The October Revolution
The Great October Socialist Revolution, known more commonly as the October Revolution or the Bolshevik Revolution, occurred in 1917 in Russia, and the revolt resulted in a leftist government coming to power. The uprising started in the then-capital city of St. Petrograd, now St. Petersburg, and spread nationwide. Headed by Vladimir Lenin of the Bolshevik party, the October Revolution was the first communist rebellion of the 20th century and was founded on the beliefs of Karl Marx. The events of the October Revolution helped lay the groundwork for Stalinism and the Cold War. The Stage Is Set
The Bolshevik Revolution in Russia in 1917 was initiated by millions of people who would change the history of the world as we know it. When Czar Nicholas II dragged 11 million peasants into World War I, the Russian people became discouraged with their injuries and the loss of life they sustained. The country of Russia was in ruins, ripe for revolution.
Provisional Government Established
During a mass demonstration of women workers in February of 1917, the czar's officials called out the army to squelch the protesters. The women convinced the soldiers to put their guns away and help them in their cause. Czar Nicholas II was dethroned in Russia during this, the "February Revolution." The Provisional Government was formed to replace the void left by the deposed czar. This provisional government was made up of bankers, lawyers, industrialists, and capitalists. The provisional government was very weak and failed to live up to its promise of ending Russia's involvement in the war. They kept Russia in the war and just made things worse for themselves and for Russia.
The Rise of the Bolshevik Party
The Provisional Government was opposed right away by the soviets, or councils of workers and peasants, who wanted the right to make their own decisions. When V. I. Lenin arrived from exile in the spring of 1917, he joined the Bolshevik Party in Russia whose goal was to overthrow the Provisional Government and set up a government for the proletariat. The soldiers began to ask for land, just as their fellow peasants were. When the Provisional Government refused to distribute the land fairly, the peasants took matters into their own hands by taking the land themselves. The Bolshevik party went on the offensive and tried to educate the workers and soldiers, convincing them to seize power and land for themselves. In July 1917, the workers challenged the Provisional Government and ended up defeated, with their leader jailed and Lenin going into hiding. At the point when everything looked very bad for the Bolsheviks, two very good things happened. First, the Provisional Government ordered a big war offensive that ended up in ruin, with thousands being either killed or injured. Late in August, the soldiers of the Provisional Government began to fall away from their support of the Provisional Government and began to support the workers. They were becoming closer and closer to being Bolsheviks themselves. Secondly, in September, during the so-called Kornilov Affair, a pro-czar section of the military threatened Petrograd, which was the city occupied by the Bolsheviks and the Provisional Government. The Bolsheviks had established themselves as the only party which stood in opposition to continuing the war effort. The Bolshevik workers had to unite and fight as one against the military. Now that the Bolsheviks had the support of the workers, they were able to win the important elections in early September in important Russian industrial centers. By the middle of September, the Bolsheviks had formally acquired a majority in the St. Petersburg Soviet.
The Revolution
In early October, Lenin convinced the Bolshevik Party to form an immediate insurrection against the Provisional Government. The Bolshevik leaders felt it was of the utmost importance to act quickly while they had the momentum to do so. The armed workers known as Red Guards and the other revolutionary groups moved on the night of Nov. 6-7 under the orders of the Soviet's Military Revolutionary Committee. These forces seized post and telegraph offices, electric works, railroad stations, and the state bank. Once the shot rang out from the Battleship Aurora, the thousands of people in the Red Guard stormed the Winter Palace. The Provisional Government had officially fallen to the Bolshevik regime. Once the word came to the rest of the people that the Winter Palace had been taken, people from all over rose and filled it. V. I. Lenin, the leader of the Bolsheviks, announced his attempt to construct the socialist order in Russia. This new government made up of Soviets, and led by the Bolsheviks. By early November, there was little doubt that the proletariats backed the Bolshevik motto: "All power to the soviets!"
As the revolution was not universally recognized, there followed the struggles of the Russian Civil War (1917–1922) and the creation of the Soviet Union in 1922.
Aftermath and Consequences
The October Revolution cannot be adequately characterized as either a military coup d'état or a popular uprising (although it contained elements of both). Its roots are to be found in the peculiarities of prerevolutionary Russia's political, social, and economic development, as well as in Russia's wartime crisis. At one level, it was the culminating event in a drawn-out battle between leftists and moderates: on the one hand, an expanding spectrum of left socialist groups supported by the vast majority of Petrograd workers, soldiers, and sailors dissatisfied by the results of the February revolution; and on the other, the increasingly isolated liberal–moderate socialist alliance that had taken control of the Provisional Government and national Soviet leadership during the February days. By the time the Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets convened on November 7 (October 25 O.S.), the relatively peaceful victory of the former was all but assured. At another level, the October Revolution was a struggle, initially primarily within the Bolshevik leadership, between proponents of a multi-party, exclusively socialist government that would lead Russia to a Constituent Assembly in which socialists would have a dominating voice, and Leninists, who ultimately favored violent revolutionary action as the best means of striking out on an ultra-radical, independent revolutionary course in Russia and triggering decisive socialist revolutions abroad.
Muted for much of 1917, this conflict erupted with greatest force in the wake of the February Revolution, in the immediate aftermath of the July uprising, and during the periods immediately preceding and following the October Revolution. Such factors as the walkout of Mensheviks and SRs from the Second All–Russian Congress of Soviets, prompted by the belated military operations pressed by Lenin and precipitated by Kerensky; the adoption of the Bolshevik program at the Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets; the intransigence of the moderate socialists at the Vikzhel talks; and the Bolsheviks' first military victories over loyalist forces decisively undermined the efforts of moderate Bolsheviks to achieve a multiparty, socialist democracy and facilitated the rapid ascendancy of Leninist authoritarianism. In this sense, the October Revolution extinguished prospects for the development of a Western-style democracy in Russia for the better part of a century. Despite being allowed to seize power so easily Lenin soon discovered that his support was far from absolute. His Peace Policy with the Germans was particularly unpopular as it ceded large amounts of Russian territory. Shortly after the October Revolution, the Russian Civil War broke out between the 'Reds' (Communists) and the 'Whites' (Nationalists, Conservatives, Imperialists and other anti-Bolshevik groups). After a bloody four year struggle Lenin and the Reds won, establishing the Soviet Union in 1922, at an estimated cost of 15 million lives and billions of roubles. In 1923 Lenin died and Stalin took over the Communist Party, which continued to rule Russia until 1991 when the USSR was dissolved. However, despite these outcomes, the October revolution was in large measure a valid expression of popular aspirations.