Lenin's Role in the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917

Lenin's Role in the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917

After March 1917, the Russian revolution was yet to be completed. The

Tsar had been overthrown, the power and responsibility of the

government of Russia had been passed on 'duelly' to the Provincial

Government and the workers Soviet, the most powerful Soviet in

Petrograd. In November 1917, the second revolution was planned, a

Bolshevik revolution. Evidence around the Bolshevik revolution is not

completely reliable, but it is widely agreed that events in November

1917 were not as the Bolsheviks later described and boasted.

Soviet censored films, art and literature after 1917 record an

incredibly contradictory image of the November revolution than the

picture that is the truth. In Eisenstein's film 'October' that was

made in 1927, the storming of the Winter Palace where the Provincial

Government were, was shown as a heroic, brave, but a violent struggle

of the Russian masses overcoming a government that they thought had no

interest in the people's wishes. The film portrays the Russian spirit

standing up against hunger, war and laws that prevented peasants from

owning land, and how it was by their sheer will and force that the

government was overthrown. This myth perhaps continues into the role

of Lenin in the Bolshevik revolution. In the film 'October', Lenin is

portrayed as an inspiring, courageous, all great leader who was

followed by thousands of Russians. This is simply not the complete

real case. As one witness describes; "I heard shouting in the street

of Lenin! Lenin!, but we had no idea who this Lenin was." It is

interesting to note that it took a further three years for Lenin ...

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...cial Government helped the

Bolsheviks gain support by their mistakes and gave the Bolsheviks fuel

to use against them. Other parties were disorganised and the people

were induring food shortages and bad conditions, they had little else

to turn to. On the night of the November revolution there was little

resistance and only 1 in 600 Russians supported the Bolsheviks.

However, it remains that Lenin knew he was going to die and he wanted

to be alive to see the revolution. It was Lenin who insisted and

pushed the Bolsheviks into motion. I think he was an important factor

in the November 1917 revolution, but there were many other factors

that allowed the Bolshevik revolution to take place. Alone he could

not have made the revolution happen, but it was all other contributing

events that brought the revolution together.