The Bolsheviks were more tightly organized than other socialist parties.
- Kerensky demanded loyalty from his SR party but as he would not follow party decisions himself, that loyalty was not fully coming.
- In contrast, Lenin could count on the unswerving support of his party (a small group of really committed members). He was able to convince the party member that the time was ripe for action.
- Bolsheviks had able and dedicated leaders
i. Lenin
ii. Trotsky
Trotsky did the most to plan a Bolshevik takeover. He stressed that a rising against the government would have more chance of success if it was made under the auspices of a soviet action against a counter-revolutionary plot than if it were done openly in the name of Bolshevik party. Working through the Petrograd Soviet, the Bolsheviks challenged Kerensky's right to order troop movements in the capital. This goaded the premier into a denunciation of their tactics and into an attempt to arrest Lenin. Now the Bolsheviks could claim to be resisting counter-revolution and on the night of November 6-7 they seized key points in Petrograd and arrested the ministers of the Provisional Government. Kerensky tried to rally loyal troops outside the capital failed to do so and fled into exile.
- The Bolsheviks was the only political party which had openly proclaimed in their program the sole ideas which the immense majority of the country could understand and was longing for. Their policy had 2 realism which the policies of other parties lacked :-
a. Bolsheviks urged the immediate seizure of land by the peasants and all power to the Soviets.
b. They called for a rapid conclusion of the war. These ideas won them support away from the SR and Mensheviks. By the autumn of 1917, the Bolsheviks had gained in both membership and popular support. (membership increased to over 200,000, and control of the factory committees)
Immediate after the Revolution, private property in land was abolished and all private and church lands were transferred to land committees and soviets of peasant deputies for distribution.
In December 1917, after an armistice had been agreed, Trotsky began negotiations with the Germans. As Lenin insisted they needed a breathing space the Bolsheviks signed in March the punitive treaty of Brest-Litovsk. It cost her a total area of 1300,000 sq. miles, the loss of 1/3 of the entire population, 1/3 of the railways and 3/4 of coal and iron resources - three centuries of Russia expansion were undone.
Ulam sees the Treaty as a blessing in disguise for Lenin's regime. By stripping Russia of its borderlands, these terms made the Bolsheviks concentrate on dealing with opposition in Russia proper without trying to cope with the militant nationalism of the Poles, Finns and Ukrainians. Lenin's wisdom on the matter was in time vindicated and he was now seen as "the providential leader of the party and the state, without whom the regime would disintegrate". There is no doubt that Lenin's concessions to Germany were necessary for any attempt to continue the war would have caused violent opposition in Russia generally.
In the above programmes of the Bolsheviks, the "latent socialism without a doctrine" of the masses at last found its expression.
Other parties - they were haunted by the myth of the Constituent Assembly and "war to a victorious end". The result would be nothing except demoralization.
- The Bolshevik response was swift and ruthless. They started a 'red terror' through the Cheka.
Members of Provisional Government were deported; Zemstvos and municipal councils in Petrograd and Moscow were dissolved; the Russian Orthodox church was attacked, separation of Church and State was proclaimed on February, 1918.
Elections were held in November, 1917. When it returned a Social Revolutionary majority, it was dispersed by Bolshevik troops. In the summer of 1918, during the Civil War and Foreign Intervention, the Czar was murdered at Ekaterinburg.
Conclusion
With good leaders and good programme, the Bolsheviks succeeded to establish the first communist regime in history.
