Compare and contrast the causes and nature of the two 1917 Russian Revolutions

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“Every social group, every nationality, every region, every town, every village, had its own revolution”, wrote Christopher Read and indeed, 1917 proved to be for Russia a year of turmoil and change. Traditionally, however, 1917 is known as a year of two revolutions, February Revolution and October Revolution . Yet, how different were they, in their nature and in their causes? On the surface two 1917 revolutions divided by eight months had nothing in common: the first was a rather spontaneous collapse of the tsardom from within, while the second was a seizure of power by the Bolsheviks from Provisional Government which had replaced the Tsar. The nature of two revolutions does seem rather dissimilar, especially in terms of preparation and scale; however the causation appears to be analogous at many points: many reasons that led to collapse of the tsardom, such as social and economic discontent, war, attitude of the armed forces and incompetence of the government, resemble reasons that led to destruction of the Provisional government. Yet, unlike rather spontaneous February revolution, October revolution was planned and carried out by a particular group – Bolsheviks, without participation of which the revolution would have not been possible.

Extraits

[...] The continuation of the WWI after the February revolution has been one of the most important factors that led to the October Revolution. None of the parties seemed to oppose the war and big argument between Provisional Government and Petrograd Soviet around the question of the war was not whether to continue fighting but of which nature the fighting should be. Commitment of the government to still unsuccessful war and especially secret Milyukov's note made public in April, reassuring the Allies that Provisional govt did not support Soviet's call for renunciation of imperialist war aims by all combatants, caused street demonstrations and even government's reorganization to form First Coalition Government. [...]

[...] Compare and contrast the causes and nature of the two 1917 Russian Revolutions “Every social group, every nationality, every region, every town, every village, had its own revolution”, wrote Christopher Read and indeed proved to be for Russia a year of turmoil and change. Traditionally, however is known as a year of two revolutions, February Revolution and October Revolution[1]. Yet, how different were they, in their nature and in their causes? On the surface two 1917 revolutions divided by eight months had nothing in common: the first was a rather spontaneous collapse of the tsardom from within, while the second was a seizure of power by the Bolsheviks from Provisional Government which had replaced the Tsar. [...]

[...] Most importantly, the burden of the war was coupled with the constantly worsening attitude of the army. In pre-February Russia the misunderstanding of the WWI was widespread in the army and soon became associated with the figure of the Tsar when in August 1915 he assumed personal command. As the war proceeded, the government was faced with new, previously unknown problem loyalty of the army. After first two years of the war most officers were dead: the army was no longer the loyal one of 1914; the remains of loyal and trained troops were at the front line. [...]

[...] The role of the war: humiliating defeats and alienation of the army The seeming inevitability of the governments' collapse was mostly the result of the great impact of the war on both regimes. The WWI was a crucial factor in the February revolution. Although at first enthusiastically met, soon the war became a burden and a reason to oppose the government. Despite some successes such as Brusilov's new tactics, big and humiliating defeats, corruption, shortages, incompetence of the command and massive casualty rate led to conscription riots already by the end of 1915 and made the morale of the army fell greatly. [...]

[...] Witte said, character is the source of all our misfortunes. His outstanding weaknesses is a lack of willpower' (Lynch, 68). In addition, almost governing the country in the absence of the Tsar, Tsarina, woman of German origin, was not trusted by people and was even believed to be guilty for the WWI. Spreading rumours about Rasputin's extreme influence over Tsarina and the government, and about his vulgar relationship with Alexandra led to alienation of Russian nobles and professional classes from the court. [...]