How Did Lenin Win The Bolsheviks

Lenin did just this and immediately got the support he and the Bolsheviks needed at the expense of Kerensky. To undermine the support of the Bolsheviks, Kerensky ordered that elections should take place for a constituent assembly. The elections were to be held in January 1918. Lenin had called for such elections earlier in 1917, so he could not object to this. As Kerensky argued, it was simply an extension of the democratic process denied to the people by the Romanovs. However, all the evidence indicated that the Bolsheviks would have done less well than other groups – including the Mensheviks.

Nicholas II was known, not only for being the Emperor of Russia but also for his character and personality which undoubtably led him to his own downfall. Nicholas was often referred to as not being ready to become Tsar as well as being a weak leader. Firstly, Nicholas II himself, amongst a very large proportion of Russian society, believed that he was not prepared to be coronated Emperor. Nicholas himself stated “What is going to happen to me and all of Russia? I am not prepared to be a Tsar. I never wanted to become one. I know nothing of the business of ruling.”. (Russian Revolution Quotations 2015). Nicholas was aware of what he was getting himself into and that he was not prepared for such a role. This is further corroborated by the

During the 1900’s the Russian Government made it extremely hard for the Bolsheviks to progress which made them revolt against the government making this a prime matter for the start of the Revolution. The Czarist government was ostracized by the common people of Russia so Tsar Nicholas II was overthrown by the Provisional Government, whom later on were overthrown by Lenin and shortly after the Bolsheviks took control over Russia. Russia was hard to develop because of the major leaders who had control; Lenin, Stalin, Trotsky. Almost overnight an entire society was destroyed and replaced with one of the most radical social experiments ever seen. Poverty, crime, privileged and class-divisions were to be eliminated, a new era of socialism

The Russian Revolution was a series of two revolutions that consisted of the February Revolution and the October Revolution. The February Revolution of March 8th, 1917 was a revolution targeted and successfully removed Czar Nicholas II from power. The February Revolution first began to take place when strikes and public protests between 1916 and early 1917 started occurring. These strikes were created to protest against and to blame Czar Nicholas II for Russia’s poor performance in WWI and severe food shortages that the country facing. Soon, violence between protesters and authorities began to escalate, and on February 24th, 1917 in the city of Petrograd, hundreds of thousands of male and female workers flooded the streets. They all had the same purpose which was to protest against the “Great War” and the monarchy. The protests began to escalate and the vastly outnumbered police were unable to control the crowds. When news of the unrest reached the czar, he ordered the military to put an end to the riots by the next day, and on February 26th, 1917, several troops of a local guard regiment fired upon the crowds, but however many soldiers felt pity and empathy for the protesters than the czar, and on the next day, more than 80,000 soldiers join the protest even directly fighting the police.

On 24-26 October, the Bolshevik Party seized power from Kerensky’s Provisional Government. This was achieved with surprising ease. Retaining their newly acquired power, however, was to prove difficult. Nonetheless, the Bolsheviks proved successful in consolidating their power from 1917-1924, achieving this through a combination of pragmatic reforms and ruthless terror. This ultimately led the Bolsheviks far from their original goals and ideologies, and by 1924, the Soviet Union was a highly centralised one-party state.

In 1917 Russia was the most populous country and also the largest in the entire world yet, Russia's government was facing many problems that needed to be resolved such as a shortage of food and fuel.At this time, Russia was also only starting the process of industrialization when it had entered into World War One, both of these and demand some kind of change from it. The Tsarist government started to collapse and the entire country was ready for some kind of change. The Russian government could not fix any of these problems and this made the people want change.Two causes of the Bolshevik revolution were, food and fuel shortages coupled with World War One going very poorly for Russia

There were many reasons why the Bolsheviks were able to remain in power. Lenin and Trotsky teamwork and leadership gave them a great advantage because they really knew how to control their team. The red army was incredibly stronger than the whites. The red army knew what they were fighting for whereas the whites really didn’t have any idea of what their ambition was. The Bolsheviks also had the central lines, which enabled them to travel all around the country guaranteeing that the red army troops could get all the necessities that they needed. Finally, war communism was also a contributor to why the Bolsheviks were able to remain in

The Measures of the Bolsheviks to Maintain Power and Address the Problems of Russia Before the Outbreak of Civil War

“We no longer have a Tsar. Today a river of blood divides him from the Russian people. It is time for the Russian workers to begin the struggle for the people’s freedom without him. For today I give you my blessing. Tomorrow I shall be with you. Today I am busy working for our cause”. Russian Priest, Father Georgy Gapon, conveys his thoughts in a letter read at the meeting of liberals, after the tragic petition of Bloody Sunday. The Romanov’s dynasty attempt at modernizing Russia led to the cause of their usurping. The changes they applied during their reigns resulted in protests and uprisings of the peasants. The emancipation edict of 1891 created a great number of unemployed civilians; as population was increasing during

