This was why it was crucial for Lenin to show strong leadership which he did. However, I don’t think that the October/November revolution would have taken place without other factors which contributed to it. Lenin was a key factor in the revolution. His return to Russia in April 1917 was a key reason that the Bolsheviks succeeded. He issued his famous April Thesis, which had his promise of ‘Peace, Land and Bread’ which was cleverly aimed at the majority of Russia (peasants wanted land, everyone wanted peace and there was a bread shortage which made problems for most people).
After the July days Lenin supported the programme of ‘Peace, Land, Bread’ with this being able to win the support of Bolshevik industrial workers and poor peasants, as it meant end to the food shortages, land to the peasants and the Bolshevik opposition to war. Another way in which the Lenin was a cause of the Bolshevik seizure of power was his idea of the three decrees and it was the second decree that was the problem, the treaty of Brest-Litovsk. This was a problem in the way that even though it would bring an end to the war against the Germans and Austria-Hungarians, it was not very popular by some of the Russian people as it gave away land to these two countries. This meant that Lenin was losing his popularity due to the treaty and more people were taking up support of the Bolsheviks due to the programme of Peace, bread, land. Meaning that they had support of the industrial workers and poor peasants, these made up a great population of Russia.
However, whether it was the most significant event must be evaluated against others, for example the 1905 Revolution, the February Revolution of 1917, and Lenin’s death. The October 1917 Revolution was a very significant event in changing the course of Russian history from 1855 to 1964 but I would not argue it as being the most significant event. The revolution was quite important due to the fact that it brought the Tsarist rule to an end and therefore led to the Provisional Government losing control and power to the Bolsheviks. Due to the Bolsheviks coming to power, they were able to attempt to solve their three main policies of peace; Russian people wanted to end the war, bread; there were many food shortages throughout Russia, and Land; they wanted to offer peasants land. The October revolution of 1917 in effect, led to the Russian Civil war which was the exact opposite of what the Bolsheviks wanted and this predominantly moved on to Lenin’s death and the power struggle.
Explain and assess the reasons why the reds won the civil war (12) The first reason was that the whites were spread out all over Russia. This worked to the reds advantage as the whites could not support each other so the reds could just fight a white army one at a time with overwhelming superiority. The reds were also in a central position in Russia so they could control all of the transport links such as rail stations. This meant that the reds could quickly move troops and supplies very quickly to areas where they were needed. Another advantage the reds had was they had the support of the peasants.
He soon became her confidant and personal adviser, and also convinced her to fill some governmental offices with his own handpicked candidates. Many of whom had loyalty to him and not to the Tsar What evidence is there for the total lack of support for the tsar in the period of 1916-1917? Despite miltarys successes in 1916, the Russian war effort is still characterised by shortages, poor command, death and desertion. Away from the front, the conflict causes starvation, inflation and a torrent of refugees. Both soldiers and civilians blame the defeats in the war and the growing crises on the home front on Tsar.
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. Many people believe that the Provisional Government orchestrated their own downfall, which made it much easier for the Bolsheviks to gain power. Other reasons for the Bolshevik’s success in October 1917 was due to German financial support. The German provided the Bolsheviks with money due to the fact that they wished to pull Russia out of the war, which was an obvious benefit to them; therefore they provided the Bolsheviks with enough money to launch campaigns and
How successfully did Alexander II deal with the opposition he faced, 1855-1881? Alexander II had opposition during the years 1855-1881 as his reforms had raised hope of the intelligentsia, who wanted further modernisation specifically a constitution and as he failed to deliver they were all disillusioned and angry. Secondly he abandoned his reforms in 1866 which led to more extreme opposition. I feel Alexander II was successful in dealing with opposition as he had support from the serfs which I feel was the most successful way to deal with opposition. The emancipation of the serfs appeared to have strengthened the loyalty of most peasants to the tsarist regime leading the peasants to greet the Populists with hostility due to their loyalty to the tsar.
And those who fall behind are beaten. But we do not want to be beaten!” (Document 1) Attitudes such as these helped to rally the people of Russia, so that they came together as a united force. People came together to provide workers for the factories, and farmers on the collective farms. Stalin created a feeling of pride and nationalism that also helped this country grow strong. Yet, for all of Stalin’s positive accomplishments, he also seemed quite the negative ruler, First, Stalin developed a system of collective farming that combined once privately owned farms into large farms, operated by the government.
The party was led by Victor Chernov, who believed that the future of Russia not only lay with the peasantry, but the more newly developed industrial workers too - thus a main aim was to gain support of the peasantry and townspeople. The aim of the SR's was essentially to help the people a lot more by improving things such as their living conditions, and also they wanted to return all land back to peasants . Rather unsurprisingly, especially considering the peasants made up about 80% of the Russian population, the SR's were arguably the most popular party at the time in Russia. However despite those positive outlooks on the party there were a number of a weaknesses that caused divisions within
In these terms, it was a failure. It was also linked to industrialisation and in this sense there was some success. Finally, although the policy created economic chaos, famine and massive open hostility to the government, the policy strengthened Stalin’s position, and in this way it was a political triumph. Collectivisation has a devastating effect on the Russian peasantry. Between 9,500,000 and 10,000,000 people were exiled as part of the dekulakisation drive.