What Was The Main Cause Of The Russian Revolution

In Context: The Bolshevik Revolution

The main cause of the Russian Revolution of 1917 was dissatisfaction with the government. The largest source of dissatisfaction was Russia's involvement in World War I between 1914-1917. The war only served to show the government's incompetence due to their multiple losses and ruined the economy too, causing food to become scarce, contributing to both the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II in February 1917, ending the Romanov Dynasty, and the October 1917 overthrow of the Provisional Government, the moderate parliamentary government that followed the tsar’s abdication, as well. The Provisional Government continued to fight in the war under the permission of the Social Revolutionaries and the Mensheviks in the Petrograd Soviet, who agreed so long the purpose was

However, Kerensky violated the agreement of defensive involvement between the Petrograd Soviet and the Provisional Government by planning an offensive in the summer 1917. Soldiers revolted: many deserted, disobeyed, rioted, and some even killed officers trying to return them to duty (DeFronzo). Kerensky’s failure and the broken agreement acted as a turning point in the growing radicalism of the masses. The dramatic increase in Bolshevik support resulted in the easy overthrow of Provisional Government by the Bolsheviks in October 1917. Other sources of dissatisfaction that contributed to the February Revolution in 1917 were Tsar Nicholas’s failures to fulfill the promises he made to meet the demands of the people after the Russian Revolution of 1905. Russia’s defeat in the Russo-Japanese War from 1904-1905 caused numerous protests and rebellions as well as the establishment of the first soviet in Petrograd, a workers’ committee that initially directed strikes before later becoming a revolutionary council. The threat pressured Tsar Nicholas to transform the government from an autocracy to a