Whereas, the White army was faced with: a divided leadership, low moral, corruption and brutality within the army and the downside of the vast geography of Russia. The White party faced many problems which caused them to be militarily and politically weak. They did not have one person in charge of the White forces. Whereas the Bolsheviks had the advantage of Lenin, the whites had Yudenich, Wrangel, Kolchak and Denikin. These men were rivals and each trying to gain control of the White party.
Additionally there were developments that occurred without war, which illustrates that involvement in war was not the only cause for change. Therefore war was an important catalyst and factor to significant changes but was not the sole cause of change. The war that caused most change was Word War One due to its role in the February revolution in 1917 and the fall of the provisional government in the October revolution. The defeats of the war dwindled support from liberals and Octobrists for the Tsarist regime, which was further worsened by criticism from organisations including the Central War Industries committee and the union of Zemstva. This formed support and reason for the Progressive Bloc.
Finally the failures of the Provisional Government made them vulnerable which coincidentally worked to advantage the Bolsheviks. Personally, I believe that the vulnerable position of the Provisional Government, timing of the governments mistakes, discontent of the soldiers as well as the workers and the occasional guidance from other Bolshevik leaders, was exploited by Lenin, alongside his popular policies and leadership skills he catalyzed the revolution that was inevitable, planning it in such a way that it would benefit long term and not short-term as it had done in 1905 and February 1917. In disagreement, the failures of the provisional government to make the correct decisions led to the Bolsheviks’ success because the Bolsheviks were efficient in using this time to take control of the vulnerability of the Provisional Government which had caused this upon itself. The first mistake was allowing Lenin return from Germany in April as a part of democracy terms, since Lenin, despite being
Thesis: Many factors contributed to the survival of the tsarist regime in the 1905 Revolution and its downfall in the 1917 Revolution. The factors that helped its survival in the 1905 Revolution included political and economic advantages, while the factors that contributed to its downfall during the 1917 Revolution included the political and economic struggles. Direct Comparison: While the Russian Population was not seeking to overthrow the Tsarist autocracy during the 1905 Revolution, there only thought was to do so during the Revolution of 1917 when the men hit the street. Analysis: Perhaps the foremost factor contributing towards the failure of the 1905 revolution was that the peasants and the liberals were both to easily appeased by what the Tsar had to offer. The Tsar was not overthrown in the 1905 revolution because nobody imperatively wanted him to be overthrown even though he had made many faults, they rather wanted him to change the way he ruled the country, this made him pass the October Manifesto that installed the Duma, which was the lower houses of parliament that could pass laws but be vetoed by the Tsar, and grant civil liberties such as freedom of speech, religion, and press.
The removal of the opposition was also a useful fact into the Nazis staying in power. Another element that was key for keeping the Nazis in power was the economic state of Germany at this time. This helped the regime stay in power because they were the most confident that they could solve the economic depression of Germany. Each of the sources has a strong point that support or challenge the statement that the key element in keeping the regime in power was the consent of the German people. Source A is about removing opposition and the use of propaganda to control what the population thought and did this is challenging the question as the consent is not given but actually forced out of the none Arian people of Germany.
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.
This caused a lot of distress amongst Russia’s population as well as depression. The war was thought of as a strategy to boost Russia’s morale and unite all the communities together to help the war effort, most importantly, to distract them from the current tension in the country. The war encouraged patriotism; it was soon obvious that Russia had hugely underestimated Japan’s strength and ability. This was also the first spontaneous outbreak of unrest which was directed at the Tsar, it made people lose their confidence in him. However, the Russo Japanese was not the only factor leading to Bloody Sunday, the start of the Revolution, other factors such as the Great Spurt and Alexander III’s manifesto – ‘the reaction’ also led to the start of the revolution.
His task of defeating the Whites was made a great deal more difficult by the Czechs if he had kept his word and let them move freely out of Russia, this problem would not have occurred. The Politburo blamed this solely on Trotsky – and the man who led the critics was Joseph
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. 2. After studying Sources B and C, they agree on the reasons for the failure of the Provisional Government in Russia between March and November 1917 because in the text we read that, people in Russia received a massive shock, but also some didn’t, the events of February/March just happened, it wasn’t planned at all. Also bread riots caused the revolution. Also we can see that the Source was written by a historian in 1991, so it may not be biased and produced just to inform.
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.