The Pros And Cons Of The Bolsheviks

The Mensheviks formed the minority of the Socialist Democrat Party when they split in 1903. Lenin had called for a small tightly knit elite who would lead the revolution on behalf of the people. The majority of Socialist Democrats went with Lenin and were called the Bolsheviks. The Mensheviks wanted to make their movement less elitist than the Bolsheviks in the belief that it would attract the support of the uneducated workers and peasants.

During the years following the death of Lenin in 1924, there was an immense power struggle in the politburo of the Communist Party, as its leading figures competed to replace him. By 1929, Joseph Stalin had defeated his rivals - and therefore become leader of the party - through three stages: the defeat of the left opposition (and therefore Trotsky), the united opposition (Zinoviev, Kamenev and Trotsky), and finally the right deviation (Bukharin). Stalin gained power due to a number of factors, particularly his position as General Secretary of the party, along with his other roles, but also through errors made by the Bolsheviks, most notably their underestimation and dismissal of Stalin. However, his position as General Secretary gave

Lenin (Bolsheviks) more radical and driven for revolution now. SDs split into Bolsheviks and Mensheviks in 1912 over the membership of the party. When the war gets bad, people go back to Lenin as the party that opposed war.

The Bolshevik revolution came to prominence because of the Provisional Government’s inability to gain support from the Russian population. ‘The government enjoyed little confidence amongst the masses; and many of its members were largely unknown to the new Russia that had burst upon the political scene.’[3 ] Kerensky himself comments on the problematic circumstances his government experienced, ‘the old (governmental machine) had disappeared; the new was not yet established.’ The support of the peasantry was critical in establishing popular rule, as historian Richard Abraham comments, ‘the largest social class in Russia was still the peasantry.

The Bolsheviks also built a new police system and a ruling group that portrayed the same discipline and unity that had characterised Russia’s traditional ruling elites.

Trotsky’s overall role in the Soviet Union is indisputable as his strategic leadership skills enabled him to play a fundamental role in the organisation and implementation of the November 1917 Bolshevik seizure of power and the Civil War of 1918-21. However, the importance of Lenin’s role must also be taken into account to achieve a more balanced portrayal, as many of Trotsky’s successes were based on Lenin’s initiatives. Although Lenin held authority over the Bolshevik’s, it

Socialism must be implemented, according to Marx, in the wake of a successful and vast capitalistic structure. Russia was without such a structure, so Lenin and the Bolsheviks, insistent on their socialist dreams by any means necessary, turned to force to institute their version of socialism. The atrocities committed by the newly coined Soviets, their Red Army, and the Cheka or police force, against their enemies and those who resisted came to be known as the Red Terror.

The Marxists in Russia divided into two different political parties: The Mensheviks and Bolsheviks. Lenin led the Bolsheviks, they believed that the only way Russia would prevail was if it where to be governed by a small elite core of revolutionaries. February of 1917, workers gave protesting another try and actually had the soldiers side with them. The Tsar finally admitted defeat and stepped down from the throne and a provisional government was put into place. The leader of the provisional government was Andrew Kerensky, and when he decided to continue fighting World War I many soldiers deserted him and everyone turned to the Bolsheviks. The only political party to be completely against the provisional government as well as World War 1.

Trotsky’s involvement in the 1917 revolution was of utmost significance to Bolshevik success. With Lenin in exile in Finland, Trotsky became the public face of Bolshevism. Trotsky’s leadership of the Soviet demonstrated his distinct skills, which became essential to the success of the revolution. His formation, recruiting, disciplining and arming of the Red Guard became a significant factor to the movement. It had amassed to over 200,000 militants by October. Additionally Trotsky’s arranging of the Soviet, placing Bolshevik delegates in power, allowed the Bolsheviks to organize the Military Revolutionary committee.

Stalin’s mother also wanted him to attend church and become a priest, but rebelling, he left the school especially because of his views on communism. His strong views on communism were further developed as he got more involved in the controversial events. When the Social Democratic Party split into two groups in 1903, the Bolsheviks were led by Vladimir Lenin and the Mensheviks Julius Martov. The Bolsheviks were more military-based, and

This was done to create the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (the Bolshevik party) as the single permitted party in the Soviet Union. Similar ever-changing alliances were played out among many rebellious parties within the Communist Party of SU, for example the Workers Opposition and Left Communists, with Joseph Stalin and his supporters increasing absolute authority indoors of the party by the

When Joseph Stalin was a young adult he decided to become an active member in the Bolsheviks. An organization started by Vladimir

After Lenin's death in 1924, two conflicting schools of thought about the future of the Soviet Union arose in party debates. Trotsky, one of the primary proponents of the party's left wing, believed that a world revolution was essential for the survival of socialism in the economically backward Soviet Union. However, the left wing's domestic policy also advocated rapid development of the economy and the creation of a socialist society.

Account For the Success of the Bolsheviks in October 1917 At the beginning of 1917 most of the Bolsheviks were in exile but by the end of 1917 the Bolshevik party had not only consolidated control of Moscow and Petrograd, but they were also advancing on the rest of the country. This success was due to several linked factors; the Bolshevik policy of non-cooperation, weakness of the Provisional Government, division of alternative opposition, Lenin's leadership skills, the power of the Petrograd Soviet and Trotsky as its leader, failure on deliver of land reform and the oppressed, armed workers in Petrograd. Bolshevik success is dictated by whether they met their aims; these included the

The "whites" had been supported by most conservative and Liberal MPs but Lloyd George the Prime minister of the time thought that Russia should have been left to resolve its own internal affairs. Many of the British left were sympathetic to the Bolsheviks and their communist regime. Both Lloyd George and Ramsey MacDonald had little enthusiasm for Lenin but felt it would be better to get Russia back into a commercial relationship with Europe to soften the Bolshevik regime than to use military force. Conservative politicians however remained suspicious of Lenin and wanted Russia kept in Diplomatic isolation for a variety of reasons. Primarily they were concerned that communism would spread throughout Europe and the rest of the world.