The crisis of power, which had a form of a confrontation between the supporters of the transfer of power to the Soviets and the preservation of the coalition of liberals and socialists in the Provisional Government. It was accompanied by mass protests against the government in Petrograd (“the July uprising”). The crisis had been preceded by the failure of the June offensive at the front and the withdrawal of the Constitutional Democratic Party members (Kadets) from the government in protest against the granting of broad powers to the Ukrainian Central Rada (July 2).

The defeats at the front made the issue of discipline in the army more acute. On July 3, the government tried to send part of the Petrograd garrison to the front, in which the mood of personnel after the June demonstration became more and more radicalized. Unrest broke out among soldiers, sailors, and workers, led by anarchists and the radical Bolsheviks. An active role in the July events was played by the Military Organization under the Central Committee of the Russian Social Democratic Party (Bolsheviks), RSDLP(b). The soldiers of the 1st machine gun regiment formed a Military Revolutionary Committee. The protesters came out with the slogans “All power to the Soviets of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies!”, “Down with 10 ministers and capitalists!”

On the night of July 3–4, the Bolshevik leadership decided to lead the demonstration and make it organized. On the morning of July 4, Vladimir Lenin, Anatoly Lunacharsky, and Yakov Sverdlov spoke to the demonstrators from the balcony of the Kshessinskaya’s mansion. Columns of protesting workers, soldiers, and sailors headed to the Tauride Palace to demand the transfer of all power to the Soviets. The All-Russian Central Executive Committee (VTsIK) of Soviets, dominated by Socialist Revolutionaries (SRs) and the Mensheviks, refused to take over power, as they wanted to maintain a coalition with the Provisional Government, considering the demonstrations to be counter-revolutionary actions. Some of the protesters tried to break inside, the Minister of Agriculture, leader of the SR Party, Viktor Chernov, was detained and subsequently released only at the request of Leon Trotsky.

To suppress the actions, the government used the troops of the reserve battalion of the Preobrazhensky Regiment, the Cossack regiments stationed in Petrograd, and the cadets of the Vladimir school. Military units were called from the suburbs and the front. There broke out skirmishes and casualties emerged. Some of the protesters were disarmed and taken out of the city.

The government ordered the arrest of Lenin and other Bolshevik leaders accused of espionage for Germany and organizing a rebellion. On July 5, the editorial office of the Bolshevik newspaper Pravda was destroyed. On the morning of July 6, the combined forces of the regiments of the Petrograd garrison occupied the Kshessinskaya’s mansion, where the Bolshevik headquarters was located. Vladimir Lenin, Grigory Zinoviev, and some other Bolshevik leaders had to go underground.

The crisis resulted in the formation on July 8 of a new cabinet of the Provisional Government, headed by Alexander Kerensky. The Soviets’ influence on the cabinet declined.