Key Issues 4/10/08

1.) The Russian army preformed poorly in the war because they were incredibly ill equipped and ill prepared for war. The Russian army adopted the policy of giving one soldier a gun, and then giving ammo to the second soldier. This was an attempt to make the limited number of arms Russia possessed go a longer way. The idea was that when the first soldier was shot, the second soldier would pick up his gun and continue to fight. This lead to Russia loosing millions of men in the war. Another factor was the inability for Russia to organize the transport of supplies to the troops on the front line. Russia had one particular winter in 1917 that caused a complete shut down of the railroads because the fuel for the trains got so cold that it was unusable.

2.)The Tsar and his government were responsible for a large part of the revolution. The Tsar denied his people basic freedoms, such as the right to protest and the freedom of speech, and it was the lack of these rights that acted as a major catalyst for the revolution. The Tsar was also an incompetent ruler and he himself admitted that.

3.) The February/ March revolution was caused by economic failure and the realization by the Provisional Government that they could now overthrow the Tsar. They had been ignored by the Tsar for long enough, so they came up with a plan to replace the Tsar with either Lvov or Milyukov.

4.)The Bolsheviks themselves played very little part in the revolution, but because of the power gap left by the recently abdicated throne of the Tsar, all the power was given to the revolutionaries. The Provincial Government was led by Prince Lvov. The new government was no more able to deal with the problems of the nation as the old government.

5.)The Soviet was of massive importance after the revolution. The Provisional Government had "power" but not in the literal sense. The Soviet had actual power. When the Soviet told someone to do something, the people did it. The Soviet decided to wait and give the Provisional Government a chance before the Soviet demanded changes.

6.)The Provisional Government failed in many of its policies. Soldiers deserted the battlefield in order to get land after the Provisional Government enacted it's land policy. When General Kornilov marched onto Petrograd and tried to destroy the Bolsheviks, he failed because many men deserted en route and the Bolsheviks had amassed a defensive force.

7.) The Kornilov revolt was important because it showed that after the Tsar's removal, not everyone was in agreement. This is signs that Russia is heading towards a civil war and the establishment of a single party state.