Clare G.’s Reviews > A History of Modern Russia: From Nicholas II to Putin > Status Update

By October the government had lost control of the peasants, the Finnish Sejm and the Ukrainian Rada were running themselves, the army had been cowed after Kornilov's failed mutiny and aristocrats avoided the public eye.

In autumn 1917 people were again struggling for food as peasants refused to sell unless prices and goods increased and the German army advanced past Riga, within 500km of Petrograd.

Bolsheviks encouraged and then stepped back from demonstrations against the government. Backlash led to Trotsky, Kamenev and Alexandra Kollontai being imprisoned. Lvov resigned in favour of Kerensky.

Milyukov sent a telegram to Paris and London which affirmed Russia's commitment to secret treaties in 1915. The Mensheviks, socialist-revolutionaries and Bolsheviks organised demonstrations. Milyukov and Guchkov resigned and Kerensky and Tsereteli joined government.

Lenin (leader of the Bolsheviks) wanted to establish a dictatorship and advocated the use of terror to maintain power. The Mensheviks, however, advocated a 'bourgeois' revolution and that Russia complete its development as a capitalist economy before transitioning to socialism.

The Emancipation Edict of 1861 granted serfs autonomy from their masters but on average took away 13% of their farming land which they then had to buy back.