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Why did the provisional Government last such as short time, whilst the Tsars had survived major crises and disastrous wars? Written by that_ginger_kid
The provisional government was only in power over Russia for little over 7 months, whereas the far more strenuous and authoritarian Romanov Tsars were in power for just over 300 years, despite the government being a far more liberal and democratic. Although both the Romanovs and the Provisional Government faced problems such as war, uprising and revolution, whereas the Tsars managed to cling on to power, the provisional government were weak enough to be toppled.
One of the main reasons that the Provisional government fell was its failure to meet the expectations of the people. After the many long years of autocratic, police controlled years under the harsh, authoritarian Tsars, the people of Russia, the working classes especially, were expecting a very liberal, free government. However the reforms that the parliament did in fact implement, although being very liberal and opposed to the tsarist traditions, were not the reforms that the working classes were looking for. The right to free speech, free press and free though movement were all well and good, but they did not massively benefit the life style and quality of life of the average worker. Not only were they not meeting expectations of the public, the Provisional government was not representing said people. The government was made up of the remains of the Duma, who were voted for by the wealthy and sworn into power by the Tsar. They were seen by the public as being the imperialistic avant-garde, the bogriouse, and the same people that the Petrograd Soviet blamed for running Russia into the ground. Although all ties with ‘The Bloody Tsar’ had been cute, his image was stained into the fabric that made up the Provisional government and was to turn into a blood stain.
The provisional government did introduce some very influential reforms, the aforementioned right to free speech, press and thought were all relaxed and the scrapping of the police state. These appear to be very liberal and radical reforms that should have made the government more popular, however, what it did allow was for the Bolsheviks to arrange and plan an uprising. Extremist groups were now able to talk freely in the country, discuss controversial ideas and propose an uprising. The Petrograd Soviet, which was set up to represent the working class Russian, took these reforms to their own advantage, using the freedom of speech to spread bad word against the government and spreading the word of Marxism and the idea of a the world’s first Socialist state. The workers were still suffering under the new government, with their living and working conditions being akin to the 17th century, not the 20th, and this further stretched the relationship between the elected bodies and the Soviets.
Both the Tsars and the Provisional Government suffered heavily in military performances. Nicholas II saw his “mighty” Russian force fall to a “third rate military power” in the Russo-Japanese war and suffer an almighty, humiliating defeat. Not only this, but the Tsar survived. The main reason for the persistent survival of the Tsar was a result of Russia’s backwardness, the lack of education of the peasants and the strong, religious, traditional core of Russian society. The Tsar was the representative of God on Earth, his family had been chosen by God and to go against the Tsar meant disobeying the will of God. The Russian peasantry was Strongly Tied to the Russian Orthodox Church and were, generally, uneducated. This meant that they were both very docile to oppression, but lacked the creativity or foresight to see that they could be so much more than they are. This meant that the Tsars could oppress and control the workers despite the poor conditions that they were forced to run under, however, the provisional government did not have this advantage.
By the time that the Provisional Government came to power in 1917 Russia had been ‘shocked into action’ by the events of the First World War. Not only had the Russians suffered extremely heavily in the campaign lead by the Tsar, but they had also been the subject of education reforms since Alexander III. Although basic, simple reforms, by the outbreak of war the average Russian worker had a far higher intellect than that of 30 or even 15 years hence. This new spark of intellectualism throughout the Russian underclass made manipulating and abusing them a lot harder, as was seen in the final days of the Tsar. Alexander III’s education reforms can be seen as the instigator of this new, intellectual Russia, but it was only under the Provisional government that the true effects of it could be seen. The Russian peoples had no loyalty or oath toward these new, deposing, leaders who they had not voted for or sworn in.
The provisional government also failed to learn from the mistakes of the Tsars, taking control of the armed forces in the first world war for example, had lead almost directly to the huge decrese in poplarity for the tsar and had eventually been the trigger for the February revolution. The new government was expected to pull out of the war as was the will of the Russian worker, yet by staying in battle and launching their disastrous offensive in July, they lost both the people support and the control of the army, whom the Petrograd Soviet claimed to have control over. This single fact is one of the strongest reasons as to why the PG did not last ass long as the Romanovs had.
A control of the Army, the people, the education and the thoughts of the workers was a powerful tool which the Tsars had used to their full advantage, however, by the October of 1917, reformist bills of the Provisional Government had sowed the seeds of their own eventual destruction, losing all control of those who had been the last line of support of the Tsars. At the end of the provisional government’s time in power, the public, the People and even the Upper classes were disillusioned by their style of operating Russia. People did not who they were and felt no allegiance to them. They were not made to rule Russia.
