The February Revolution and the Provisional Government

Abstract

The subjects of the October Revolution and Civil War could not be investigated adequately without some analysis of the activities and failure of the democratic political forces which took power after the revolution of February 1917. Before Gorbachev’s accession the activities of Lenin and the October Revolution had been the main focus of academic study; very little had been known about the personalities involved in the February Revolution and Provisional Government, and the reasons for their failure. The fact that the Provisional Government was one of the last historical subjects to receive attention after the introduction of glasnost suggests that it was one of the most sensitive issues, not only for the Communists, who were not particularly eager for Russians to become aware of the plurality of views represented in their political heritage, but also, when by 1990 the Communist. Party began to lose its grip on power, for the new democratic political leaders, who did not wish to confront the reasons for the failure of democracy in 1917. This subject has been touched upon in fiction and press debates, and is beginning to be investigated by historians in the 1990s, but has still not been fully or objectively researched in Russia. There is still a significant degree of public ignorance about these events.