The order was highly controversial.
Leon Trotsky called it "the single worthy document of the February Revolution," while others viewed it as an effort to prevent the continuation of Russia's war effort by crippling the government's control of the military, or even as a Bolshevik plot to undermine the
Provisional Government. Many scholars have argued that it succeeded in the former sense.
Michael Florinsky wrote that "it struck at the very heart of army discipline and contributed powerfully to the breakdown of the armed forces." George Katkov advanced the latter theory of a Bolshevik plot. However, the order's intent was to restore discipline to the army and address complaints about officers returning to their units after the February Revolution and abusing their troops (as several soldiers reported to the Petrograd Soviet during the debate over the order). It was not intended to apply to armies at the front (as clarified in the order's sixth paragraph, this provision only applied while soldiers were off duty). Therefore, the extent to which Order Number 1 alone led to the breakdown of the Russian Army remains unclear. Its immediate impact, however, was very clear. Within 48 hours of its proclamation, the Executive Committee attempted to issue “Order Number Two” in an unsuccessful attempt “to annul the first order, limiting its application to the Petrograd military district”. According to Leon Trotsky, it was “in vain” and “Order Number 1 was indestructible”. ==References==