It was characterised by spontaneous armed demonstrations by soldiers, sailors, and industrial workers engaged against the Russian Provisional Government.
[5] The outcome of the July Days represented a temporary decline in the growth of Bolshevik power and influence in the period before the October Revolution.
[8] Shortly after Lenin's address, on April 18, 1917, it was revealed by a diplomatic note sent by Pavel Milyukov that the Provisional Government supported continuing with the war, even though they publicly claimed otherwise.
Refusing to take part in the coalition, the Bolsheviks were the only socialist faction to emerge from these events, known as the April Crisis, without negative association with the continuation of the Russian involvement in the war.
[12] A common conspiracy claim to explain the problems Russia faced was sabotage from "counterrevolutionaries", a label whose definition changed depending on the accuser.
The Bolsheviks took the socialist anti-capitalist sentiments and extended the suspicion to the British and French allies as one way to explain why the "bourgeois" government was continuing Russian involvement in the unpopular war.
The following day, July 4, the protests continued, with more soldiers and workers joining in, including a division from a nearby naval base.
[3] The military authorities sent troops against the demonstrators, leading to many arrests and possibly several hundred deaths due to the violence in the streets.
[21] The leaders of the Bolshevik during the July Days included Vladimir Lenin, in large part, along with Leon Trotsky, Grigory Zinoviev, and Lev Kamenev.
[23] The leadership responsibility in the events of July Days is still debated, and the Bolsheviks and Soviets both had periods of uncertainty in their involvement.
[24] The protesters, made up largely of soldiers, sailors, and factory workers,[25] on the streets during July Days, were many in number but weak in leadership from the Bolsheviks and the Soviets.
[25] Though there was controversy of Bolshevik's intentions during July Days, the seemingly inadequate leadership did not assume power, whether they desired it or not.
[2] Some Bolsheviks saw the July Days demonstrations as dangerous and feared that the actions would provoke retaliation from opposing political party members trying to counter the acts.
[29] The decision to call off demonstrations in the streets of Petrograd was made when a 2 or 3 a.m. meeting took place involving Lenin and the Bolshevik Central Committee on July 5 with Pravda publishing the news the same day.
[31] The Provisional government was active in trying to shut down the Bolshevik actions and lessen their power, not only making arrests of their leaders but also stopping their publicity avenue by disallowing the Pravda to run.
[4] In general, the violent nature of the July demonstrations and the ambiguous involvement of the Bolsheviks turned public opinion against them.
Street processions in Petrograd were momentarily banned and the government authorized the closure of any publication that advocated military disorder.
The new Socialist-Revolutionary and Menshevik government under Kerensky's leadership shifted in response to the July Days toward a more conservative path.