July Days
The July Days (Russian: Июльские дни) were a period of unrest in Petrograd, Russia, between 16–20 July [O.S. 3–7 July] 1917. It was characterised by spontaneous armed demonstrations by soldiers, sailors, and industrial workers engaged against the Russian Provisional Government. The demonstrations were angrier and more violent than those during the February Revolution months earlier.
July Days | |||||||
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Part of the Russian Revolution | |||||||
Rioters on the Nevsky Prospect come under machine gun fire, 17 July | |||||||
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Belligerents | |||||||
Bolsheviks Supported by: Anarchists Socialist Revolutionaries (Left) |
Provisional Government Supported by: Mensheviks Socialist Revolutionaries (Right) | ||||||
Commanders and leaders | |||||||
Vladimir Lenin Leon Trotsky Grigory Zinoviev Lev Kamenev Fyodor Raskolnikov |
Georgy Lvov Alexander Kerensky Lavr Kornilov | ||||||
Strength | |||||||
500,000 demonstrators, 4,000–5,000 Red Guard soldiers, few hundred anarchist sailors, and 12,000 soldiers | Several thousand police and soldiers |
The Provisional Government blamed the Bolsheviks for the violence brought about by the July Days and in a subsequent crackdown on the Bolshevik Party, the party was dispersed, many of the leadership arrested. Vladimir Lenin fled to Finland, while Leon Trotsky was among those arrested.
The outcome of the July Days represented a temporary decline in the growth of Bolshevik power and influence in the period before the October Revolution.