The Russian Provisional Government

[Owl]

I'm curious to hear your general thoughts on the Provisional Government and the path it would have taken had it not be overthrown. :o

[Forward Union]

I'm curious to hear your general thoughts on the Provisional Government and the path it would have taken had it not be overthrown. :o

It's a bit like discussing how many angels you can fit on the head of a needle. It's out there with "what if Hitler had got into art school" or if Napoleon had one Waterloo. We be able to make some judgements but we really will never know. Because the alternatives didn't happen, you can make a strong case that they actually couldn't have happened.

Either way I suspect the Provisional Government would have collapsed in some other way leading to reasonably similar consequences. If not that, it would have continued the bloody conflict with Germany, strengthened the power of the industrialists and the church, and muddled along in a sort of strange failed Bonapartist kind of way, plagued with civil unrest until it got wiped out in the second world war. A bit like the Weimar Republic but even shitter.

[Lenina Rosenweg]

It was leaning towards a military dictatorship.The Russian bourgoiuse was too weak to move Russia forward and carry out its historic task. Minus a working class revolution power would have reverted back to the military/feudal landowning class.

It seems that around the time of the Kornilov attempted coup Kerensky was thinking along the lines of a military junta himself. He was politically inept it its likely he would have been overthrown by another rightist group.

There was incipient fascism among some of the Whites-Kolchak especially,Perhaps Russia would have emerged as a somewhat unstable nationalist fascist regime before Mussolini.

In his History of The Russian Revolution (a must read IMO) Trotsky poses a counterfactual history if the Revolution had not occured.

[Brutus]

It's obvious that it had very little support, and had only kept power through force. I agree with rosa- it would become a military dictatorship.

[Dave B]

A better question might what would have happened if the constituent assembly (which the Bolsheviks had supported through most of 1917) hadn't been overthrown.

[Bronco]

It's obvious that it had very little support, and had only kept power through force. I agree with rosa- it would become a military dictatorship.

I wouldn't say that, upon coming to power the prospects of the provisional government looked quite optimistic; led by nationally known liberal figures, inundated with messages of support from the town and country, and quickly was recognised by foreign governments. Compared to any Russian government before or after it it also used comparatively little force, a lot of historians think if they'd been more willing to use force they could have stayed in power longer. In reality they didn't really have the means to do so in any case because they couldn't rely on the army, who were either mutinying in their thousands on the frontlines or like the Petrograd garrison no longer paid much heed to the traditional authority of their officers and superiors

As for the OP it's a pointless question because there isn't really anywhere the provisional government could go; by it's nature it was only temporary and was supposed to have been making preparations for the election of a constituent assembly, and because of this they refused to tackle the major issues like land reform, the food shortage etc. But at the same time they repeatedly delayed convening the assembly, it's like Lenin said of their attitude; "wait for the constituent assembly for land. Wait until the end of the war for the constituent assembly. Wait until total victory for the end of the war"

The provisional government effectively made their own position untenable by their insistence on continuing the war, which they had to do to procure loans from the allies. There wasn't really any way they could continue to govern as they were

[Brutus]

The soldiers were deserting, the people wanted power to the soviets.
That why Lenin was so successful in gaining popular support: the people wanted peace, land, and bread- which the provisional government wasn't giving to them.

[Dave B]

The reason given by Trotsky on behalf of the Bolsheviks for seizing power was to stop the ‘bourgeois classes’ preventing the convocation of the constituent assembly.

Thus;



‘The officially stated aim of the Democratic Conference,’

Trotsky began,

‘was the elimination of the personal regime that fed the Kornilov revolt, and the creation of a responsible government capable of liquidating the war and promoting the convocation of a Constituent Assembly at the appointed time……………..



………. If the propertied elements were really preparing for the Constituent Assembly in a month and a half, they would have no grounds for defending the non-responsibility of the government now. The whole point is that the bourgeois classes have set themselves the goal of preventing the Constituent Assembly ...’


