The Bolsheviks Did Not Sieze Power They — страница 2

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how this should be brought about. The Bolsheviks had a tightly controlled and disciplined party in which all members obeyed orders from the leaders. They saw themselves as professional revolutionaries who could bestow their country with leadership the population could not provide themselves. They also believed that they had the power to speed up the process of the forthcoming Revolution. On the other hand the Mensheviks were open and willing to acquire differences of opinion. They were of the opinion that the revolution would not occur until economic conditions were stable and while Russia was still under Tsarist regime this would not be for a long time. Friction between the two factions dominated party politics until the commencement of World War One. Both the Bolsheviks and the

Mensheviks were followers and believers in Karl Marx (1818-83) a German who is known for being the father of Communism. He concluded that after hundreds of years of dictatorship one day the middle class would rise to power and this would only happen as a result of a revolution. He believed that only then would every one be equal. Marx noted that this would only happen in countries like Britain and Germany and not in Russia as it was a feudal country. It is somehow ironic that Russia was the first to fall to Communism. “Despite all this discontent, the prospects for revolution did not seem good in 1914. None of the revolutionary parties was organised to take over power. Most of their leaders were in prison or in exile. It was only the outbreak of the First World War that,

unexpectedly, gave them the opportunity for which they had been looking.” Allied with Britain, Russia s army was the biggest in the war with about 14 million soldiers being drafted by 1917. This did not stop them from being unprepared and inadequately qualified with one gun available for every three soldiers in training and three bullets a day for soldiers in battle. Russia began to suffer humiliating defeats and in 1915, the Tsar went to the front to take over as Commander in Chief of the armed forces. He left Alexandra behind to run the country, who was unpopular with the people because of her German background. She was under the influence of a wandering peasant holy man called Rasputin who took over the government and sacked many competent ministers and advisors. The new

ministers that Rasputin appointed were not only incompetent but corrupt and this added to the popular discontent that swept Russia. In February 1917 representatives from the Duma went to see the Tsar at the front and urged him to abdicate. He did, with little resistance, not only for himself, but his son Alexis as well. Nicholas brother The Grand Duke Michael was offered the throne and he declined, so after 300 years of the Romanov dynasty Russia was no longer a monarchy. This created the biggest power vacuum that Russia had ever experienced. A provisional government was set up. Headed by Alexander Kerensky, they abolished the Okrana and introduced the freedoms of speech and press. These moves were popular with the people. This popularity did not last for long. The Provisional

Government refused to pull out of the War because they thought that under new instruction the army would start to succeed. This was not the case. Soldiers began setting up committees and refusing to obey the commanders who were sending them into battle. Secondly, they refused to address the matter of peasants and their land. This once more resulted in great discontentment and the provisional government became known as being as autocratic in their dealings with the people as the Tsar had been. Lenin spent his whole adult life waiting for the revolution and when it first happened, in February 1917, it caught him off guard while he was hiding in Finland. By April he had returned to Petrograd (formally St. Petersburg). At a Bolshevik meeting he said that they should begin the second

revolution immediately, “Hunger does not wait. The peasant uprising does not wait. The war does not wait.” . Lenin stood in front of crowds of peasants at a demonstration and said “Peace, Bread and Land” . This is what they wanted to hear. After the hardship and damage that World War one had brought to the people, all they wanted was peace, and at any cost. That is perhaps why the Bolsheviks rise to power was approved by the Russian people. On October 25 the Winter Palace was stormed by the Bolsheviks and the Provisional Government succumbed to the pressure and gave in. The Provisional Government realised that they possessed no real power or support from the people and that there was no future for them as rulers of Russia. The Bolsheviks did not seize power they merely