The Russian Revolutions of 1917: February to October

Russian Political History I: Autocracy, Revolution & Stalin's Soviet State

Chapter 4 · The Russian Revolutions of 1917: February to October

Chapter 3 closed on Nicholas II's abdication and a genuine institutional vacuum — no single government existed to fill it. What emerged instead were two governments at once, each claiming real authority, neither able to fully exercise it alone.

Two Governments Claiming to Rule

In the same week the monarchy fell, two separate bodies formed in Petrograd: the Provisional Government, drawn mostly from the old Duma's own liberal and moderate members and led first by Prince Georgy Lvov, and the Petrograd Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies, elected directly by factory workers and mutinous soldiers. Both claimed real legitimacy. Neither controlled the other.

Kerensky's Own Real Description Alexander Kerensky — at this point a minister in the Provisional Government and simultaneously vice-chairman of the Petrograd Soviet — later described the arrangement with genuine precision: the Soviet held "power without authority," while the Provisional Government held "authority without power." Neither body alone could actually govern.

Order No. 1: Undermining the Army That Made the Revolution

On 1 March 1917, the Petrograd Soviet issued Order No. 1 — a real directive telling soldiers to obey the Provisional Government only when its orders didn't contradict the Soviet's own decrees, and establishing elected soldier committees within every military unit. The order deliberately weakened the traditional chain of command that had already broken once, in the mutiny that toppled the Tsar, and it kept weakening it for the rest of the year.

Lenin's April Theses & the Failed July Days

Vladimir Lenin returned to Russia in April 1917 and immediately published his April Theses, calling for the Provisional Government to be rejected entirely and power transferred directly to the Soviets — "All Power to the Soviets." Even his own Bolshevik colleagues initially rejected the idea as premature.

By July 1917, popular frustration with the Provisional Government's own continued participation in World War I boiled into open, armed demonstrations in Petrograd — the July Days. The government crushed the uprising, arrested Bolshevik leaders including Trotsky, and forced Lenin to flee to Finland. For a real, brief moment, Bolshevik influence looked broken.

The Kornilov Affair (August 1917): A Real, Fatal Irony

In late August 1917, the army's own commander-in-chief, General Lavr Kornilov, moved troops toward Petrograd — widely understood as an attempted coup against the Provisional Government itself, whether or not Kerensky (now prime minister) had genuinely authorized it first. With too few loyal troops of his own to stop Kornilov, Kerensky made a real, consequential decision: he opened the city's weapons stores to the Petrograd Soviet, arming the Bolshevik-aligned Red Guards, and released the Bolshevik leaders arrested after the July Days.

The Provisional Government Arms Its Own Overthrower Kornilov's advance collapsed without a real fight. But the Red Guards never returned the weapons Kerensky had handed them. In defending itself against a threat from the right, the Provisional Government had just equipped and legitimized the movement that would remove it from power two months later.

The October Revolution

On the night of 25-26 October 1917 (Old Style) — 7-8 November by the modern calendar — Bolshevik Red Guards, now well-armed thanks to Kornilov's own failed coup, seized key positions across Petrograd and moved on the Winter Palace itself, where the Provisional Government's ministers were meeting. Resistance was minimal. Kerensky fled the city before the palace fell; the remaining ministers were arrested within hours.

Finding: A Second System With No Institutional Shock Absorber Chapter 3 found that Tsarist autocracy had no institution capable of surviving a crisis once the Tsar's own personal authority failed. Dual power collapsed for a structurally related real reason: neither the Provisional Government nor the Soviet held complete authority on its own, and the one moment they combined forces — against Kornilov — armed the single faction disciplined enough to exploit that gap.

What the Bolsheviks actually built once they held power — and how quickly they moved from a seized capital to a full one-party state — is the subject of Chapter 6, after Chapter 5 covers the real civil war their seizure of power triggered.

Hands-On Exercises

Exercise 1

Explain what Kerensky meant by describing the Soviet as holding "power without authority" and the Provisional Government as holding "authority without power," and why that specific imbalance made dual power inherently unstable.

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Exercise 2

Explain the real, direct chain of cause and effect connecting the Kornilov Affair in August 1917 to the Bolsheviks' own military capacity to seize power in October.

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Exercise 3

The July Days appeared to badly weaken the Bolsheviks, yet they seized power just three months later. Explain how both things can be true — a real, temporary setback that didn't reflect the movement's own actual trajectory.

→ Solution

Quick Reference

  • March 1917: Dual power begins — the Provisional Government (Lvov, then Kerensky from July) and the Petrograd Soviet, each with real but incomplete authority
  • 1 March 1917: Order No. 1 undermines the army's traditional chain of command
  • April 1917: Lenin's April Theses call for "All Power to the Soviets"
  • July 1917: The July Days uprising fails; Lenin flees, Trotsky is arrested
  • August 1917: The Kornilov Affair — Kerensky arms the Bolshevik Red Guards to survive it, and they never disarm
  • 25-26 October 1917 (OS) / 7-8 November (NS): Bolsheviks seize the Winter Palace; the Provisional Government falls