Photograph of Russian troops on the front line taken May 15, 1917, after the Russian Revolution, from the German or Austro-Hungarian line. A barbed wire emplacement separates the photographer from the Russians. The Russian front was mostly quiet between the revolution in March and a Russian offensive begun July 1.
Russische Ostern, 15. V. 1917.
"There remained one other factor in the situation: the great amorphous mass of the Russian people themselves. Up to this point the revolution had not improved their living conditions in the least, at any rate in the cities. The food shortage in the cities had grown worse, and prices had now risen to seven times above the prewar level. The bread ration had gone down to 1½ pounds for manual workers and one pound for others. In Petrograd many factories had closed down, and the unemployed men, mingling with the idle military garrison, formed a solid pacifist block. They believed that their leaders in the Ex Com and the Soviet had betrayed them by joining a belligerent coalition government. They wanted peace."
The All-Russian Congress of Soviet and Front Line Organizations began June 16, 1917 and voted to support a new offensive against Germany and Austria-Hungary on its first day with only the Bolsheviks opposing. The Ex Com (the Executive Committee of the Soviet) had approved the inclusion of six socialists in the revolutionary government formed in mid-May. Along the the majority of Socialist delegates, the center and right-wing members of the government supported an offensive. The Allies, including representatives of the United States who offered loans on condition of continuing the war, urged the Russians to attack.
The Russian Revolution by Alan Moorehead, page 201, copyright © 1958 by Time, Inc., publisher: Carroll and Graf, publication date: 1989
1917-06-27, 1917, June, Petrograd, peace, Soviet, fraternizing Russian troops
