How accurate is it to say that Lenin’s leadership was the most important reason for the Bolsheviks’ success in the revolution of October 1917? The Bolshevik party on 25th October 1917 seized control of Russia with Lenin viewed to many as the icon of the revolution since his policies were quickly widespread amongst the people of Petrograd and his impressive leadership skills mobilized his ideas and the Bolshevik planned events to gain power. However, many would disagree, arguing that Lenin is not as significant because other leading Bolsheviks, such as Trotsky, were far more effective than Lenin in carrying out the revolution. Secondly, the weaknesses and underlying issues of the Provisional Government proved that they were destined to fail regardless of their attempts to keep power through repression, already placing the Bolsheviks in a good position for taking control. Finally the failures of the Provisional Government made them vulnerable which coincidentally worked to advantage the Bolsheviks.
How far do you agree that Lenin's leadership was the main reason why the Bolsheviks were able to seize power in October 1917? Lenin’s leadership was the main reason why the Bolsheviks were able to seize power in October 1917. Despite other contextual factors like the war and land contributing to the weakness of the Provisional Government, Lenin was still the main reason they were able to seize power, because without Lenin the Bolshevik party didn’t have any armed revolution on their agenda, they had even considered joining the Provisional Government like the Mensheviks and Social Revolutionists. Lenin was an extremely important individual in the seizure of the October Revolution. The leadership of the Bolshevik party, after Lenin had been forced into exile in Switzerland, didn’t press for an armed uprising.
These views are expressed in his two key works, A Concise History of the Russian Revolution (published in 1995) and Russia Under the Bolshevik Regime 1919-1924 (published in 1994). Pipe’s believes that Lenin was primarily responsible for the success of the uprising, even though Pipe’s recognizes Lenin’s role as the most important, he still hypocritically called Lenin’s April Theses “totally out of touch with reality, if not positively mad” despite the fact that this theses played a huge role in the Lenin and Bolshevik uprising. Pipe’s also believes that Trotsky just carried out Lenin’s commands. However the role or Trotsky and his actions before the October revolution were very evidently done on his own accord, with Lenin accompanying Trotsky in his decisions. In early October, 1917, Trotsky was elected
Furthermore, the circumstances allowed the Bolshevik actions to be successful, as well as, undermine any attempts of the provisional government to hold on to the little power they had. Timing was key for the Bolsheviks as if they acted too quickly they could have faced having to share power with the rest of the soviet, they didn’t have the majority in the Petrograd or Moscow soviet until August 1917, meaning that they didn’t have enough control and would have had to work with the other parties such as the Mensheviks to gain power, which some Bolsheviks wanted, however, Lenin urged to wait. However, too late and there could have been stronger groups that they could have contended with, on the 9th of august the provisional government announced a date for the elections to the constituent assembly fir November meaning that the Bolsheviks needed to gain as much power and support in order to allow the first free election to show that the Bolsheviks truly had power. Another threat that stood in the way of the Bolsheviks was the all Russian congress of soviets was due to meet in October meaning that the Bolsheviks were ruining out of time if they wanted to claim authority of Russia pushing for the October revolution. Another circumstance was the war, many soldiers
i) Lenin’s role in the Bolshevik consolidation of power. The Coalition government, that had been in place since the February Revolution of 1917, had to face more and more problems. The Kornilov Affair and the July Days did not go to their best interest, and their popularity was simply going down the sewer by October. It was exactly that month that Lenin thought the time to be right for a Bolshevik takeover. So in October 1917 the Bolsheviks replaced the Coalition Government.
The Kerensky provisional government itself wasn’t intended as a permanent institution, and would likely have lead on to a successfully elected democratic government had the Lenin and his party not taken over through the October Revolution. From the intial formation of both the Petrograd Soviet and the Provisional Committee (later Provisional Government) to the final uprising and seizure of power by Lenin; what allowed Lenin to succed. Soon after the formation of the Provisional Committee, the first meeting of the Petrograd Soviet was held (Feb 27, 1917) and promptly succeeding that occurrence was the transition from the Provisional Committee into the Provisional Government. Between this time and when Kerensky first become Prime Minister, certain significant events take place. Sparking them all off, is Lenin’s discrete return, which he knew would boost morale and confidence, especially amongst wavering Bolsheviks.
Ali Adenwala 12J Due: 5/1/15 Why did the Bolsheviks succeed in 1917 whilst other political parties failed to gain power? [2nd Draft] The Bolshevik’s seizure of power was due, significantly, to the external environment of deterioration festering around them at the time, the most incremental and significant being the failure of other political parties to act and distance themselves from the Provisional Government. This directly heightened Lenin’s role in the revolution, allowing him to exploit these weaknesses, with the help of Trotsky, whom he appropriated successfully to achieve the parties main end: a socialist, Bolshevik government, Sovnarkom. Lenin placed Trotsky as the leader of the Petrograd Soviet’s Military Revolutionary Committee (MRC) on September 25th 1917, to carry out a planned uprising, where Trotsky, between October 24th and 25th, ordered the Bolshevik Red Guards to seize key positions in Petrograd. This led to the taking over of railway stations, and post and telegraph offices, meaning that the PG was left totally defenseless, allowing the Bolsheviks to seize control.
The November Revolution 1917 G.C.S.E Sources 1. The three points made by Lenin in April 1917 were attractive to many Russian people because the first point was that, the people wanted the war to end, as clearly Russia was losing, there was plenty of shortages, also shortages of land, and all of the disadvantages were already proven by the March Revolution so, the people and the government knew what was going to happen, so they should have ended it early. The second point was that, the land should be given to the peasants; the people were attracted to this point because, the main population of Russia was the peasants, the peasants were demanding for land in the March revolution, but they weren’t heard. As a result of this, the Peasants were grabbing land because the government didn’t give them the land they requested. The third was that the soviets should take power; the people were attracted to this point because, Lenin was a member of the soviet party, the Russian people were attracted to the soviets as they liked the points they made and also the Soviets were already popular so this means that the people were already supporting the Soviets.
There were many short and long term effects of the Russian revolution. Firstly the short term effects following the Russian revolution were that Lenin hoped the constituent assembly (parliament) would show the rest of Russia how good the Bolsheviks could be for the Russian nation and how popular their leadership was. However they only gained 161 seats, compared to the social revolutionaries who won 267 seats. Obviously the Bolsheviks had become popular in Petrograd, but beyond the capital the population hadn’t been more in favour of the social revolutionaries and hadn’t been convinced by Lenin’s promise yet. In reaction to this, he shut down the assembly in order to keep power for himself.
It is estimated that between 50,000 and 140,000 people were killed in this campaign during the Russian Civil War. The Cheka was created by Vladimir Lenin to deal with threats to his new regime. It was led by Felix Dzerzhinsky and used to inflict the Red Terror, operating outside of the law and answering to no one. The Cheka was extremely important in allowing the Bolsheviks to establish their power and influence people’s view of their new government. It is speculated that the Bolsheviks would not have retained power for very long if it had not been for the workings of the Cheka during that time period as they