Lenin's Rise to Power

Liliane Neubecker 22.10.08

Analyse the rise to power of Lenin. (1917 -1921)

Lenin's rise to power was something set for him from a very young age. He was a Russian Marxist revolutinary, and only four years after Marx's death, Lenin (at twenty-four years of age) was already found in a Siberian prison for being a traitor to the Tsar. Whilst in his cell he could look over the Lena river, which is where he adopted his name Lenin – from Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov – although he claims it started after the Lena goldfields massacre in 1912, he was first known as Lenin in 1903. Lenin's political aspirations initiated with his Father – a school master who wanted democracy. After family tragedies Lenin adopted Marxist opinions except that he believed that the masses still needed to be controled and would never reach a point where they could rule themselves (a highly centralized party and purging anyone against him or his party), which made his opinions more communist than marxist.

Lenin was an active member of the Russian Socialist Democratic Labour Party and in 1903 it split into the Bolsheviks (meaning more) and the Mensheviks (meaning less), because Lenin believed that force, and terror to some extent, was the solution for the survival of the Party. For a while the Bolsheviks were ironicaly a minority. Come the First World War, Lenin claimed it to be an Imperialistic war. However, nationalism grew and his support did not. He was seen as a traitor and forced into exile – he fled to Zurich in Switzerland. Lenin believed that a civil war would set Russia straight. He protested “Down with the war! Down with the Tsar”. However his words had fallen on deaf ears at the start of the war. By 1917 Russia had had it, there was a depression of moral, economic issues, the war was being lost, food shortages. Eventually people began to listen to Lening and in March 1917 Tsar Nicholas II abdicated, and that was the end of Tsardom. When lenin heard this knews he returned to Russia thanks to the help of Austria and Germany. Although his exile was in a sens uplifted it does not change the fact that he had been away for ten years, questioning his influence he had for his rise to power. Lenin's policies were not popular when he was in dual authority with the Provisional Government led by Alexander Kerensky, he had said “All cooperation with the Provisional Government must cease.” This attitude made him somewhat unpopular. He held on to his ideas of a small party of about only 0.1 percent of the population. However Lenin was persuasive and an oppertunist – like many political leaders at that time.

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Trotsky was also an active member of the Russian Socialist Democratic Labour Party but in 1903 he fallowed the Mensheviks. However in 1904 he left them as they wanted an alliance with the Russian liberals and described himself as a “non-factional social democrat”. Trotsky tried to get certain parties back together, however he didn't achieve this. In 1907 he fled to London. By 1917 he was in New York city. With the First World War, passifism and peace brought Lenin and Trotsky back together. With the fall of Tsardom, he finaly found his way back in Russia by June 1917, after the first revolution which overthrew the Tsar. After several months he found his way into the Bolshevik party and began to discuss the fall of Kerensky and the Provisional Government. To carry out the revolution, several organisations were set up, such as the Military Revolutionary Committee. Trotsky was in charge of it – a troika. Basicly their purpous was to take over any means of communication outside of Petrograd – to stop Kerensky from getting help. Kerensky did end up leaving the city, but before he could bring help

back, the Bolsheviks had taken over the city, and had attacked the winter palace – the Provisional Government head quarters – and aressted Provisional Government officials. They had previously assumed the course events, and had already spreaded their triumph on flyers. In the early morning Lenin announced the victory – socialism over capitalsim.

Now that they had won Petrograd and set up their Sovnarcom – Government of the Soviet Union –, they needed to ensure the success of their revolution. Petrograd, was easy. So they needed to take over Moscow, as it had shown resistence in the past. When they finaly won Moscow over, that was a real victory, and that is why the made it the capital. So that they could ensure future support and to flaunt their success. However their success they still faced many problems, inflation, lack of raw materials and worsening of the food shortages. So Lenin passed two Decrees ; Land and Workers. Lenin made sure that the Peasants got the land that righteously belonged to them and accepted that workers could takeover, but instructed workers committees to maintain strict discipline and order. They then established the Cheka, which was a similar force as the Okhrana – the Tsars secret police. Lenin crushed the Constituent Assembly, as he saw it as a capitalist way of keeping the bourgeoisie in Power, and that numbers, didn't matter.

Then came the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. Lenin wanted the war to end as soon as possible. He thought of it to be pointless to keep fighting, because if they lost against Russia, it would take the Russian territories and borders, however, if it left the war, it could lost its territories but gain them back once the great powers won on the western front. Russia ended up losing thirty percent of her population, fifty percent of her indrustry and twenty-five percent of her land area. There was a small group of Bolsheviks who didn't agree with the treaty, the Left Communists. By 1918, Lenin wanted a destructive civil war. During this Civil war Lening promoted “War Communism” – suplying towns and Red Army forces with weapons and food. There were Reds Whites and Greens against each other. The reds of course were the communist Bolsheviks, the whites were any party or parliament against the Reds, or who have been opressed by them, the Greens were smaller nationalities trying to free themselves from Russia. The Whites then got international allies such as Great Britain and France, however they could not be of very much help as they had just endured the First World War. The Bolsheviks suceeded the civil war because they had inspired themselves from Trotsky, they had many back up officers from Tsardom willing to help, the Bolsheviks were united geographically and strategically. This was the opposite for the White forces.

However by the end of the civil war, Lenin accomplished Famine, murder of the Tsar, opposition to his own party and had to come up with a new plan to deal with the problems, he came up with the New Economic Plan. Bolshevik economic policies became very unpopular at the end of the war, industry was harshly affected. The New Economic Plan was needed to control trading and marketing, peasantry support, ressumption of local merchants, exports, and the introduction to of levied taxes. Lenin was making a heavy decision, as the New Economic Plans because they were more capitalist than communist.

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