Explain the change in fortunes for the Bolsheviks during the time of the Provisional Government up to its takeover of power

The 'July Days' was seen as a dilemma for the Bolsheviks, while the 'Kornilov Coup' and the delay in setting up the Constituent Assembly both showed an enormous benefit to them. Due to the misfortunes in the 'July Days', the Provisional Government was given the opportunity to blame the Bolsheviks, and accuse Lenin of being a German spy. The 'Kornilov Coup' had disclosed the incapacity and futility of the Provisional Government, and with the delay of the Constituent Assembly, many peasants, and returning soldiers ran out of patience and turned their backs to the government.

The 'July Days' was the period when sailors at the naval base of Kronstadt organised their own armed demonstration under Bolshevik slogans and walked into Petrograd. The Bolshevik leaders were preoccupied by this action, and refused to attempt to overthrow the government. They believed that the provisional government was able to crush this rising with the help from Mensheviks and Social Revolutionaries. The Bolsheviks were blamed for this rising and of its casualties. This also provided Kerensky with an opportunity of discrediting Lenin. He claimed that he was a German spy. As result, many Bolshevik offices were closed, and their newspaper Pravda stopped printing. Kamenev and Trotsky were arrested.

After 'July Days', the Provisional Government appointed Kornilov as Commander in Chief to reassert discipline in the army. There had been continuous strikes afterward and there seemed to be coup organised by Kornilov himself. The Provisional Government had no other alternatives but to ask help from the Bolsheviks. Thus, the Bolsheviks came to aid Kerensky, and Kornilov was arrested. This became to be known as a great success to the Bolsheviks, while it shows great disadvantage towards the Government, Mensheviks, and Social Revolutionaries. The Provisional Government became undermined.

The Constituent Assembly was a parliament, which was to be elected, and which would have ruled according to the wishes of the people. This would have had legitimised the government's power and introduced land reform. However, Kerensky delayed the set up of this assembly. The peasants would not wait any longer, and many of those who have deserted the army returned home and seized the land from the landlords. The government was not able to control what was happening. This was disadvantageous to the Provisional government, for they had lost the support from the peasants. Instead, for the Bolsheviks it became a chance to earn their support.

To conclude, the 'July Days' did discredit the Bolsheviks, but this was only for a short period of time, since soon afterwards, in debt to the 'Kornilov Coup', they were able to show their power and the Provisional Governments futility. The delay of the Constituent Assembly, served as a fine start for the Bolsheviks, where peasants had lost their faith in the Provisional Government and joined them instead.

Why was the Tsar overthrown in 1917?

The Tsar abdicated in the year 1917. Three important problems which contributes to the over throw of the in the year 1917 are, first of all the Tsar made mistakes by taking personal charge of the army and the actions he took after he did. Secondly, World war one played a big part in his over throw and thirdly one of the Tsar's strengths was that he had support of the army so when the army abandoned him, he lost one of his strengths.

In 1917 the Tsar took personal charge of the army and then he made a mistake by apointing his wife to be in charge of the army. His wife, Tsarina gave the charge of the army to Rasputin. There were rumors among the people say that Tsarina wanted the Germans to win the war due to the fact that she was a German herself. Because of this, the government was in trouble. It seems that the government could not be trusted by the people because the woman in charge was not working heard enough to save their country or to defeat a country they are in war with. the trust of the government was begining to fade away. The Tsar was personaly balmed for this because he was the leader of the government. Even though he took charge of the army he didn't help the war effort.

Secondly World war one was one of the reasons why the Tsar had problems which led him to be over thrown. The war took 15 million men from the fields. This men were need to grow the food for the people of Russsia. But when World war one started the men were needed to fight. Even the trans that were used to transport the food from place to place was now used to transport weapons. Because of this there was food shortage in the country and due to that the prices of the food increased. And as time went on the war was costing the country a lot of money they could used to feed their own people insted of buyng weapons. This led to riots and demostrations by the people of Russia.

Thirdly the army abandoned the Tsar on March 12 1917. Because the people were protesting and there was alot of riots. On March 7th the steelworkers went on strike because they were not paid enough to feed their families. The money they were paid was not enough to buy food due to the fact that the food prices increased. So they went on strike. On the 8th there was demostrations and bread riots and on the 9th and 10th more demostrations and riots. The Tsarina, the Tsar's wife called the army to fire on the demostrators. then finally the army abandoned the Tsar and went to the protestor's side. Therefore the government had no control of the army and so Duma asked the Tsar to abdicate.

The Tsar simply did not handle his people well. He starved and mistreated them with no plan of change because he was used to traditional ways of running the country. Instead of helping them or even listening to what they were protesting against and trying to solve the problem, he ordered the army to fire on them in other words to keep them quiet. When he took charge of the army he knew he had no knowledge of how to control an army and by puting his wife in charge showed that he didn't care very much about his people that he gave his job to someone else to handle. As all this happened during World War One, it merely excacerbated the situation leading to the inevitable.