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Lenin's role in the Russian Revolution
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LENIN’S ROLE IN THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION. Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, known famously as Lenin, died on the 21st of January in 1924 after having suffered many strokes. The sweeping state funeral followed in Moscow where his embalmed corpse was laid to rest in a mausoleum built outside the Kremlin’s walls. The cult that surrounded him was phenomenal and his teachings and theories are still widely taught and discerned today. His political tactics and revolutionary ideas gave rise to his somewhat meteoric fame. In 1917 after emerging as premier of the Soviet Government his fame and fortune grew overnight. It was not long before people were hypnotized by his speeches and peasants as well as workers would bow in his presence. Lenin can be seen as the backbone and driver in the events now referred to as the October revolution, where the Bolshevik’s (Lenin’s party) took over the Russian government in St Petersburg and were not only successful in seizing power but able to hang onto the position during a long civil war and thereafter. The revolution is a crucial event in our modern times. It transformed Russia and its effects are still felt around the globe today. Lenin was the main precursor who helped achieve and maintain this political order. Some may argue that Trotsky also held a main role but he was not a member of the party at the time were Lenin wrote and constructed his theses and therefore during the pre-condition phase was not as vital in Lenin’s initial success. Although throughout the civil war and the critical phase in general, Lenin relied upon Trotsky’s brilliant mind and military organizational skills to achieve greatness, it was Lenin’s drive and the conviction along with his unfailing commitment which struck those around him and drew them into the orbit that was Lenin. Lenin’s emergence as a revolutionary leader was during the pre-condition phase of the revolution, in 1903. Here as the second congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party, (RSDLP), he already showed signs of being a powerful, convincing leader. Lenin’s revolutionary ideas, tactics and policies allowed him to split the party on the issue of membership. His vision was that the party should be exclusive, comprised only of a small amount of professional revolutionaries. Lenin’s faction became known as the Bolsheviks and those who opposed, the Mensheviks, believed the part should be a mass organisation, which all workers could join. “There is evidence that the Social democrats who placed themselves in Lenin’s camp did so not because they preferred his way of the party statute but because they wanted to declare themselves for Lenin’s nerve.”(1) Lenin’s Bolshevik party attracted the support from professional revolutionaries from the provinces. They appeared more comfortable with Lenin’s unpretentious bearings and ordinary appearance than that of the Mensheviks and the Marxist intelligentsia in St Petersburg and Moscow who were drawn to them. “Lenin looked like a peasant from Volga”(2) “Lenin was one of them. He was a Russian from the Volga region, the heart of Russia…his speeches were powerful but without a hint of polish or elegance.
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