The Success of the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917 Essay

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 first section of Fitzpatrick’s essay discusses how Marxism was such an important part to creating classes during the Bolsheviks rule in the beginning of the 20th Century. She notes that this western belief system was popular with Russian intellectuals, especially on revolutionary left. (173) However, around the 1890’s industrialization was starting to catch up with the Marxist dreams, and the first soviets were founded in Moscow and Petersburg in 1905 helped bring down the tsarist regime in February 1917 (Suny 173).

The concoction of communist regime caused paranoia within the people which lead to riots. The history of the Soviet Union greatly contributed to this unjustified fear. During the nineteenth century, Karl Marx, a revolutionary socialist, wrote the “Communist Manifesto” which presented the idea of Communism. In this political ideal, property is publicly owned and workers are paid to extent of their abilities and needs. Nowhere does the theory state dictatorship or any type of totalitarian government. This revolutionary speculation remains as Russia’s greatest achievements in history and unforgotten. However when Vladimir Lenin took control of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics in 1917,

According to the History.com Staff, “The October Revolution began on November 6 and 7, 1917 (or October 24 and 25 on the Julian calendar).” (Russian Revolution”). The October Revolution has also been called the Bolshevik Revolution since the Bolshevik Party played a crucial role in the revolution. The leader of the Bolshevik Party, Vladimir Lenin was a big supporter of Karl Marx. Another Marxist who leads this revolution was Leon Trotsky. In an article by the History.com Staff, “Lenin had created an, almost, bloodless coup d’état against the provisional government.” (“Russian Revolution”). The Bolshevik revolution started when, Alexander Kerensky, rather than follow an order. On October 24th, Kerensky ordered troops that were loyal, to act against the Bolshevik. Encyclopædia Britannica tells us that, “Kerensky was a socialist revolutionary who served as head of the Russian Provisional Government.” (“Aleksandr Kerensky”).

The Bolshevik party was based on Marxist ideals, ideals which sought to rid society of class conflict and create an egalitarian society. After the fall of the provisional government, the Bolsheviks were now able to implement an economic policy of their own, introducing a form of communism called ‘War Communism’. It was a form of strict communism that, amongst many things, took money out of circulation and banned private enterprise. It should, therefore, seem surprising that the Bolshevik government got rid of this policy, a policy which espoused many Marxist principles of destroying interclass conflict through the abolition of private enterprise, and replacing it with the NEP, a policy which at first glance, may resemble something much more capitalist orientated than would one expect of a party based on communist ideals. The NEP was a policy that reintroduced “a free market and capitalism, both subject to state control” . This may have therefore have been a step back from achieving a Marxist utopia in the Russian State but it can be argued that the continuance of war communism would have ultimately led to the utter economic collapse of the Russian state and the NEP prevented this from occurring.

Lenin grew up in a middle class family but was never fond of the political party and the class system. Having a Marxist political belief system, Lenin wanted the government to own and control everything. After taking control of the Soviet Union, Lenin wanted supreme power for himself and the government, with hopes to make all of the citizens’ equal. Throughout his reign, the Soviet Union was crowded with war, disease, and destruction. His idea of a perfect communist society was anything but

Grant:What actually happened when Russia adopted communism was far from the idea of Karl Marx.After Russia had overturned the Tsarist rule and established a communist country they were actually doing pretty good for a while,the system was working fine,the people were happy and everyone was “equal”.After a Vladimir Lenin(head of government) got out of office a man named Joseph Stalin came into office. This is where it all went wrong. Stalin changed the leadership, and rules in the government and became a dictator. Millions of citizens died during his reign, although he turned the peasant society of the Soviet Union

