Lenins Ideology and the April Theses Flashcards
(12 cards)
What was the April Theses?
•It was a ready made political programme which went beyond anything other left wing leaders had been saying
When did he make the April theses?
•He mapped the political programme in “letters from Afar” which were written between 7 and 26 March
•It was later reissued as his April Theses
In his ‘letters from Afar’ what did Lenin make clear the Party’s job was?
•To lead the people forward to a second revolution
At this time what “stage” did the Petrograd Soviet, all Mensheviks and most Bolsheviks believe the revolution needed?
•A bourgeois stage of revolution
Why did Lenin reject the idea of a bourgeois stage of revolution?
•He believed that the Russian middle class was too weak to carry through a full ‘bourgeois revolution’ and to allow the middle class to continue in power was to joke the inevitable proletariat revolution back
•Since he believed the whole of Europe was on the brink of a social revolution anyway, he felt the Russian revolution had no need to confine itself to burgeons democratic objectives - this belief is sometimes refers to as permanent revolution
What is permanent revolution?
•The concept that continuing revolutionary progress within the USSR was dependent on a continuing process of revolution in other countries
As well as explained Lenin’s ideology, what demands did his April Theses make?
•The war should be brought to an immediate end
•power should be transferred to the soviets
•all land should be taken over by the state and re allocated to peasants by local soviets
What have Lenin’s demands in his April Theses often been summed up as?
•”Peace, bread and land”
•”All power to the Soviets”
How was Lenin’s demands taken at first?
•Not well, when his proposals were first put to a meeting of the social democrats (which was a convened attempt to bring about reconciliation of the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks) they caused uproar amoung the delegates
Why was the April Theses not taken well at first?
•Some Bolsheviks feared that Lenin had grown out of touch during his years of exile and that his radical proposals would do more than good
•There were allegations that Lenin was in the pay of the Germans which was true to an extent
•The Mensheviks feared Lenin would undermine what they had been doing and stir up discontent which would provoke a right wing reaction
•Some believed Lenin’s call to oppose the PG was unrealistic since the Bolsheviks were still in a minority amoung the socialists
How did Lenin eventually gain support?
•Through skills of persuasion, tactful retreat and compromise
•He threatened resignation
•He abandoned his call for an immediate overthrow of the PG thus winning over those who had feared civil war
•He took credit for much of what was already happening in Russia such as the peasants’ seizure of land in the countryside which actually occurred in the absence of authority
• he also took credit for the massive anti-war demonstration in Oetrograd which came after Milyukov announced the government would continue fighting “until victory”
•By the end of April, Lenin had won over the majority of the central committee of the Bolshevik Party by sheer force of personality