The Russian Revolution of 1917 set the country on a course that few other countries took in the 20th century. The shift from the direction of a democratic, parliamentary-style government to a one party communist rule was a drastic change that many did not and could not predict. Looking back on this key moment in Russian history, many historians ask the question ‘why did the political power in Russia shift to the Bolsheviks’? Since the revolution in 1905 Russia was becoming progressively more democratic, distributing power throughout the political sphere. This came to an abrupt halt when Vladimir Lenin was put into power by the Bolshevik takeover of the Provisional Government. Many authors have had different takes on this event. Two particularly interesting ones were Arthur Mendel and John D. Basil. Their pieces On Interpreting the Fate of Imperial Russia and Russia and the Bolshevik Revolution give various perspectives on the Russian Revolution and attempt to answer the question of the power shift. This key point in Russia’s history sets the tone for the next 100 years. Russia became a superpower, an enemy of the United States, started multiple wars directly and indirectly, and started using an economic system used by various countries around the world. Today we still see the effects of the 1917 Revolution. Looking at both Mendel’s and Basil’s attempt to answer why the power shifted to the Bolsheviks. Since both historian 's account of the events is different they cannot

On July 17th 1918 Nicholas II of Russia was gunned down by communist revolutionists along with his family. The New York Times first heard of this event July 21st, 1918 when they printed the article that “Ex-Czar of Russia Killed by Order of Ural Soviet.” The russian government had announced the death of Nicholas Romanoff on July 20th at the same time claiming that the former Empress and Alexis Romanoff, the heir, were in a place of security. The Russian government claimed that a counter-revolutionary conspiracy was discovered which lead them to make the decision to execute the former ruler. In the following days a rumor spread that Alexis Romanoff had died of exposure after his father 's death, the russian government denied this claiming that “The family of Nicholas Romanoff is safe in a Siberian monastery in Abalak.”

One of the main reasons that the Bolsheviks gained support in 1917 was due to the fact that Lenin rejected any compromise with the propertied classes, and insisted that the power should be held by the proletariat and the peasants, which was the majority of Russia’s population. Another reason for the Bolshevik’s growing support was because the Mensheviks and Social Revolutionaries continued to support the Provisional Government. The Provisional Government had failed to enact land reforms demanded by the peasantry and had failed to keep the military from falling apart. As previously mentioned, the Bolsheviks had harnessed the revolutionary mood of the workers and garrison soldiers in order to successfully go through with the October Revolution (Connor 1). The Petrograd Soviets and the Red Guards also supported the overthrow of the Provisional Government as they did not feel it represented their interests. This gave even more support to the Bolsheviks as they promised the overthrow of the traditional order. Lenin created the Sovnarkom, which would be the new type of government in Russia, and would replace the Provisional Government (Provisional Government). The Sovnarkom’s initial objectives represented a revolt against tradition. This is because the objectives included land collectivization, where land is taken from the nobles, church, and tsar and given to the peasants, and to empower workers to set up factory committees to take control of factories.

The Bolshevik triumph Stalin envisaged was a product of dedication and hard work during the February and October revolutions of 1917. Robert Service states in his book, A History of Twentieth-Century Russia, that “the February Revolution had disappointed all Bolsheviks. Against their expectations, the monarchy’s overthrow had not been followed by a ‘provisional revolutionary democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and peasantry’; and the Bolsheviks had failed to gain control over the Petrograd Soviet” (47). This loss forced the Bolshevik faction to work diligently on spreading their ideology to achieve their means, which is the overthrow of the Provisional Government. Several Mensheviks who disliked the current and official leadership party’s

The Bolsheviks were concerned about their abilitiy to remain in control. This is because the October Revolution (1917) came too late to prevent the elections of the All-Russian Constituent Assembly from going ahead in November as planned. The voting (12-15 November 1917) occurred and the results dismayed the Bolsheviks. Although they had won 175 seats in the assembly, they were outvoted by nearly two to one by the SRs who won 370/707 seats and had the majority with 52%. Lenin was worried about the results and believed that they had no need of an assembly because “to hand over power to the Constituent Assembly would again be to compromise with the malignant bourgeoisie.” With this mentality in mind, Lenin urged the Bolsheviks to dissolve the Constituent Assembly. This occurred on 5 January 1918 when, after a long day of negotiations and disagreements between the Bolsheviks and Left SRs and Mensheviks and Right SRs, the meeting ended at 5am. When the delegates arrived at 5pm for the reconvened session, they found that the Tauride Palace was locked and guarded by Bolshevik troops who presented them with a decree declaring that the Constituent Assembly has been dissolved. The Bolsheviks believed that “the machine gun became for them the principle instrument of political persuasion,” (Richard Pipes) which outlined their motives behind dissolving the assembly. This contributed to formation of the Russian Soviet Federal Socialist Republic (RSFSR), who formally came into being (19 July 1918), which allowed the Bolsheviks to remain firmly in power. Thus, concluding that the dissolution of the Constituent Assembly allowed the Bolsheviks to establish the RSFSR, which ultimately consolidated their power at that

There are numerous reasons why the Bolshevik revolution was successful, the most important reason to why the revolution of October 1917 was successful was due to the role of Lenin, this is not to say however that he was the only cause, this essay will explain why the Bolshevik takeover succeeded. A predominant factor in the Bolshevik takeover’s victory was the weakness and poor decisions of the provisional government (PG), the provisional government was weak due to numerous defeats in the war and the fact that they did not change how the country was run after the February Revolution which removed the Tsar from power, this meant that the Provisional Government was merely seen as the Tsar with a different face. This created discontent towards