It can be argued to a certain extent that a study of Russian government in the period 1855-1964 suggests that Russia simply exchanged one form of autocracy for another after 1917. Between the period of 1855 and 1917 Russia was led by the Tsar’s, all born out of the Romanov family which meant they were born into power and followed autocracy, meaning one individual (the Tsar) had absolute power over everyone else. However, this changed after 1917 when the Russian revolution occurred. Leaders of Russia came from the Communist party which by definition claims that there is no powerful individual, everyone’s equal. Leaders from the communist party worked to claim power and weren’t born into it.
Following, Marx ideas of socialism, the Social Democratic Party was set up in 1898. However, four years later in 1903 they spilt into 2 groups- the Bolsheviks (lead by Lenin) and the Mensheviks (lead by Martov). Lenin proposed that the party should be limited only to dedicated revolutionaries but Martov argued that membership should be open to anyone who accepted the party programme and was willing to follow the instructions of the party leaders. Lenin won the debate and his group was later called the Bolsheviks whilst Martov’s group was called the Mensheviks. This disagreement arose because of a profound difference in their beliefs of the role of the party.
A study of Russian governments in the period 1855 – 1964 suggests that Russia simply exchanged one form of autocracy for another after 1917. How far do you agree? When the February revolution brought an end to Tsarist rule, there was a strong belief that the instatement of the Provisional Government would lead to a more democratic Russia. However in deposing the Provisional Government, the October Revolution had removed any such hope. The totalitarian Government of the Communist Party continued and intensified many aspects of the Tsarist regime including use of the secret police and an intolerance for opposition and democracy in general.
The War also had massive social and economic impacts on Russia that resulted in a strike that ended with a revolution. The Tsar going to the front was the start of the clear path that lead to the revolution in February 1917; he had left his wife the Tsarina in charge of Russia and relied on her to tell him how things were going at home. While police reports in 1916 were saying that the country was in complete social unrest, on the brink of a revolution, while the Tsarina was sending letters to the Tsar saying that the unrest was merely some of the population acting like a bunch of teenagers and they would get over it. The Tsarist Autocratic system had managed to survive a revolution in 1905 but now that the Tsar did not really know what was happening it was doubtful that there wouldn’t be a revolution soon. The Brussolov offensive caused a major blow to Russia because the Tsarina advised the Tsar not to send any troops to the north as Rasputin had foreseen their failure in the north.
What this shows is that without Lenin at their front haranguing them, the other Bolsheviks weren't so keen to rise up and take power. This was also shown early in the year, before Lenin's return to Russia from Switzerland. The Bolsheviks in Russia had printed in 'Pravda' (their newspaper) that their members and followers should support the Provisional Government, and also that they had given serious thought to the idea of combining with the Mensheviks. This was all very contrary to what Lenin wrote in his 'April Theses' which clearly laid out his views and beliefs on the subject. A key point of his 'April Theses' was "No Support for the Provisional Government", yet without him his party were preposing just that; tentative support for the Provisional Government.
The long-term policies of Russification imposed by the Tsar in the 1880s, caused a lot of political unrest within Russia and these contributed to the 1905 revolution. Russia was the only country within Europe with no elected national parliament. The only form of elected representation (what the Tsar referred to as ‘senseless dreams’) was the “Zemstva”. The Union of Liberation demanded in December 1904, that a parliament should be set up because they felt the Russian population needed an outlet to express their views. At the time, the formation of political parties was illegal but despite this, they still existed.
History How far did the growth of internal opposition threaten the Tsarist regime in the years 1881-1904? Alexander III took over as the Tsar of Russia shortly after his father’s assassination (Alexander II) with the intention to rule Russia with brute force to assert the autocratic power back into control of the people. This was done with the use of secret police and the tightening of censorship. Nicholas II shortly took over after his father died from medical reasons. He was generally described as a smart man with great manners however lacked those qualities of a practical man.
How far was Stalin’s rise to power, the result of Trotsky’s weaknesses? When Lenin died in January 1924, he left no clear successor to lead the communist party. It seemed pretty obvious at that time that no one person could play the same leading role as Lenin had. Instead a group of leaders were formed, it was known as the ‘collective leadership’. By 1929, Joseph Stalin who was one of the members of the ‘collective leadership’, defeated the rest and became the dominant force of the USSR.
Few days before this important event had taken place, eleven states, that at that time were part of the Soviet Republic, had met in the capital-city of Kazakhstan and they all decided they will no longer be part of the USSR political entity, but they will now be part of the new interstate entity which was called the Commonwealth of the Independent States. The collapse of the history’s biggest communist bloc had mostly occurred because of the multitude of awful policies and the huge number of radical implementation of reforms. All these actions where taken by the soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev, whom, later on had resigned on Christmas day, thus, communism came to an end. The Soviet Union has given way to fifteen states, which can be characterized as being distributed in three partial geo-systems: 1. The Geo-system of Eastern Europe: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine, Moldavia, Russia (Russian Federation).
After Lenin’s death, there was a dispute over the succession between Bukharin, Trotsky, Kamenev and Stalin. Trotsky could end the dispute and took power as the head of the Bolsheviks with Lenin's Testament, which criticized the oppositions Trotsky. However, he did not do it, and Stalin, using his position in the Bolshevik Party was able to get his men in high positions and policies through a swing, a union with his opposition to displace others, was able to take power in 1923 and the elimination of his violent Trotsky opposition, using a "ban on faction’’. In some cases, single-party leaders use a combination of legal and illegal methods to come to power. For Stalin, what he did was entirely legal.