Leaders from the communist party worked to claim power and weren’t born into it. By definition of the two types of rule it should be suggested that Russian government ought to have been completely different with no similarities. However, it can be strongly argued that this was not the case. All Russian leaders during this period were motivated by the need to maintain their power and their ideological views which is shown to be one of the main similarities between them. Asides from the obvious ideological differences between the Tsars and the communists, they do not differ all that much in other ruling aspects such as use of repression and the role of themselves as a ruler.
Andrew Wodarcyk Freshman English Mr. J. Pharion 11 February 2008 Communism During the Russian Revolution Communism was founded on the ideas of Karl Marx and failed because of flaws in the system, mainly in the leadership. To understand why communism failed, one must have researched the principles of Marxism; because of the way that Communism was based upon Marxism. To compare and contrast Communism and Marxism, it would be necessary to research the principles of Communism also. Since there were three leaders during the time of Soviet Communism, understanding the principles of each would be necessary. The first was Vladimir Lenin, whose style of government was referred to as Leninism.
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.
In the case of the Provisional Government they changed it from autocratic to democratic and Lenin changed it to a one party state; although the result was different the basis was the same. In some cases all of the rulers passed reforms that they had no choice whether to or not, it was simply necessary. All of the Tsars wanted to uphold their autocratic position, Alexander III most of all due to what happened to his father, so keeping absolute control was essential. Nicholas II was the only tsar to make any major political reforms due to the Tsar’s wanted to keep their power. However, Nicholas II had no choice to create the Duma because of the 1905 revolution; so he reluctantly did so he did not completely lose his position.
This led to the taking over of railway stations, and post and telegraph offices, meaning that the PG was left totally defenseless, allowing the Bolsheviks to seize control. The most crucial factor, however, was timing, where the Bolsheviks were able to take this power behind the veneer of Soviet control, minimizing chance of opposition. It is arguable, nonetheless, that even without this planning, seizure would still be within easy reach, due to the infamy of the Provisional Government and the other political parties, such as the Kadets, Mensheviks and Social Revolutionaries, failing to act. But nevertheless, this organizational brilliance from Trotsky was an assured way for secure control, as the Bolsheviks were only relatively known in the cities, compared to most of rural Russia, where their support dwindled in the wake of more popular
At this point, however it was Gorbachev who bought the Cold War to an end…”. To first understand to what extent Mikhail Gorbachev was responsible for the fall of the USSR the long-term factors that contributed to the ending of the Soviet Union have to be considered. In the years preceding Gorbachev the Soviet Union was controlled by many other leaders but the majority of the problems dealing with the economy and nationalism first appeared in the time referred to as the “Brezhnev era”, a time in which the Soviet Union was ruled by Leonid Brezhnev. By the time of Brezhnev’s death in 1982 the Soviet Union had spent massive amounts of money on foreign policy and although it had taken part in many arms reduction treaties with the US such as the SALT 1&2 treaties in 1972 and 1974 it had ultimately under Brezhnev, reached nuclear “Parity” with the United States but at a heavy price. This constant drive to match and even surpass the US led to a serious decrease in spending in the consumer and domestic economy as a whole which greatly impacted the citizens in the USSR.
Importance of Lenin in the Russian Revolution During 1917 way up north in the freezing cold Russia, there was a period of time in which the Russian politics and ideology were in chaos and the governmental power was unbalanced and disorganized. These period of time was known as the Russian Revolution. However besides this, the Russian Revolution itself was a series of revolutions that destroyed the Tsarist autocracy and led to the creation of the Soviet Union. Many leaders influenced the development of this revolution, however, in this occasion, I’m going to evaluate the importance of Lenin in the Russian Revolution. The Russian Revolution was divided into two other revolutions, The February Revolution and The October Revolution.
To what extent had Russia’s problems been solved by the time of Lenin’s death in 1924 ? Since the start of the 20th century Russia had a vast range of problems, which had to be sorted if Russia had any ambitions to be a powerful nation. These problems included a collapse of a whole social system as Tsarism was abolished in 1917. Nicolas ii was forced to abdicate because of his inability to make decisions and the critical economic state, Russia’s failure in the First World War didn’t help his popularity. This naturally led on to a power struggle.
The use of force and terror was instrumental in the establishment of a totalitarian state in the Soviet Union, however it was not the most important factor. To have totalitarian control is to have centralised control by an autocratic leader where the state controls every aspect of life and productive capacity of their nation. Stalin was not the first leader to use methods of force in order to gain power and leaders before him were not opposed to using violence as a means of control. One of Stalin’s biggest threats was resistance inside the party so he conducted multiple purges where he silenced people that had spoken out against him. Stalin’s terror was not limited to the party and extended and he condemned intellectuals for being “anti-Soviet”.
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.