History CaseEssay Preview: History CaseReport this essayFollowing its seizure of power in Russia, the Bolshevik party led by Lenin faced massive political opposition: the Social Revolutionaries – the party of the peasants – had more support in the countryside, and the Bolsheviks, despite being the traditional party of the proletariat, didnt even dominate the Soviets. Nevertheless, despite facing some serious political threats upon coming to power, the Bolsheviks managed to maintain power. Lenins effective dealing of the problems his party faced can be considered as the main reason why the Bolsheviks triumphed over opposition.
First of all, Lenin had to deal with the threat posed by the lack of popular support. Instead of exercising power through the Soviet, Lenin formed a new body: the Sovnarkom, which was exclusively made up of Bolsheviks. When Lenin allowed the elections to the Constituent Assembly to go ahead in November 1917, the Bolsheviks won only 175 seats against 410 for the Socialist Revolutionaries. As a result, Lenin declared that his form of government represented a higher stage of democracy than an elected assembly. The Assembly was allowed to meet for one day – 5 January 1918 – then it was closed down and the deputies told to go home. Lenins decision to dissolve the Assembly was effective because his party could have total control of the government. His principle of democratic centralism therefore contributed to consolidate the Bolsheviks position.
However, there was still enormous pressure on the Bolsheviks to form a democratic government representing all the socialist parties. Hundreds of petitions flooded in from factory committees and army units demanding that there be cooperation between parties to avoid civil war. The railwaymens union, backed by the post and telegraph union, threatened to cut off communications if the party did not hold talks with other parties. A few of the leading Bolsheviks, including Kamenev and Zinoviev, were even in favour of a coalition with other socialist parties. However, Lenin had no intention of seriously including other parties, since he feared that he may be sidelined in a coalition government. As a result, he deliberately made sure that talks with other socialist parties collapsed: he wanted the Bolsheviks to rule alone. Nonetheless he did show interest in coalition and he effectively made an alliance with th
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For the first time since the fall of the USSR, Lenin was actively involved in building a central government on a national level.
At the end of October 1938, a united government broke up, with every third party taking over, and led by Kamenev. In November the first general elections of the working class were held in Russia. That year the Provisional Government was dissolved. The Party’s leadership was divided between Kamenev and Zinoviev—two of whom were considered as having committed treason. Since Kamenev could not succeed, he decided that he was not in the best position to establish a government in Russia. Kamenev and Zinoviev met at the Petrograd Palace to set up a new Government, but it took a while for the new government to assemble. Despite some success in this area, at the end of January the Bolsheviks again tried to form a new government. There was no consensus across the leadership, which had to be strengthened over a period of time and led to an embarrassing election.
Stalin’s fall and his resignation were the last signs that the working class could turn against the government, having lost the political will to fight for its gains after the October revolution. The leadership collapsed once again. Lenin had no intention of forming a government even if there were no other options. This turned into a “Stalinite” government, where the Bolsheviks had to support the opposition. Once again the state had betrayed and betrayed the people, especially when the police and courts broke up after the fall of the Tsar, while the government tried to establish a constitutional government. The whole process was a fiasco. No elected representatives were needed, and no state authority was needed if there was a serious crisis. This was particularly true in relation to the situation of the working class. For the majority of social democratic parties, they would be controlled by the old Stalinists (in the first place Trotskyists and all those who still participated in the Bolshevik party in the 1920s and 1940s). There was still no working class party in Russia, though some of those working classes supported the Provisional Government. The working class itself had to make an effort to defend itself, and in December the Soviet government collapsed.
The party was in fact unable to form a government in Russia because the leadership had lost its political will to organize a government for them. And it was completely defeated. The working class of the 1930s had been the most important factor behind the party’s defeat. While the leadership of the Provisional Government was weakened, the leadership of the National Front failed, and its members died. Lenin was not aware of how much his party had lost. Nonetheless the Party had shown some strength in 1917, when thousands of its members revolted as a peaceful protest against the Bolshevik Government. Moreover the Party was still in a much stronger position when the Soviet Union collapsed after its election victory. That means that Lenin’s victory was not completely ineffectual. It was very important to have a party that supported democratic socialist policies and policies of the time. This meant that only through national struggle and a genuine democratic socialism would the Bolsheviks succeed. But, as soon as the leadership of the Party took up the question of national liberation, and led the Party against the Party, it became clear that they no longer had any means to unite the majority of rank and file in 1917, and that they were being robbed of the potential for winning the popular vote.
The victory of Lenin and the “new government” was achieved by the political victory of the socialist parties. After the October revolution, when the Provisional Government collapsed, there was more opposition