Essay About Russian Troops And Government

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They took over St. Petersburg (then Petrograd) and later captured
Moscow, meeting little resistance along the way (Jantzen 613). Lenin
took over the government and signed a treaty with Germany to take
Russia out of the war. Immediately thereafter, civil war broke out
between the Communists, called Reds, and the anti-Communists, called
Whites, who had help from Western nations (Johnson 43). This help from
outside Russia actually helped Lenin, as it drove public sentiment
against the Whites. Russian troops, scattered and dispirited, had
just been through World War I. Somehow, though, Lenin and his good
friend Leon Trotsky organized these troops into the Red Army and won
the war (Liversidge 59). It was now Lenins country.
Once he was fully in power, Lenin set up a true Communist
government. Russia became sixteen republics subdivided all the way
from districts down to soviets (committees) representing the workers,
soldiers, and peasants in that area. The country would be ruled from
the bottom up rather than the traditional top down (Johnson 30). Lenin
wanted a society where the working class was the ruling class; a
society where there is one social class, everyone has the same rights,
and, eventually, there is no private property. For a short time,
peasants were allowed to simply seize their former landlords land and
workers to control factories (U.S.S.R. 54). Later, however, all
industry was nationalized. To jump-start the economy, Lenin instituted
his New Economic Policy, which began to rejuvenate the economy by
permitting small industries to operate under their own control and
letting farmers keep or sell more of their products while the
government retained control of heavy industries such as metal working
(55). Lenin had earlier gained support with the simple promise “Bread,
peace, land,” (Lenin, V.I. 194) and he had begun to make good. Lenins
goals were becoming reality.
Tragically, Lenin died in 1924, rendering him unable to see
through any of his plans. He had suffered his first stroke in 1922,
and it was that year that a young Bolshevik named Josef Stalin — a
man whom