User:Katejanslinger/sandbox

The topic of our article is the July Days. I will be focusing on adding and editing the consequences section. I think I will look for more details to add about how different classes were feeling after this time, and the progress that was seen or not seen for the peasants. Furthermore, I will add how it affected future government actions. Then I will edit the Bolshevik Involvement section for accuracy and sources.

Bolshevik involvement
Bolshevik Leadership

The leaders of the Bolshevik party during July Days included Vladimir Lenin, in large part, along with Leon Trotsky, Grigory Zinoviev, and Lev Kamenev. The leadership involved in the events of July Days is still debated, and the Bolsheviks and Soviets both had periods of uncertainty in their involvement. The protesters, made up largely of soldiers, sailors, and factory workers, on the streets during July Days, were many in number but weak in leadership from the Bolsheviks and the Soviets. "All Power to the Soviets" and other slogans were put forth by the Bolsheviks, but Lenin did not hold valuable power during July days. Despite his political skill and cry for "Land, Bread, Peace," Bolshevik support was not strong enough for him to be a powerful leader immediately following July Days, especially with the Provisional government trying to lessen the trust of his followers by charges of German spying. The Bolshevik's were not able to take power at the time of July Days because their leadership could not or would not at that time.

Internal Conflicting Perspectives

Some Bolsheviks saw the July Days demonstrations as dangerous because the actions could possibly provoke retaliation from opposing political party members trying to counter the acts, so the Central Committee tried to prevent these counter-effects by restraining support for the demonstrations. Opposing the declarations of the Central Committee, when they spoke and acted in support of the demonstrations, were the Bolshevik Military Organization and the Petersburg Committee. The Pravda, a Bolshevik newspaper, did not seem to err on the side of the Central Committee but instead published feelings of unrest. These feelings were matched by Lenin, the Bolshevik Military organization, and the Petersburg committee; the Central Committee seemed to eventually display mixed feelings about the demonstrations at the height of the movement. The decision to call off demonstrations in the streets of Petrograd was made when a 2 or 3 am meeting took place involving Lenin and the Bolshevik Central Committee on July 5 with Pravda publishing the news the same day.

Bolsheviks and the Provisional Government

From the perspective of Trotsky, Bolshevik and Provisional leadership tensions heighten when an incident with Bolshevik leaders, Lunacharsky and Trotsky, showed apparent support of a final group of demonstrators being sent to the front during a House of People farewell meeting. Furthermore, Trotsky portrayed a back and forth of trying to bring the other party into a negative light. The Provisional government was active in trying to shut down the Bolshevik actions and lessen their power, not only making arrests of their leaders but also stopping their publicly avenue by disallowing the Pravda to run.

Peer Review
Overall I think the article is very informative and structured. One thing I think could use some touching up is the Aftermath chapter at the end. The writing seems a bit too linear for an encyclopedia article. Despite this, I think it is still very informative, and has good historical basis and critical analysis of the impact behind the July Days. Lastly, there are a lot of Steinberg references, so perhaps try to find a few more sources (2 or 3) to kind of balance out the amount of Steinberg added into the article. Sbrinkman50 (talk) 21:23, 27 October 2017 (UTC)Spencer BrinkmanSbrinkman50 (talk) 21:23, 27 October 2017 (UTC)