ABSTRACT
This chapter explains the specific causes of the dissolution of the Russian Empire, beginning with the separation from Central Russia of Finland, Poland, and the Baltic Provinces, and for a time of the Ukraine, Siberia, the Caucasus, and other regions. An All-Russian Conference was convened at Moscow by the provisional government, at which there were 2,500 delegates, including 488 members of the State Duma. On July 19, 1917, the Russian front began to crack at Tarnopol, and on the same day Austro-German forces broke the Russian line at Zloczov, the retreat became a panic, whole regiments shot their officers and refused to fight, and thousands of prisoners fell into the hands of the Austrian and German armies. Disinclination on the part of the various nationalities, other than Russia, to submit to the dictation of relatively small Russian, or even mixed Russian and alien groups in Petrograd or Moscow, whom the non-Russian peoples regarded as their inferiors in culture.
