Despite the strong forces pushed upon the red army, the experience of the white leaders and position of Lenin, the communists still managed to achieve a victory in the Russian Civil War. Two main reasons that led to their success were because they had control over more people and because they had access to more weapons. However, there were many other contributing factors leading to the Bolshevik victory questioning the importance of these specific two. Bolshevik control over highly populated parts of Russia lead to communist success in the Civil War. The Bolsheviks had a huge strategic advantage due to their geographical position within Russia, in that they had control over major cities such as Moscow and Petrograd, which had many people within them.
How far was Lenin responsible for the Bolshevik’s growing hold on power in the years 1917-24? In October 1917 the Bolshevik seizure of power had been successful and a ‘new new page was opened in the book of world history’ (‘What is the Soviet Union’). The Bolsheviks were able to remain in power from 1917-24 because of the leadership of founding member and visionary Vladimir Ilyich Lenin. However there were a number of other factors which contributing to the growing hold on power of the Bolsheviks, namely; The weaknesses of their opponents, the Treaty of Brest Livotsk and the role of Trotsky; Commissar for war. Vladimir Lenin was one of the leading political figures of the 20th century, he was the visionary that founded the Bolsheviks and masterminded the Communist take-over of power in Russia in 1917.
To what extent was Trotsky the single most important factor in the success of the Red’s during the Russian Civil War? After the Bolshevik takeover in 1917, Lenin had moved to uphold the idea of a ‘people’s revolution’, something shown most evidently through the creation of workers committees within the factories and also the soldiers committees within the armed forces. These soldier committees would elect their own officers and govern their own regiments. Along with this, traditional elements of the forces had been pushed aside: discipline was non-existent, graded titles had disappeared and saluting was removed as an exercise. In 1918, this was all to change, with Leon Trotsky placed as the commissar for war.
How significant were ideological disputes in accounting for Stalin’s emergence as leader of Russia? Ideological disputes accounted greatly for the rise in power of Stalin in 1929; however his cunning and mischievous ways, his ability to manipulate situations to his advantage and capitalise on the mistakes of his contenders, all allowed him to succeed in Russia after the death of Lenin in 1924. Biding his time Stalin was gradually moving up in the ranks and attaining more power within the Bolsheviks party and eventually got an influential position; General Secretary of the party. So not only the ideological disputes with the other contenders but his new powerbase as the general secretary led to his rise as the Russian leader. Stalin’s emergence as a successor and a dominant figure within the Bolshevik party really came when he got the influential position as general secretary in 1922.
How accurate is it to say that the growth of reformist groups in the years from 1881 was the main cause of the 1905 Revolution? The 1905 Revolution was the start of political change in Russia, unlike other major European powers of the time, Russia was being ruled by an autocratic government and any effective reforms would have had to been by ‘change from above’. However, the Tsar Alexander III and his son, Nicholas II were firm conservatives and this ideal route would not have happened. Resentment to the lack of change created the growth of reformist governments and caused a Revolution which catalysed the much needed change in Russia. There were many factors that created a base for the reformist groups to flourish at that time in Russia which in turn created a Revolution.
HOW IMPORTANT WAS STALIN’S USE OF THE LENIN LEGACY IN EXPLANING HIS VICTORY IN THE POWER STRUGGLE IN THE YEARS 1924 – 1929? After Lenin died in 1924, a power struggle arose when he hadn’t elected a member of the party to continue in his footsteps as leader of Russia, this caused the heated climb that Stalin, Trotsky, Kamenev, Zinoviev and Bukharin had to face to have power. It was Stalin who won, much to everyone’s surprise, and there are many factors as to why he won. One of them was the Lenin Legacy, which he manipulated to his advantage. Stalin was able to see that he could gain credibility by using Lenin’s Legacy, since Lenin was the leader of the Communist Party and was the reason to all the great ideas and change that was brought to Russia.
This was sometimes called ‘Revolution from above. During the years 1928 to 1941 Stalin decided to introduce a series of reforms in order to radically change Russia’s economy. This would not only create a more prosperous country, but as well would stand out the figure of Stalin and would make him a memorable leader for his acts, moving of the way the image people had of Lenin as the real and unique leader Russia once had. During these years, through collectivisation and industrialisation (Five Year Plans), Stalin was able o successfully improve Russia’s economy. This was mostly due to his policies of collectivisation which made economic sense and forced a lot of peasants to leave the land, which was a process needed in order to change an agricultural rural society to an urban and industrial one as well s the fact that his industrialisation plan increased massively the heavy industry in Russia; the production of raw materials such as iron, coal, steel and oil all increased successfully.
History essay EVALUATE THE SUCCESSES AND FAILURES OF ONE RULER OF A SINGLE- PARTY STATE Bolsheviks came to power in November 1917 with Lenin as a party leader. His leadership was strong and determined, which he previously showed by publishing his April theses that gave serious of directives that enabled Bolsheviks to come to power after November Revolution. He was a memorable leader whose policies and decisions shaped Russia from 1917-24. In this essay I am going to evaluate and analyse how effective were his revolutionary transformations in economic, political and social context. When Lenin and Bolsheviks came to power Russia was in tremendous economic and administrative problems.
The workers of the world had to be “liberated” from bourgeois exploitation. As the principle communist nation of the world, Russia had a duty to spread the revolution begun in 1919 to the rest of Europe. The view of many Marxist scholars was that the proletariat had been brainwashed by the rich, and thus were not capable of instigating a workers’ revolution themselves – therefore Communism had to be introduced by force. Stalin realised that the Soviet occupation of Eastern Europe was a rare opportunity for Russia to act as this vanguard. Perhaps less importantly, though still a significant point in the domination of Eastern Europe, was the desire of Stalin to
Why did the Bolsheviks win the Civil War? It was ‘not a matter of who was the stronger but, rather, who was less weak’[1]. These were the words of Victor Shklovskii in his book Sentimental Journey. This simplistic view fails to incorporate the many factors which contributed to the ‘Reds’ victory over the ‘Whites’ but it establishes the essence of the argument. Both the Bolsheviks and the opposition White forces were ravaged by internal weaknesses and hugely influenced by external conflict and conditions.