Editing October Revolution (section)

===Unrest by workers, peasants, and soldiers===
Throughout June, July, and August 1917, it was common to hear working-class Russians speak about their lack of confidence in the Provisional Government. Factory workers around Russia felt unhappy with the growing shortages of food, supplies, and other materials. They blamed their managers or foremen and would even attack them in the factories. The workers blamed many rich and influential individuals for the overall shortage of food and poor living conditions. Workers saw these rich and powerful individuals as opponents of the Revolution and called them "bourgeois", "capitalist", and "imperialist".<ref name=":0">{{Cite book |last=Steinberg |first=Mark |title=The Russian Revolution 1905–1921 |date=2017 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-1992-2762-4 |location=New York |pages=143–146}}</ref>

In September and October 1917, there were mass [[strike action]]s by the Moscow and Petrograd workers, miners in the Donbas, metalworkers in the Urals, oil workers in [[Baku]], textile workers in the [[Central Industrial Region (Poland)|Central Industrial Region]], and railroad workers on 44 railway lines. In these months alone, more than a million workers took part in strikes. Workers established control over production and distribution in many factories and plants in a [[social revolution]].{{Sfn|Mandel|1984}} Workers organized these strikes through [[factory committee]]s. The factory committees represented the workers and were able to negotiate better working conditions, pay, and hours. Even though workplace conditions may have been increasing in quality, the overall quality of life for workers was not improving. There were still shortages of food and the increased wages workers had obtained did little to provide for their families.<ref name=":0"/>

By October 1917, peasant uprisings were common. By autumn, the peasant movement against the landowners had spread to 482 of 624 counties, or 77% of the country. As 1917 progressed, the peasantry increasingly began to lose faith that the land would be distributed to them by the [[Socialist Revolutionary Party|Social Revolutionaries]] and the [[Mensheviks]]. Refusing to continue living as before, they increasingly took measures into their own hands, as can be seen by the increase in the number and militancy of the peasant's actions. Over 42% of all the cases of destruction (usually burning down and seizing property from the landlord's estate) recorded between February and October occurred in October.{{Sfn|Trotsky|1932|pages=859–864}} While the uprisings varied in severity, complete uprisings and seizures of the land were not uncommon. Less robust forms of protest included marches on landowner manors and government offices, as well as withholding and storing grains rather than selling them.{{Sfn|Steinberg|2017|pages=196–197}} When the Provisional Government sent punitive detachments, it only enraged the peasants. In September, the garrisons in Petrograd, Moscow, and other cities, the Northern and Western fronts, and the sailors of the [[Baltic Fleet]] declared through their elected representative body [[Tsentrobalt]] that they did not recognize the authority of the Provisional Government and would not carry out any of its commands.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Upton |first=Anthony F. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-iTqvnpRXDEC&pg=PA89 |title=The Finnish Revolution: 1917–1918 |date=1980 |publisher=University of Minnesota Press |isbn=978-1-4529-1239-4 |location=Minneapolis, Minnesota |pages=89 |language=en}}</ref>

Soldiers' wives were key players in the unrest in the villages. From 1914 to 1917, almost 50% of healthy men were sent to war, and many were killed on the front, resulting in many females being head of the household. Often—when government allowances were late and were not sufficient to match the rising costs of goods—soldiers' wives sent masses of appeals to the government, which went largely unanswered. Frustration resulted, and these women were influential in inciting "subsistence riots"—also referred to as "hunger riots", "[[pogrom]]s", or "baba riots". In these riots, citizens seized food and resources from shop owners, who they believed to be charging unfair prices. Upon police intervention, protesters responded with "rakes, sticks, rocks, and fists."{{Sfn|Steinberg|2017|pages=193–194}}