How important was Lenin in bringing about the Bolshevik revolution of November 1917?

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Alice Gibbs 11N        History Coursework        27/9/01

How important was Lenin in bringing about the Bolshevik revolution of November 1917?

        After March 1917, the Russian revolution was yet to be completed. The Tsar had been overthrown, the power and responsibility of the government of Russia had been passed on ‘duelly’ to the Provincial Government and the workers Soviet, the most powerful Soviet in Petrograd. In November 1917, the second revolution was planned, a Bolshevik revolution. Evidence around the Bolshevik revolution is not completely reliable, but it is widely agreed that events in November 1917 were not as the Bolsheviks later described and boasted.

        Soviet censored films, art and literature after 1917 record an incredibly contradictory image of the November revolution than the picture that is the truth. In Eisenstein’s film ‘October’ that was made in 1927, the storming of the Winter Palace where the Provincial Government were, was shown as a heroic, brave, but a violent struggle of the Russian masses overcoming a government that they thought had no interest in the people’s wishes. The film portrays the Russian spirit standing up against hunger, war and laws that prevented peasants from owning land, and how it was by their sheer will and force that the government was overthrown. This myth perhaps continues into the role of Lenin in the Bolshevik revolution. In the film ‘October’, Lenin is portrayed as an inspiring, courageous, all great leader who was followed by thousands of Russians. This is simply not the complete real case. As one witness describes; “I heard shouting in the street of Lenin! Lenin!, but we had no idea who this Lenin was.” It is interesting to note that it took a further three years for Lenin to take complete control of the massive Russian Empire, a fact that shows the Bolshevik revolution was not widely supported and certainly not an uprising by the masses.

When Lenin returned from exile in April 1917 and gave his April Theses, his party was stunned. He was accused of anarchism and madness by the members, even by his wife as she later wrote, “It seems that Ilyich is out of his mind”. The April Theses consisted of four main arguments; that the Provincial Government should not be supported, anti-war propaganda should be carried on in the army, capitalism should be wiped out in Russia and that the land of Russia should be nationalised. His party’s reaction suggests they did not have complete faith in him as a leader. However, Potresov, one of Lenin’s contemporaries states differently when describing Lenin. “ A man of iron will and indomitable energy, capable of instilling fanatical faith in the movement and the cause, and possessed of equal faith in himself.” By November, Lenin had convinced the Bolsheviks that the time for action had come, a reflection that he had a party he could still push, inspire and control. But Harrison E. Sailsbury a correspondent form Moscow for the New York Times argues that Lenin only had the firm support of 15 of 25 members on the 15th of October. These two men give different pictures of the state of the belief the Bolsheviks had in their leader and therefore the importance of Lenin in his party. Potresov can not be treated as a completely reliable source of information because he was so close to Lenin, however he was there and did take part in the events that followed the Bolshevik coup. Harrison E. Sailsbury is an American that wrote his evaluation in 1974 and may be biased against Lenin because of the conflicts between the USSR and the USA in future years after the Second World War.

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The myth of the Bolshevik revolution is shattered by statistical facts about the night of 6th November. How can the Bolshevik propaganda and re told history be correct about the violent storming of the Winter Palace with guns and fire a blazing when only five soldiers and one sailor died? – and from stray bullets. The main fictional source of propaganda; the film ‘October’, can not be used as evidence because it was filmed in 1927, and in 1917 cameras where not yet sophisticated enough to film in the dark, so its night scenes of the revolution couldn’t have been ...

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