Role of Lenin bulding up to The October Revolution Flashcards
(11 cards)
How did the committee respond to Lenin’s pressures for seizing power?
•three days later the committee voted against a coup
•Even Lenin’s threats of resignation failed to move them
Who were the Bolshevik Committees 2 most prominent members?
Lev Kamanev and Grigirii Zinoviev
How did Zinoviev and Kamanev feel about Lenin’s urge of power seizure?
•They, in turn, urged restraint against Lenin, fearing that Russia was not yet economically ready for revolution
•They even burnt some of Lenin’s letters
•They believed that they should not act before the constituent assembly elections (the date of which was yet to be decided)
What did Trosky suggest that Kamanev, Zinoviec and the Bolshevik party do?
•He suggested that they should work through the Petrograd Society which was due to convene on 26th of October
•He believe that, at this congress, they could win the support of all socialist parties for a Soviet government without having to resort to violence
What did an increasingly frustrated Lenin do on the 10th October?
•He slipped back into Russia in disguise and lectured the Central committee of the Bolshevik party all night
•Lenin finally succeeded with a vote of 10-2, in pursuading the committee that an ‘armed rising is the order of the day’
Who took Lenin’s side and who didn’t after the 10th of October?
•Trosky took Lenin’s side but Zinoviev and Kamanev refused to agree and published their own views in the newspaper - Novaia zhin( new life), declaring that, “If we take power now and we are forced into a revolutionary war, the mass of soldiers will not support us”
Once the vote of action had been carried who was the responsibility largely left to organize the revolution?
•Trosky
How did Trosky prepare for the revolution?
•He send Bolshevik speakers around the factories, whipping up support and in accordance with the Soviet resolution of October 5th, a ‘’military Revolutionary Committee” was set up under Trosky and Dzerzhinsky on October 16th
•This comprised 66 members, 48 of them Bolsheviks
• Trosky massed troops at the Bolshevik headquarters in the smolny institute, and since the Mensheviks and SR refused to cooperate these became a force made of militias from the Bolshevik red guards, former soldiers and policemen
•Commissions were sent to all Petrograd Garrison units and 15 of the 18 declared that the Soviet rather than the Provisional government
• these commissioners ensured loyalty and issued orders and organized weapon supplies

•In total the community came to control 20,000 red guard 60,000 baltic sailors and 150,000 soldiers are the remaining Petrograd Garrison units
•In this way revolution was established even before the revolution officially began on 25th of October
From mid September 1917 how did Lenin start to pressure the Bolshevik party?
•Lenin, who was still hiding in Finland, has begun bombarding the 12-man committee of the Bolshevik party with letters demanding that they prepare for the Revolution and the seizure of power
•September 12th, he suggested that ‘History will not forgive us if we don’t assume power now’
