The Revolutionary Period
This domain covers 1917 to 1921: the February collapse, dual power, the Bolshevik seizure in October, and the civil war settlement that created the one-party state.
From February to October
Bread rationing and strikes in Petrograd in late February (Julian) 1917 brought the garrison over to the crowd and shattered the monarchy. Two authorities emerged: the Provisional Government, drawn from the Duma, and the Petrograd Soviet, whose Order No. 1 effectively placed soldiers under Soviet rather than officer control. Nicholas II abdicated on 2 March 1917 (Julian). The Provisional Government had responsibility without reliable authority; the Soviet had authority without formal responsibility. Lenin's April Theses rejected support for the Provisional Government and called for soviet power. The July Days discredited the Bolsheviks briefly, the Kornilov affair in August rearmed them as defenders of the revolution, and on 25 October (Julian) the Military Revolutionary Committee, organized by Trotsky, seized the Winter Palace.
Consolidation and civil war
The new government issued the Decree on Peace and the Decree on Land, then dissolved the Constituent Assembly in January 1918 after the Socialist Revolutionaries won a majority. The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (3 March 1918) ceded Poland, the Baltic provinces, and Ukraine. War Communism followed: grain requisitioning (prodrazverstka), nationalization, food armies, and the Cheka, founded December 1917. The Red Army, built by Trotsky, fought Whites, nationalists, and foreign interveners. By 1921 the Reds had won, but Kronstadt and the Tambov peasant rising signaled exhaustion.
Worked example
Question: why did the Reds defeat the Whites? Reasoning: they held the industrial heartland and the rail hub of Moscow–Petrograd, giving interior lines; they had a single command and a claim peasants could accept on land; the Whites were geographically scattered, divided politically, associated with restoration of gentry land, and dependent on foreign help that fed nationalist resentment. Answering with unity, geography, and peasant calculations beats a moral verdict.
Traps
- Julian versus Gregorian dating: October 25 is 7 November 1917.
- The Constituent Assembly was SR-majority; its dissolution is not a Bolshevik triumph at the polls.
- October was a party coup in a capital, not a mass insurrection.
- Civil war dates, 1918–1921, matter; Kronstadt is 1921 and belongs to the transition to NEP.