Meaning And Significance Of The Provisional Government

Please identify the meaning and significance of the following terms:

Provisional government: A provisional government is a government that is put in place temporarily. After the czar abdicated, a provisional government was put in place. This new government was comprised of middle-class Duma representatives (the Duma was the legislature that czar Nicholas put in place). This provisional government called for an election later in the year to determine a constituent assembly. This constituent assembly would establish the permanent government.

Petrograd Soviet: The Petrograd Soviets were rivals of the provisional government. The Petrograd Soviet was made up of workers and peasants that belonged to different socialist groups -- the majority were Mensheviks or Social Revolutionaries, and some belonged to the more radical group called the Bolsheviks. The Petrograd Soviet became the model for other soviets in Russia. The soviets called for immediate peace, the transfer of land to peasants, and that factories were controlled by the workers. The provisional government did not adhere to these three requests and as a result it lost much of its popularity.

Peace, Land, and Bread: This was the Lenin’s (the leader of the radical group called the Bolsheviks) slogan. This slogan promised that Russia would be withdrawn from the war, peasants
The communists became known as the reds because of the red flag of revolution. Their opponents later became known as whites. The whites wanted to quickly defeat the reds and bring Russia back into war. For this reason, they received help from the allied powers. This created nationalist support of the reds. This war lasted frot three bloody years; whites killed any suspected communists when they captured a village, and the reds did the same for