Why the Bolsheviks were Able to Seize Power in 1917

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Why the Bolsheviks were Able to Seize Power in 1917

There are many reasons for which the Bolsheviks were able to take

control 1917, amongst them being precise organisation and planning,

exceptional timing and a fair amount of good luck. In this essay I

wish to discuss these issues in more depth and explain why the

Bolshevik revolution was able to take place.

In September 1917 the Bolshevik party became the largest in the

Petrograd Soviet and they controlled the Military Committee, which was

under chairman Leon Trotsky, a leading member of the Bolshevik

movement. He used the Military Committee to organise the revolution.

The Bolshevik leader Vladimir Ilich Lenin returned from exile around

this time and this prompted action; he had been pushing the Bolsheviks

towards revolution for years and now things were finally in motion.

To launch the revolution, the Bolsheviks and the Red Guards seized the

key communicational areas of Petrograd and Moscow such as the

Telegraph Agency, the Telephone Exchange and the State Bank as well as

railway stations and bridges. This was a tactical move ordered by

Lenin and organised by Trotsky in order to make apparent that the

Bolsheviks had the cities completely under their power.

The Red Guards then stormed the Winter Palace and arrested the

ministers of the Provisional Government. Here they were supported by

the battleship Aurora, which was said to have been carrying heavy

artillery and ample fire power.

Their leader, Kerensky, fled Petrograd and attended the front line in

an attempt to rally troops to form an opposition to the revolution.

This failed badly as there were not enough loyal troops to follow him

and he was therefore forced into exile.

While all this was in motion, the All-Russian Congress of Soviets was

in meeting. The Mensheviks and most of the Social Revolutionaries

walked out, leaving Lenin and the Bolsheviks in power.

Following this, Lenin proclaimed a new government of Russia and one

week later the Bolshevik party seized control of Moscow. They now had

control over the two largest cities in Russia, but little else.

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