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

In 1917, the year of the Russian Revolution, there were two revolutions that took place to ensure good change in Russia. The first of the revolutions was the March revolution, the purpose of it was to overtake the imperial government and the second named the November revolution; which placed the Bolsheviks in power. The Russian Revolution took place during a difficult time in Russia. These distresses began before World War I and lasted up until the 1930's. Russia's population was built up of mostly poor, starving, unfortunate peasants at this point; caused by the prevalent and growing civil unrest, as well as dramatic food shortages which led to a huge rebellion against the present government. “World War I provided the catalyst for revolution in Russia .” Although at first it raised national pride

The 1917 Bolshevik Revolution was the seizure of power by the radical Marxists led by Vladimir Lenin and was one of the pivotal moments of the 20th Century. The ramifications of the event, and the subsequent establishment of the world's first Communist regime were immediately obvious, but also had continuing repercussions for decades. This essay will argue that although Lenin and Stalin seemed to have conflicting views, in reality they shared very similar policies; Stalin just took these policies to an extreme.

After hearing about the recent coup, throwing out the czar, Lenin came back to Russia from his exiled in Switzerland. Using his charisma and status, he helped kick start another revolution which knocked out the makeshift democracy. This made a place for the Bolsheviks (communists) to place themselves in a position of power in the government. (Rashid, Aatif). Lenin came to be an influential person in the Bolshevik party and used Karl Marx’s ideas to make Communism in Russia blossom. Two major things he did were make private industry and agriculture public and redistributed the land of wealthy proprietors to peasants. This went well for a few years, until the Russian Civil War ended in 1920. While they came out victorious, Russia was left in disaster. The economic productivity was insufficient and the people were starving and unhappy. Because of this, Lenin was desperate for a new change to benefit the people, so he announced the New Economic Policy. The state took control of large industries again, but people were encouraged to have private and individual businesses. Soon after this was out in place, another major change was about to occur in the Russian government. This occurred after Lenin died in 1924. Joseph Stalin took over his place and became the leader of the Communist Party. He began intimidating and doubting his rivals while also claiming to see spies everywhere. He cleared the party and general population of Russia or these so called “spies.” By executing or exiling rebels to Siberia, he struck fear into those who remained after his purging. Everyone lived in fear of Stalin’s secret police and he ruled over Russia with an iron fist from that point on until his death (Dagger,

Communism in Russia was begun by Karl Marx. Marx, along with much of the country, was tired of the tyranny they suffered under the Tsar. He came up with a system of government that would make everyone equal, and wrote it into the Communist Manifesto, the handbook for Communism. The Tsar and his family were eventually overthrown by the angry populace. Vladimir Lenin, a leader of the communist party, became the new head of the country. After his death, Joseph Stalin, another leader of the communist party, became the new leader of Russia. Although he claimed to adhere to the basic rules of communism, Stalin took advantage of the peasants and working class by taking their property and money, and eventually became a dictator. The middle and lower classes were, arguably, worse off than before.

The long term effects of this were that Lenin would later become one of the great revolutionary leaders of all time. Lenin begins to study law and the works of Karl Marx. He is then exiled to Siberia by the authorities as he becomes more politically involved.

Between 1900-1902, Lenin led the effort to introduce communism into Russia. He “adapted Marxism to Russian use and devised a persuasive prescription for Russian superiority… Its stress on universal working-class solidarity allowed an escape from the divisive nationalism threatening the multinational Russian empire.” (Von Laue 61), but his approach still focused on the need for an apocalyptic class struggle to overthrow the oppressing regime, leading into a millenarian socialist society. He

Karl Marx is often called the father of communism, but his life entailed so much more. He was a political economist, philosopher, and idea revolutionist. He was a scholar that believed that capitalism was going to undercut itself as he stated in the Communist Manifesto. While he was relatively ambiguous in his lifetime, his works had tremendous influence after his death. Some of the world’s most powerful and most populace countries follow his ideas to this day. Many of history’s most eventful times were persuaded by his thoughts. Karl Marx was one of the most influential persons in the history of the world, and a brief history of his life will show how he was able to attain many of his attitudes.