered and alternative view of the provisional government. It called for a Soviet control of state power. This contributes to the July days. From this, Lenin urged Bolsheviks to withdraw their support from the provisional government and and for the immediate withdrawal from WWI and for a distribution of land for the peasants, which still hadn't happened. However, this only lead to the Bolsheviks unsuccessful attempt of taking over the provisional government in July.
The June Offensive shortly followed. It was an unsuccessful military operation planned by Kerensky. Not only did this prove the degree of which the Russian army's moral disintegrated, but the extent of the governments failure to respond to a revolution. It was a success momentarily, but the offensive had collapsed by solders not willing to fight against the Astro-German force. This proved
