The new provisional government was almost universally welcomed. Civil liberties were proclaimed, new wage agreements and an 8-hour day were negotiated in Petrograd, discipline was relaxed in the army, and elections were promised for a Constituent Assembly that would organize a permanent democratic order. The existence of two seats of power, however--the provisional government and the Petrograd Soviet--not only represented a potential political rivalry but alsoreflected the different aspirations of different sectors of Russian society.

Differing conceptions of the revolution quickly led to a series of crises. Widespread popular opposition to the war caused the Petrograd Soviet on April 9 (N.S.; March 27, O.S.) to repudiate annexationist ambitions and to establish in May a coalition government including several moderate socialists in addition to Aleksandr KERENSKY, who had been in the cabinet from the beginning. The participation of such socialists in a government that continued to prosecute the war and that failed to implement basic reforms, however, only served to identify their parties--the Socialist Revolutionaries, Mensheviks, and others--with government failures. On July 16-17 (N.S.; July 3-4, O.S.), following a disastrous military offensive, Petrograd soldiers, instigated by local Bolshevik agitators, demonstrated against the government in what became known as the "July Days." The demonstrations soon subsided, and on July 20 (N.S.; July 7, O.S.), Kerensky replaced Lvov as premier. Soon, however, the provisional government was threatened by the right, which had lost confidence in the regime's ability to maintain order. In early September (N.S.; late August, O.S.), General Lavr KORNILOV was thwarted in an apparent effort to establish a right-wing military dictatorship. Ominously, his effort was backed by the Cadets, traditionally the party of liberal constitutionalism. The crises faced by the provisional government reflected a growing polarization of Russian politics toward the extreme left and extreme right.

Historians differ over whether the Revolutions of 1917 were inevitable, but all agree on the importance of three related causal factors: massive discontent, the revolutionary movement, and World War I, each operating in the context of the ineptitude of a rigid, absolutist state. The emancipation of the serfs in 1861 left the countryside in deep poverty. The newly freed peasants received inadequate land allotments, particularly in areas of fertile soil, and even these had to be purchased with "redemption payments." Class antagonisms sharpened, particularly since government-promoted industrialization sent impoverished peasants flocking to jobs in urban areas for low wages under oppressive conditions. Government efforts to industrialize also required huge tax revenues, which intensified pressures on workers and peasants alike. Meanwhile, the rising business and professional classes expressed unhappiness with tsarist rule and yearned for a Western-style parliamentary system. By 1905 discontent among the bourgeoisie, peasantry, and proletariat had spurred Russian intellectuals to create the major political organizations of 1917. Populist groups, organized in the countryside by the 1890s, joined radical socialist workers' groups in the founding of the Socialist Revolutionary party in 1901. The Marxist SocialDemocratic Labor party was establish

Some common words found in the essay are:
World War, March Revolution, Bread Bolsheviks, Petrograd Russia, Allies Cheka, Communism Lenin, Lavr KORNILOV, Constituent Assembly, NS Apr, Revolutionaries Lenin, provisional government, civil war, constituent assembly, revolutions 1917, workers peasants, socialist revolutionaries, petrograd soviet, social political, russian revolutions 1917, world war, redemption payments, workers' soldiers' deputies,
Approximate Word count = 2281
Approximate Pages = 9 (250 words per page double spaced)