Explain why the Bolsheviks triumphed over their domestic and foreign opponents between 1917 and 1921.

Authors Avatar

Reina Hashash

IB1-2

Explain why the Bolsheviks triumphed over their domestic and foreign opponents between 1917 and 1921.

In order to gain total control of the Soviet State, Lenin and the Bolsheviks made commitments to several acts, which, by far, did not please most of their political opponents. They mistreated various soviet members, made allies which the main population of Russia were discontent with, lacked support because of their unfair participation in elections and were responsible for many economic declines. This led to many arduous problems in which the Bolsheviks had to go through great triumphs in order to overcome them. Despite their success, they went through great struggle because of their somewhat obstinate yet determined behavior.

In November 1917, a revolution took place in order to overthrow the Provisional Government. This brought the Bolsheviks to power, as Lenin had launched a series of policies to win the support of the army, the peasants and the workers (The April Thesis). Nevertheless, the Bolsheviks were in control in Petrograd only, and they lacked support in other areas in Russia- there was long-term fighting until the soviet finally gained control and other cities were brought to heel. At first, the peasants were barely in favour of the new government; and this was difficult to deal with. Most of the people preferred the Social Revolutionaries, as they were not so focused on the industrial workers, as the Bolsheviks were. Thus, very few people had faith in the Bolshevik succession due to the complexity of the problems they had to face.

Nonetheless, the Bolsheviks were not in total control, as the revolution had been staged in the name of the Soviets, which contained many non-Bolshevik parties such as the Social Revolutionaries and the Mensheviks. After these political parties had recovered from their shock from the Bolshevik coup, there was bound to be some determined opposition. At the same time, Lenin had to face the World War and Russia’s collapsing economy; the peasants who wanted the land; establishing a communist state; and the general election for a new parliament to be called the “Constituent Assembly”. So, from now, we can anticipate that it was going to be a struggle for Lenin and the Bolsheviks to establish a communist society.

Join now!

The Bolsheviks really lacked majority support in the country as a whole. So the question at this time was, how they were to keep themselves in power, and yet still allow free elections. One of Lenin’s first orders was nationalizing all land in order for it to be redistributed to all the peasants. This was done in hope of gaining their favour. Lenin was obligated to allow these elections so that he wouldn’t appear to be contradictive to his opposing views to Kerensky when he postponed the elections. However, he realized that the Bolshevik Majority in the Constituent Assembly ...

This is a preview of the whole essay