To what extent did Lenin's legacy leave the Bolshevik party in a vibrant and healthy position.

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Cashel Gleeson

To What Extent did Lenin’s Legacy leave the Bolshevik Party in a Vibrant and Healthy position.

        

        To asses what position Lenin left the party in I will need to look at the position the Bolshevik party was in, in 1917 and see how far Lenin took the party up to his death in 1924.  

        Firstly and maybe most importantly Lenin brought the Bolsheviks from the outside of Russias political structure to the forefront of it.  He was the one who said that the time was right in 1917 for action to be taken and that the seizure of power should happen.  He changed the party policy in April from co-operation with the Provisional Government to outright opposition.  However although Lenin took this approach and made himself at the forefront of the seizure of power many revisionist Historians such as Edward Acton who wrote ‘Rethinking the Russian Revolution’ point out that Bolshevik party activists had been calling for these changes before Lenin’s return.  Which ever way this is looked at no one can argue that Lenins April Thesis, Peace,Land and Bread, didnt appeal to the people and offer a radically different alternative to the Provisional Government.  The impact that just the presence of Lenin had on people can be shown from a quot from the book 'A Short History of the Revolution' by J. Carmichael which says 'Lenin's voice heard straight from thetrain, was a voice from the outside...I shall never forget that thunderlike speech which startled and amazed not only me but all true believers.'  The need for change might not have been solely Lenins own thoughts but it was Lenin himself who new how to take the party forward and make these changes.  Lenins plans worked and in October 1917 the Bolsheviks seized power.  It was at this point however that Lenin would have to prove himself as a good leader to make sure that the Bolsheviks kept this power.

         Lenin's aim had never been to win mass support but to create a party capable of seizing power when the political situation was right.  After the Succesful October revolution Lenin was even more determined not to jepordise the Bolsheviks new power by allowing elections to dictate the pace of change.  Therefore the constuent assembly results of November 1917 left Lenin with an immediate problem as the Bolsheviks had only won a quarter of the seats.  Lenin had always originally supported the idea of a Constitent Assembly as it followed Bolshevik beliefs as a democratic, peoples party wanting eveyone to have a voice in the running of Russia.  However Lenin soon felt after these results that it would be impossible to govern Russia with a Constiuent Assembly and took ruthless action.  This is one of the first points that you see Lenin breaking away from true Bolshevik beliefs and also the promises to the people which had got the Bolsheviks into power.  In January 1918 the Constiuent Assembly was dissolved at gun point by the Red Guard.  Surely this action was not democratic and was taking the Bolshevik party away from democracy and closer to dictatorship.  Lenin justified his action always saying that 'To hand over power to the Constituent Assembly would again be compromising with the malignant bourgeoisie.'  People from within the party were concerned with Lenin's action as seen by what Maxim Gorky, one of the Bolshevik party's leading intellectuals at the time, said 'The best Rusians have lived for almost 100 years with the idea of a Constituent Assembly as a political organ which could provide Russian democracy as a whole with the possibility of freely excercising its will.  On the altar of this sacred idea rivers of blood have been spilled – and now the people's commissars have ordered the shooting of this democracy.'  Also many Foreign communists, which was what Lenin wanted in Russia, were appalled by his behaviour, 'To be sure, every democratic institution has its limitations.  But the remedy that Lenin has found, the elimination of democracy itself, is worse than the disease it is supposed to cure.' The Bolsheviks and Lenin issolated other parties and made it clear that they wanted to run Russia as 'a one party state'.  This altogether inevitabily sparked hostilities and a Civil War began in the Spring of 1918.  From the evidence above it is easy to see why some Historians even argue that Lenin wanted a war in 1918.  For example Dominic Liven said 'The civil war did not occur by accident... a socialist coalition would have made counter-revolution inconceivable...some Bolsheviks would have accepted a Socialist coalition but Lenin was not one of them.  The Bolshevik leader rejected this course and persude policies, which as he well knew, made civil war inevitable.'  This show that from the start Lenin put the Bolsheviks in an awkward position and was taking them in some aspects away from ther Marxist roots.

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        The Civil war however can not solely be looked on as negative in terms of Lenins role in it.  He brought the Bolsheviks through the difficult situation of the Civil War showing that he was a capable leader of the Bolsheviks.  I have previously said that Lenin went against the beliefs of his party from the start of there power but on the otherhand maybe he had to compromise his and the party's beliefs at the start of there rule so as to make sure that the Bolsheviks sustained power and could then build on there power introducing there true ...

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