An analysis of the inability of the provisional government to prevent the Bolshevik seizure of power and the failure of Kerensky's coalition politics in 1917

This thesis examines the weaknesses of the Provisional Government and Kerensky's coalition politics. It is argued that a teleological deterministic view of Russian history must be laid aside if the study is to progress. It is shown that whilst Provisional Government policies were not successful on the key issues of bread, land and peace, these issues were not resolvable in the short term, and the Bolshevik promise of bread was fallacious. On the question of peace, however, the Provisional Government failed to recognise Russia’s need for peace, and consequently failed to prioritise Russia's withdrawal from the war, which was a major factor in the Provisional Government's inability to win widespread support. It is shown that the war was a financial and logistic crisis for the Provisional Government. There was an implicit contradiction in the soldiers' desires to retain their new rights and freedoms, and the desire of senior command to restore order in the army. The position of the Petrograd workers was crippled by the failure of moderation and legitimate means to improve workers living conditions. As a result, 1917 saw a definitive move to the left in the workers' movement. The three moderate political parties all lacked a firm party organisation and discipline, and had no experience of coalition politics. The two socialist parties were unable to reconcile their differences constructively, and allowed personal enmity to interfere with political life in 1917. The SR-Menshevik alliance had the potential to prevent the Bolsheviks from gaining control of the Soviets, and combined the popular support of the SR's with the mature leadership of the Mensheviks. Although Miliukov and the Kadets had the greatest political experience, they handicapped the coalition because they would not accept radical social change. Assessment of the role of Alexander Kerensky in die events of 1917 shows that much of the criticism he has faced is unjust, and that he acquitted himself well in 1917

Personal and political networks in 1917: Vladimir Zenzinov and the Socialist Revolutionary Party

This article explores the place of individuals, ideologies and personal and political networks in shaping the larger political landscape in revolutionary Russia. The shape and culture of the Socialist Revolutionary Party (psr) will be at the heart of my anal- ysis of coalition politics. I focus particularly on the personal and political networks surrounding Vladimir Mikhailovich Zenzinov during 1917. This analysis suggests that the shape of coalition politics in 1917 was defined in part by pre-revolutionary social and political networks, and that these to some extent transcended party political affiliations. While the nature of coalition politics necessitated this political fluidity, it is nevertheless worth emphasizing, because the discourse around 1917 is often framed along explicitly party political lines

Waiting to die? Old age in the late Imperial Russian village

This article seeks to contribute to our understandings of old age in historical context through its focus on the experiences of and perceptions about older people in late Imperial Russian villages. Elderly people feature as an integral part of Russian rural family life in literary and in scholarly accounts, and are predominantly framed as able, skilled, omniscient community members. Constructions of old age that see the elderly retaining physical prowess and community leadership overlook the lived realities of ageing. As elderly people lost physical and mental capacity, they slipped out of view in the Russian village, desexed, unseen and unremarked. The experience of the frail elderly allows us to explore the values accorded individuals within rural communities, and the extent to which families, communities and legal structures could and did intervene in the private sphere

From villains to victims: experiencing illness in Siberian exile

This essay presents the subjective experience of life and sickness for the punished in late Imperial Siberia, and the distinctions the punished made between legitimate and illegitimate forms of punishment. The essay also explores state policies towards the sick punished, and explores how different levels of the Tsarist administration and local Siberian society dealt with the challenge of sick and decrepit exiles. It argues that conditions in Siberian prisons were, in general, worse than those in European Russian prisons in the post-1906 period, and that the experience of exile in eastern Siberia placed it among the most difficult locations for exile. Though neither the state nor the punished regarded illness as an integral part of their punishment, the prevalence of illness and disease compounded the cruelty of sentences