Bolsheviks overthrow the Provisional Government

Vladimir Lenin returned to Petrograd after traveling from Switzerland through Germany and Scandinavia. His return sharpened debate within the Bolshevik Party over whether to support the Provisional...

Lenin presented theses opposing support for the Provisional Government and calling for an end to the war, land transfer, and power to the soviets. The proposal linked domestic revolution to...

The Provisional Government launched a major offensive on the Eastern Front, hoping to sustain the alliance with Britain and France and restore military discipline. The operation collapsed amid war...

Armed demonstrations by workers and soldiers in Petrograd demanded that the soviets take power. The Bolshevik leadership did not consider an insurrection ready, and the demonstrations were...

General Lavr Kornilov’s movement of troops toward Petrograd was framed by the government as a coup threat. Railway workers, soldiers and political activists helped obstruct the advance. The episode...

The Second Congress of Soviets approved a new government, the Council of People’s Commissars (Sovnarkom), chaired by Lenin. The structure claimed authority through soviet representation, but political...

The Congress of Soviets issued the Decree on Peace, proposing negotiations without annexations or indemnities and urging peoples and governments to end the war. Its language appealed to soldiers and...

The Land Decree sanctioned the seizure of landed estates and the redistribution of land according to local peasant practice. It drew on peasant resolutions and met a long-standing demand against...

The new government declared equality and sovereignty for the peoples of Russia, a right to free self-determination up to separation, abolition of national and religious privilege, and free development...

The Central Rada’s Third Universal proclaimed the Ukrainian People’s Republic in a federal relationship with a future Russian republic. Ukrainian political leaders asserted national agency amid...