Which government did the Bolsheviks dissolve during the October Revolution?

• A. The Provisional Government
• B. The Tsarist autocracy
• C. The Duma
• D. The Constitutional Assembly

Answer: (A)

October 1917 was a moment when the Bolsheviks moved to replace the interim authority ruling Russia at that time—the Provisional Government. After the February Revolution toppled the tsar, the Provisional Government tried to steer the country and carry on the war, but it was weak and failed to satisfy workers, peasants, and soldiers. The Bolsheviks portrayed it as a bourgeois regime ineffectively solving urgent demands, so they seized power from it, dissolving its authority and establishing their own Soviet-based government under the Council of People’s Commissars. The Tsarist autocracy had already fallen earlier, so that isn’t what was dissolved in October. The Duma, a long-standing legislative body, had lost real power under the Provisional Government and was not the government being overthrown in this coup. The Constitutional Assembly would only become a point of contention later, when its authority was rejected by the Bolsheviks, but that occurred after October and isn’t the action described in this question.