Question

Significance of bolshevik revolution of russia on the history of the world

Answer 1

The Bolshevik Revolution can be seen nothing less than a turning point in Russian history. The failings of the provisional government increased the support to the revolutionary soviets promising an end to the war and an answer to famine. With so many soviets offering the similar promises, the seizure and consolidation of power by the Bolshevik party had to be swift, resulting in implementing extreme policies to eliminate the opposition and to consolidate power. This had resulted in the ending of the Russian dynasty, peace by any means and severe hunger throughout Russia from war communism, during the civil war which I will attempt to address throughout this essay.

It can be said, that the Bolshevik Revolution would never have gone the way it did without Lenin or Trotsky. Trotsky has said, ‘If neither Lenin nor I had been present, there would have been no October Revolution: the leadership of the Bolshevik party would have prevented it from occurring.'[1] As a result, Lenin’s initial policies to consolidate power attempted to reform Russia into a Socialist country as quickly as possible. Policies were created to fulfil the promises made before the Revolution by enforcing the abolishment of titles and classes, the church, army ranks and introduced shorter working days. However, historian Lionel Kochan argued that although Lenin, ‘had fulfilled his promises of peace and land, his third promise, bread had yet to be achieved'[2] causing means to be criticised. He also argues that the, ‘conditions were so chaotic at the time that many of these measures had no effect at all'[3] devaluing Lenin’s role. Lenin had introduced centralisation. It is viewed as the most important factor for consolidating power after the Bolshevik Revolution, by historian, Rick B.A. Wise, ‘the centralisation in power couples with the building of a strong army, was largely responsible for the Bolsheviks’ success'[4] suggesting that centralisation was a contributing factor to the success of the Revolution