There was an uproar. Shouts from the right: ‘Lies!’

……….. The propertied classes, who provoked the uprising, are now moving to crush it and are openly steering a course for the bony hand of hunger, which is expected to strangle the revolution and the Constituent Assembly first of all.



‘Nor is foreign policy any less criminal. After forty months of war the capital is threatened by mortal danger. In response to this a plan has been put forward for the transfer of the government to Moscow. The idea of surrendering the revolutionary capital to German troops does not arouse the slightest indignation amongst the bourgeois classes; on the contrary it is accepted as a natural link in the general policy that is supposed to help them in their counter-revolutionary conspiracy.’


The uproar grew worse.

The patriots leaped from their seats and wouldn’t allow Trotsky to go on speaking. Shouts about Germany, the sealed car and so on. One shout stood out: ‘Bastard!’

……………………….The chairman called the meeting to order. Trotsky was standing there as though none of this were any concern of his, and finally found it possible to go on.

‘We, the Bolshevik fraction of the Social-Democratic Party, declare that with this government of national treachery and this “Council” we –’

The uproar took on an obviously hopeless character. The majority of the right got to their feet with the obvious intention of stopping the speech. The chairman called the speaker to order. Trotsky, beginning to lose his temper, and speaking by now through the hubbub, finished:

‘–……... We appeal to the people: Long live an immediate, honourable democratic peace, all power to the Soviets. All land to the people, long live the Constituent Assembly!’


All the Bolsheviks stood up and walked out of the assembly hall to the accompaniment of shouts ‘Go to your German trains!’



http://www.marxists.org/archive/cliff/works/1989/trotsky1/15-towards.html

it was the bourgeois Bolsheviks who a few months later closed the constituent assembly after it had sat for about 12 hours.


The Bolsheviks then proceeded to receive even more massive funds from the German government to stay out of the war.

Introduced state capitalism copied from the German model.

And ‘surrendered revolutionary capital to German troops’.




.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

A better question might what would have happened if the constituent assembly (which the Bolsheviks had supported through most of 1917) hadn't been overthrown.

The Constituent Assembly wasn't "overthrown"; it ceased to have any relevance when it refused to recognise the decrees on peace and land enacted by the Bolshevik-Left Eser government, and was finally dispersed when the guards of the Tauride palace, led by the anarchist sailor Zheleznyak, had enough and ordered them to leave.

Several Eser and Menshevik members of the Assembly would later establish a "Committee of Members of the Constituent Assembly", a White government in Samara, that privatised the industry and sent armed detachments to protect the landlords and the kulaks. Eventually, their own "People's Army" grew tired of them, and mostly defected to the Red Army. The KomUch would later be dissolved by Kolchak. Does the "World Socialist Movement" idolise Kolchak as well?


The reason given by Trotsky on behalf of the Bolsheviks for seizing power was to stop the ‘bourgeois classes’ preventing the convocation of the constituent assembly.

Thus;

Thus you cite Trotsky's speech in the pre-parliament, several weeks before the revolution, concerning the "Democratic Conference" called by Kerensky. Why did you not cite the resolution of the RevVoenSovet that deposed the Provisional Government?

It is true that the convocation of the constituent assembly figured prominently in the demands of the Bolsheviks - but it was not the only demand. And the Constituent Assembly that convened in the Tauride palace was elected using outdated candidate lists that did not record the split between the Left and Right Socialists-Revolutionaries - thus the liberal and pogromist Right Esers received most of the seats, even though more people voted for the Left Esers, who were in a coalition with the Bolsheviks.


The Bolsheviks then proceeded to receive even more massive funds from the German government to stay out of the war.

Do you think the Bolsheviks should have forced the Russian proletariat to fight in a war of imperialist predation for... some reason. Or do you think the Russian proletariat was anxiously awaiting their deaths in some muddy ditch in Galicia?

Is this the "socialism" of the WSM? Support for imperialist war and for pogromist bourgeois-landowner governments?

