History GCSE Coursework

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History GCSE Coursework

The leadership Contest: Trotsky vs. Stalin

Explain Trotsky's Contribution To The Success Of The Bolsheviks up to 1923?

Trotsky contributed greatly to the success of the Bolsheviks, Even though he didn't join the Bolsheviks until 1917, were before he had been the former member of a bigger party, The Mensheviks. He first met Lenin by working with a group of Marxist's in England. Lenin wanted Trotsky to join the Bolsheviks, but the Bolsheviks was only a small party, and Lenin and Trotsky argued about their different ideas.

However in 1917 he arrived back in Russia and disapproved of the support that the Mensheviks were now giving to the provisional government and decided to join the Bolsheviks instead, however he was arrested.
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Though Trotsky soon built up his power in the Bolshevik party, when he was elected the chairman of the Petrograd Soviet. He immediately helped to enlist 25,000 armed recruits to defend Petrograd.

Later that year Lenin appointed Trotsky as the peoples commissar for foreign affairs.

Lenin wanted to overthrow the provisional government, and Trotsky persuaded Lenin to wait. Because Trotsky had made Lenin wait, during the night on the 6th November, under the command of Trotsky the Red Guards took control of most of Petrograd. By that morning most of the capital city was under control ...

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