Soldiers on the Eastern Front refused to go to the front line many men began to desert and soon many men had left the army.
Economic and agricultural issues were also a growing problem in Russia as there were not enough men to run manual labour. People were literally starving due to this crisis.
Some of these soldiers who returned to their homes used their weapons to seize land from the nobility.
While all these problems were happening the Bolsheviks had sent 25,000 armed recruits to defend Petrograd! The Provisional Government’s troops refused to attack the Bolsheviks, so they began to claim glory. On 7th November, Kerensky was informed that the Bolsheviks were about to seize power. He decided to leave Petrograd and try to get the support of the Russian Army on the Eastern Front. Later that day the Red Guards stormed the Winter Palace and members of the Kerensky's cabinet were arrested. The Provisional Government was now replaced by an administration headed by Vladimir Lenin. Lenin was a Bolshevik and a communist. Although the Bolsheviks had power of most Russia, other people may argue otherwise. For example, the whites and social revolutionaries had their power base extremely dispersed around the country. Lenin and his followers controlled the major transport links such as trains, so this allowed them to ship troops around the country.
There were problems with the Social Revolutionaries, in that
They all had different political objectives, for example, some were in favour of bringing back the monarchy whilst some were simply nationalistic in terms of wanting their own area to be a country i.e. the Ukrainians and the Bolsheviks controlled the two major cities of Moscow and St Petersburg and therefore had a lot of the industrial power to produce arms and also had the control of the transport centres. People also argued, though, that it wasn't simply the leadership of Lenin which helped him to take power, other figures can also be said to have had a large influence, for example, Trotsky who was known for his extremely impressive oratory and had a major impact on the civil war through the use of such tactics as touring the country in a train to rally the troops and spread the Bolshevik message.