[Hexen]

It's a bit like discussing how many angels you can fit on the head of a needle. It's out there with "what if Hitler had got into art school" or if Napoleon had one Waterloo. We be able to make some judgements but we really will never know. Because the alternatives didn't happen, you can make a strong case that they actually couldn't have happened.

Unless you have taken Quantum Physics and Alternative Universes into consideration where there might be a universe where Hitler did go to art school or a universe where he actually died in WWI (or even a universe where WWI never happened at all) or a universe where Napoleon did take Waterloo and such with the whole "constant and variables" thing.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Physics doesn't work that way.

[Hexen]

Physics doesn't work that way.

How does it work then?

Of course all this I've said all came from Bioshock: Infinite though...

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Well enough. The notion that quantum physics states that every conceivable state of affairs (Hitler having went to art school and whatnot) obtains is a myth; at best, there are interpretations that state that every branch of the universal wavefunction exists concurrently. But whether the state of affairs that corresponds to Hitler going to art school is a part of that universal wavefunction is not at all clear - one would have to, in principle, take the various wavefunctions of physical systems and compose them into a single wavefunction, taking interactions into accounts, and then see if there is anything in that wavefunction that is remotely similar to the proposed state of affairs.

And there are far better - and more dialectical - interpretations, chiefly the late Copenhagen interpretation due to Bohr, Fok and others.

[l'Enfermé]

Semendyaev are you actually wasting your time trying to argue with a guy that posts the Bolsheviks-were-German-agents conspiracy theories propagated by the Russian far-right on revleft?

[goalkeeper]

The provisional government was pretty much doomed. In the time leading up to October, the conciliatory and class-compromise spirit of the February revolution was over. Workers demands for higher wages were no longer conceded by the industrialists as they had done in the early days of February, while increasing factory shut downs and lock outs looked to workers like sabotage of the revolution by the capitalists. The working class was becoming increasingly radicalised and and increasingly viewed the provisional government as a bourgeois government and a representative institution of the capitalist class vis-a-vis their institution of representation, the Soviet. The only way the Provisional government could have survived would have been establishing a dictatorship, which was tried with General Kornilov and failed.

[Lev Bronsteinovich]

The reason given by Trotsky on behalf of the Bolsheviks for seizing power was to stop the ‘bourgeois classes’ preventing the convocation of the constituent assembly.

Thus;





http://www.marxists.org/archive/cliff/works/1989/trotsky1/15-towards.html

it was the bourgeois Bolsheviks who a few months later closed the constituent assembly after it had sat for about 12 hours.


The Bolsheviks then proceeded to receive even more massive funds from the German government to stay out of the war.

Introduced state capitalism copied from the German model.

And ‘surrendered revolutionary capital to German troops’.


Can't you find a smaller font? Your politics are crappy enough without taking up all that screen real estate. The CA would have handed the country back to the bourgeoisie, which would have then turned it over to foreign capital perhaps with the help of a restored monarchy. Put another way, this was not a rehash of the French Revolution.

The constituent assembly is not a principle for revolutionary Marxists. A parochial, narrow view of winning the most votes in an election being the utter apex of human society is boneheaded. The Bolsheviks were the spearhead of international revolution. Giving that up because they were outvoted would have been a crime. For you, a Menshevik anti-communist, of course you consider dispersing the CA a crime. You have it backward.

As for the the Bolsheviks moving the capital -- it was to salvage the situation for the dictatorship of the proletariat -- a revolutionary government led by the Bolsheviks. It was not their aim to have the Germans come in, like during the Paris Commune, and slaughter communists. That was, however, the hope of the Provision Government and Kerensky.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Semendyaev are you actually wasting your time trying to argue with a guy that posts the Bolsheviks-were-German-agents conspiracy theories propagated by the Russian far-right on revleft?

Apparently, and I'm wasting someone else's bandwidth to do it, too. I'm just shocked by this sort of social-patriotism and support for imperialist war.