Dual power

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"Dual power" (Russian: Двоевластие, romanized: Dvoyevlastiye) refers to the coexistence of two Russian governments as a result of the February Revolution: the Soviets (workers' councils), particularly the Petrograd Soviet, and the Russian Provisional Government. The term was first used by the communist Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin (1870–1924)^[1] in the Pravda article titled "The Dual Power".^[2]

Lenin argued that this essentially unstable situation constituted a unique opportunity for the Soviets and Bolsheviks to seize power by smashing the weak Provisional Government and establishing themselves as the basis of a new form of state power.

This notion has informed the strategies of subsequent communist-led revolutions elsewhere in the world, including the Chinese Communist Revolution led by Mao Zedong (1893–1976) after the Chinese Civil War (1927–1949) and in eastern Europe after World War II (1939–1945).