Russia, the impact of the failure of Kerensky’s democratic war effort was even more dramatic. The advocates of revolutionary defensism were humiliated. The peasant soldiers, many of whom had reluctantly steeled themselves for one last offensive, now abandoned the cause en masse. On 17 July, as the tide on the battlefield was about to turn, radicalized military units in the garrisons around Petrograd marched on the centre of the city to put an immediate end to the war. They acted seemingly without orders from Bolshevik headquarters, but as the demonstrations escalated, Lenin and the party
...more
