Why did two revolutions destroy tsarism and bring the Bolsheviks to power in Russia in 1917?
Analyse the causes and course of the February and October Revolutions of 1917
Why tsarism collapsed in February 1917 and how the Bolsheviks seized power in October, covering causes, dual power, key figures and historiography.
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This depth study focuses tightly on the single year 1917 and its two distinct revolutions, the foundation of everything that followed in Soviet history.
By 1917 the Romanov system was already fragile. The autocracy of Tsar Nicholas II had survived the 1905 revolution only with limited reforms, and resentment simmered among peasants who wanted land, workers in the cities, and a middle class denied real political power. The First World War turned strain into collapse. Military defeats, millions of casualties, transport breakdown and food shortages discredited the regime, while Nicholas, having taken personal command of the army in 1915, was blamed for failure. The royal family was further disgraced by the influence of Rasputin over Tsarina Alexandra, murdered by nobles in December 1916.
Power then split awkwardly. The liberal Provisional Government, formed from the old Duma, claimed authority, but real influence over soldiers and workers lay with the Petrograd Soviet, which issued Soviet Order Number One. This situation of dual power left the government weak from the start. It granted civil liberties but postponed the great questions of land and a constituent assembly, and above all it made the fatal decision to continue the unpopular war.
Lenin transformed the situation. Returning from exile in April 1917, transported across Germany, he issued the April Theses demanding peace, land, bread and "all power to the Soviets", refusing cooperation with the Provisional Government. After a premature rising in the July Days failed and Lenin fled, the government under Alexander Kerensky was fatally weakened by the Kornilov affair in August, when an attempted military coup was defeated partly by armed Bolsheviks (Red Guards), greatly boosting their prestige and the Bolsheviks won majorities in the Petrograd and Moscow soviets.
The October Revolution followed. On the night of 25 October / 7 November 1917 the Military Revolutionary Committee, organised by Leon Trotsky, seized key points in Petrograd, the storming of the Winter Palace, and arrested the Provisional Government with little resistance. The Bolsheviks immediately issued the Decree on Peace and the Decree on Land. When elections to the Constituent Assembly in late 1917 gave the Bolsheviks a minority, they dissolved it by force in January 1918, confirming that this was the beginning of one-party dictatorship rather than democracy.
Historians disagree sharply about 1917. The "liberal" or Western view long stressed contingency and the accidental nature of the Provisional Government's failure, presenting October as a coup by a small, well-organised minority. Soviet historiography portrayed it as an inevitable mass workers' revolution led by the party. Revisionist social historians such as Sheila Fitzpatrick examined genuine popular support and pressure from below, especially among workers and soldiers radicalised by the war. For TASC essays and source work, weigh the long-term weaknesses of tsarism and the impact of war against the short-term role of Lenin and Trotsky's leadership and organisation.