Each of these problems snowballed into the revolution of March 1917, resulting in the Tsar stepping down. From the very beginning, Tsar Nicholas was unwilling and unprepared to rule. Not only the Tsar, but the ministers that made up the government were inexperienced, the majority of them having not set foot in parliament before. He wanted autocracy, which is a government run by a singular person with unlimited authority. He firmly believed that democracy (government that has supreme power vested in the people and their elected representatives) would lead to the collapse of Russia.
Whilst in exile the Bolshevik party struggled and did not push for an uprising with the same vigour. Lenin also did not care for the temporary leader allowing his members to join the P.G, but with his return he started planning an armed uprising once again and his personal presence in Petrograd, along with his reputation, allowed him to sway the opinion of other Bolsheviks that were not too confident to join the uprising, and to put an end to the Bolshevik support for the P.G. What this highlights is Lenin's ability to force others to see things his way, and without him the other leaders may not have chosen this course and the whole aim of the party may have been unsuccessful. However Lenin was not the only reason for the success of the party as there were other factors such as the war with the Austro-German allies. As Russia was having economical pressure extended unto it by France and Briton to continue its war effort the P.G was put in a paradoxical situation where to survive it had to continue fighting, but it could not survive if it stayed in the war.
There were many factors in the survival of Tsarist rule from 1881 – 1905. The divisions among it's opponents played a part, as it meant that Tsarist opposition had no common goals, and couldn't work together to achieve it. The October Manifesto is another factor, it split up Nicholas' opposition even further by dividing the Liberals into two groups. Pobedonostsev & his repressive policies played a large part in the Survival of Tsarist autocracy, as he was able to keep the people down, not giving them enough ground to start a successful revolution. Lastly, Russia's backward society is one of the main reasons Nicholas II survived after 1905.
However this was not the only problem that showed why they were so short-lived. * Left behind with The problems that the Tsar had faced were still very prominent. * War – continued to fight for loan and duty. * People of Russia wanted to get out war – what the Bolsheviks were offering, whereas Kerensky saw it as defensive war. * Lost terriorty in Poland & Western Russia – PG were blamed for losses just like the Tsar was when took charge.
‘While Lenin traditionally receives all the praise, Trotsky was actually the primary reason why there was a Bolshevik revolution in 1917 and thus deserves the most credit.’ Leon Trotsky, along with Vladimir Lenin played a fundamental role in the 1917 Russian Revolution. There have been many attempts to distort and even to deny the role of Trotsky, especially on the part of the official tyranny historians. Right wing historians such as Richard Pipes see Trotsky as just another demanding leader much the same as Lenin and Stalin. However, the left wing view of Trotsky consists of those who still accept the Stalinist version of events. Isaac Deutscher is one historian who has the contrasting views of the right wing historian, Pipes.
The working and lower classes in Russia did not have a say in how the country was run (no political power), Nicholas did not give them the opportunity as autocracy had been drilled into him all his life by his father, and tutor Pobedonostev. This autocracy was undermined by the working and lower classes and especially the revolutionists who wanted to overthrow the Tsar; we know that people were infuriated by autocracy because of the 2000 political assassinations carried out by the revolutionists between 1901 and 1905, and also the peasant disturbances of 1902. In this case Nicholas’ ignorance was to blame for his reluctance to reform and autocratic views. Various economic problems in Russia contributed to the 1905 revolution but not all were Nicholas’ fault. Population growth and land hunger in Russia at the time was a great issue, people were discontented, industrialisation of Russia meant that workers in the new factories were being targeted by revolutionaries, and were also becoming increasingly militant.
The leadership of the Bolshevik party, after Lenin had been forced into exile in Switzerland, didn’t press for an armed uprising. They even considered joining the Provisional Government, after they attended a democratic congress. However, with Lenin’s return he succeeded in convincing the Central Committee to put an armed uprising in their plans. Despite this some leading Bolsheviks, Zinoviev and Kamenev were unsure that this uprising was a good idea and spoke out against Lenin in a newspaper article which alerted Kerensky of the danger. Although, Kerensky did not act decisively with this knowledge, this shows that without Lenin at the front of the Bolshevik party the rest of the Bolshevik’s weren’t as eager to rise and seize power.
As a result of the Russian revolution, communist Germans also had support from Soviet Russia and Vladimir Lenin, the lead Russian communist revolutionary. In retrospect, the extreme left posed a much lesser commination to the Weimar Republic than it was thought at the time. One of the main reasons for this is the bad co-ordination of the extreme left: they were incapable of mounting a unified attack on Weimar democracy and after 1919 when Liebknecht and Luxemburg were assassinated by the Friekorps, their leadership and representation suffered greatly as their successors often had disagreements on tactics which lead to a lack of strategy and internal divisions. Repression was another factor that meant the extreme lefts opposition was not serious.
How significant were the personalities of the contenders to succeed Lenin in accounting for Stalin’s defeat of his opponents in the years 1924-29? The personalities of the contenders to succeed Lenin in accounting for Stalin’s defeat of his opponents in the years 1924-49 was the most significant factor as the personalities dictated what they did and how they reacted to certain events. However there are other factors to consider such as power bases; mistakes made by others and actual party policies. Finitely, personalities were the most significant in accounting for Stalin’s defeat of his opponents. Due to the fact that the personalities of the contenders dictated what they did in terms of attempting to be the strongest candidate in succeeding Lenin, and showed how they reacted to key events; it is evident that this is the most significant factor in the power struggle.
When the Bolsheviks gained power in 1917, Lenin played a large part in their success, however there are many other factors which also played a large part in their success, for example the weaknesses in the Provisional Government, their lack of opposition, the strength and appeal of the Bolsheviks themselves, and many other factors. To begin with, The Provisional Government itself was a weak leadership, and had many problems which meant that when the Bolsheviks came to take power in October 1917, nobody opposed. To start with their large list of problems, the Provisional Government was not an elected body- this mean that they did not have the support of their people and because of the lack of loyalty, it meant that when the Bolsheviks came to seize power in 1917, it was infinitely more easier as the people were not prepared to defend it. The Provisional Government did not have control of the army due to Order Number 1 which gave control of the army to the Soviets, who therefore held all the power, as the Provisional Government had no army to uphold their regime. However one of the Provisional Government’s greatest faults was that they did not pull Russia out of the war, which was the cause of many of the country’s problems, the Bolsheviks however used this as leverage in gaining support and promised people that they would pull Russia out of war if they were in power, this gained them obvious support.