FREE Video Podcasts by Professional Historians

previous - next

Historian

 

Dr. Ian Thatcher , Reader in Modern History, Brunel University

Podcasts by Ian Thatcher

Podcasts on Russian History

 

DVD

GBP 14.99

Synopsis

 

The Russian Provisional Government is discussed by historians as a failure. It is presented as not taking decisive action on a range of pressing issues. It therefore lost popular support and was easily removed from power by the Bolsheviks in October 1917. This talk gives a more sympathetic account of the range of problems confronting the Provisional Government, arguing that it was undermined largely by factors outside its control: the war, a revolution in the countryside, the lack of equilibrium in exchange between town and countryside; an urban economic crisis; the break-up of the late imperial state through national movements; a lack of international backing; and the unique environment of Petrograd. The main failing of the Provisional Government was during Kerensky’s leadership, most notably the disastrous Kornilov Affair. We should also note the great success of the Provisional Government – the fact that it did arrange elections to the Constituent Assembly in very trying and difficult conditions.

Further Reading

 

There is no single book on the Provisional Government. There are good chapters on it in James D. White, The Russian Revolution: A Short History and in Ronald Kowalski’s The Russian Revolution. There is also a good essay by Howard White in A Critical Companion to the Russian Revolution, edited by E. Acton et. al.

Websites

 

Downloads

 

right-click "save target as" or "save linked file as"

audio podcast

video podcast for mobile 'phones

Download this episode for ipod/mp4 player

Rating

This Podcast has been currently rated as:

Rate this Podcast :    [ 2  votes]

© hscripts.com

By the Historian

 

previous - next