What Enabled the Bolsheviks to Seize Power in Russia in Nove
What Enabled the Bolsheviks to Seize Power in Russia in November 1917To understand how Bolsheviks could come to power it is necessary to understand the group mindset under the leadership of Lenin. Lenin's primary objective was to achieve the Utopian Marxist vision of the future, when all the world's proletariat would rise up and put an end to the eternal conflict of history. Lenin would therefore do anything to light the fuse that would inevitably, in his view, set off a chain reaction that would lead to a European wide revolution. Europe at this time (1917) was becoming very war weary thus the time was right in Lenin's eyes to secure the rapid spark that would set the world alight with socialism and therefore any measure, even opportunistic tactics, had to be employed. Thus like the Jacobin club of the French Revolution the Bolsheviks harnessed the rage of the working class and whipped up their demands to a level that they knew the provisional government would not give in to. This discredited the new provisional government allowing the Bolsheviks to make the grand statement that under the heading of the Soviet they represented the will of the people.A major factor that played a part in the downfall of the Tsar also p
Many troops declared they would only take their orders from Trotsky. These were as follows: the land to be redistributed to the peasants, food to be distributed to the starving, power to be relinquished to the Soviet (which the peasants saw as more representative of their cause) and finally a peace with Germany without reparations. While Russia existed in chaos, the Bolsheviks existed in order, and therefore were the only party strong enough to subdue the others. This may have worked under the old tsarist regime for there were no alternatives, however, with revolutionary ideas flooding the air no soldier would be disciplined and sent to die for a government whose leadership had led them to disaster. The prime example of this was their decision to continue the war effort. Thus, due to the pressures which were in part orchestrated and fully fuelled by the highly organised Bolshevik party, they were able to seize control of Russia. By this time Russian enthusiasm for the war had turned sour and the military became un-disciplinable, due in part to Bolshevik pamphlets that had been circulated around the front lines. Lenin's role as a radical Socialist leader played a key part in ensuring that out of the other radical competitors, it would be the Bolsheviks who won the race for power. This factor, which in essence brought down two regimes, was the Russian's view of their military prowess and was the key which turned the revolution in the Bolshevik's favour as under the tsarist system the war effort started to go badly for the Russians at the major defeat at Totenberg. The strength of the Soviet was also utilised by the Bolsheviks who irrevocably tied themselves to this worker/military institution. When the Soviet convened at Petrograd in March (1917) the significant outcome, "order number 1", required the election of committees in each army and naval unit which gave them the ability to choose whose orders to follow thus inciting insurrection. However the rulers at the time, the provisional government, had lost their credibility due to military failure and thus the support of its armed forces. This in turn split the provisional government as Kerensky wanted a more left-wing approach to the situation whereas the rest of the government wanted a rightwing move to severely punish and whip the troops back into shape. Thus as the Soviet appealed to the masses, the military sided with the Soviet.
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