July Days

July Days
Part of the Russian Revolution

Rioters on the Nevsky Prospect come
under machine gun fire, 17 July
Date16–20 July [O.S. 3–7 July] 1917
Location
Result

Government victory

  • Dispersion of demonstrations and strikes
  • Arrest of Bolshevik leaders
Belligerents
Bolsheviks
Supported by:
Anarchists
Socialist Revolutionaries (Left)
Russia Provisional Government
Supported by:
Mensheviks
Socialist Revolutionaries (Right)
Commanders and leaders
Vladimir Lenin
Leon Trotsky

Grigory Zinoviev
Lev Kamenev
Fyodor Raskolnikov
Russia Georgy Lvov
Russia Alexander Kerensky

Russia Lavr Kornilov
Strength
500,000 demonstrators,[1] 4,000–5,000 Red Guard soldiers, few hundred anarchist sailors, and 12,000 soldiers Several thousand police and soldiers

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.[2] The demonstrations were angrier and more violent than those during the February Revolution months earlier.[3]

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.[4] Vladimir Lenin fled to Finland, while Leon Trotsky was among those arrested.[5]

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.[4]

  1. ^ Trotsky, Leon (1934). The History of the Russian Revolution. London: Victor Gollancz Ltd. p. 573.
  2. ^ Steinberg, Mark D. (2017). The Russian Revolution 1905-1921. New York: Oxford University Press. p. 75. ISBN 978-0-19-922763-1.
  3. ^ Steinberg, Mark D. (2001). Voices of Revolution, 1917. New Haven: Yale University Press. p. 152. ISBN 978-0-300-09016-1.
  4. ^ a b Steinberg, Mark D. (2001). Voices of Revolution, 1917. New Haven: Yale University Press. pp. 154–155. ISBN 978-0-300-09016-1.
  5. ^ Sauvain, Philip (1996). Key Themes of the Twentieth Century. United Kingdom: Stanley Thornes. p. 55. ISBN 978-0-7487-2549-6.