Explain why the Bolsheviks were successful in October 1917.

History

Introduction

On 2nd March 1917, Nicholas II, the Tsar of Russia, abdicated. His family had ruled Russia for nearly three hundred years, but their demise occurred in a matter of days. Russia and its people were tired, run down and life was hard because of war. Prices of food and goods had vastly increased. People were getting angry at the way the country was being run. The Provisional Government was set up in march 1917, and was overthrown in October 1917 by the Bolsheviks 1917.There are two main reasons for the Bolsheviks success. Firstly, there was the unpopularity, and failure of the Provisional government and secondly there was the way the Bolsheviks handled the situation.

The Provisional government was only supposed to be temporary, and had great expectations by the people of Russia. It consisted of lawyers, bankers, industrialists, and capitalists; generally middle class liberals and its leader was Prince Lvov, who was later replaced by Alexander Kerensky. The Government was a very large party. It had many political divisions, and the politicians were always arguing over legal nuances, which meant that valuable time was wasted, policies were generally unclear, or couldn’t be made, and tension was high within the party.

Set up by members of the Duma, it was there “to decide how Russia was to be ruled in the future.” until a new government was elected.

It wanted to leave all the major policies and decisions for the new government to handle. For example the Provisional Government did not end the war with Germany, even though they lost several humiliating and costly, because it believed it couldn’t take decisions that were so important when they had not been elected, even though the Russian people wanted them to.

This made the Provisional Government more unpopular because food, fuel and goods prices were still shooting up, and were becoming rationed in the cities due to short supply. This was because the men working in industry, farming, and factories were off working in the war, and also because the trains were used for moving ammunitions from one place to another, instead of goods. The cost of living increased rapidly between 1914 and 1917. Many basic necessities increased in price, for example black bread (peasant bread) increased by 500%, soap by 780%, and firewood by 1100%.

Alexander Kerensky announced two goals: ...

This is a preview of the whole essay

Alexander Kerensky announced two goals: offensive against the Central Powers and democratic reorganization of the military command. Kerensky "Declaration of Soldiers Rights" on May 22 included the appointment of commissars in the army to handle soldier’s councils, but the councils issued orders contradicting the commanders and thus undermined the officer corps. Defeatist literature was distributed on a massive scale by radical socialists and Bolshevik agents and fraternization with the enemy hit the military ranks hard.

Kerensky then visited the front and tried to rouse the soldiers to fight on, actually launching an offensive in July 1917. A breach in the Austrian lines is actually made to everyone's surprise, but the Germans launched a counter-offensive, which stopped the Russians cold. Now whole Russian regiments begin to mutiny. General Kornilov, coming out of nowhere, demanded harsh military discipline. In desperation he was made commander-in-chief on July 30, but it was too late - the people turned their eyes on the Bolsheviks now.

The sailors and soldiers fighting in the war were practically trained up peasants, and because they were all at war and not in the factories there was no one to make the munitions, so they had guns with no bullets, or no guns at all. When the Provisional Government failed to end the war, the soldiers and sailors reacted badly, and in the end, many men deserted the armed forces and went back home to their families.

The peasants believed that they should be able to own their own land, but the Provisional Government wouldn’t agree and believed that this was yet another decision for the elected government to decide. But the peasants were getting very angry and began to seize land for themselves, in spite of the government’s decision. This resulted in many landowners being murdered.

The Provisional Government also needed support from the Petrograd Soviet. Without the Soviet’s help, who took care of the armed forces in Petrograd, the Provisional Government was nothing, it was set up to represent the workers and soldiers of Petrograd and was a committee of soldiers, and workers, to represent the working class. The two parties worked together, trying to make sure that working class and middle class were both happy, but this didn’t work either, as they disagreed on many things. The leader of the Provisional Government, Alexander Kerensky, became more and more unpopular; he also did not take the threat from the Bolsheviks very seriously.

The Russians wanted a change after the Provisional Government, but at the beginning of 1917, it seemed unlikely that that Bolsheviks would seize power. This is because there were too many factors working against them. For example, they were a very small party, they also drew little support from the peasantry. They also had extreme beliefs and what they believed seemed inappropriate to Russia mainly because a marquis revolution would need courtesan society and Russia had few towns. A social revolutionary seemed much more likely because it appealed to peasants, and around eighty percent of Russians were peasants.

The Bolsheviks also had some very important assets. They had excellent and strong-minded leader, Lenin (real name: imir Ilyich Ulyanov,) was the leader of the Bolshevik Party and the founder of the Communist State in Russia. He spent much of his life in exile, only returning to Russia following the February Revolution. He was known as the “Father of the revolution.” He believed in a policy of non co-operation with any other parties of the government, which was a wise move because the Bolsheviks were the not discredited by the failure of the Provisional Government. He dominated the communist party, and centralised power. He was full of determination and he was an inspiration. He viewed other parties with hostility, as they felt they were leaders, and they did not allow his opinion to be influenced by anyone else. He established a dictatorship or the proletarian. This gained supporters in high places. Half the army supported the Bolsheviks, as did sailors at Kronstadt navel base near Petrograd, and major industrial centres were pro Bolsheviks. Therefore gaining control in key areas.

The Bolshevik slogan was, “Peace, bread and Land.” And “All power to the solviets.” This was something that the whole country wanted, including the Bolsheviks, so it worked. Lenin called for immediate peace "without annexations and reparations." This attracted the army because they were tired and weary from war efforts. The bread attracted the urban workers because they were short of food, and the land attracted the peasants.

With all above assets, it is not hard to see that the Russians trusted the Bolsheviks, and so they gained power easily. They used effected propaganda, raised fears of the Tsar return, and exploited the failure of the Provisional Government. This way they easily got people to side with them over any other party.

Because the Bolsheviks were such a small, disciplined group, they could decide upon their policies much quicker, and didn’t waste their time arguing, because the all had the same ideas and everyone agreed to the same aims and roles. Internal lines of communications were a lot quicker.