What Role Did Trotsky Play In The Russian Revolution

Throughout Russia’s history, there have been many rulers that tried to manage their country in different ways. Even though, all of these rulers had their own unique ways of ruling, all of them were seen as terrible by the people. This eventually led to a tipping point for the Russian citizens and the Russian Revolution took place. The goal for these people was to gain freedom from their oppressive czar but instead, they got an even worse leader. Joseph Stalin was a leader of the Soviet Union from 1929 to 1953 and he was known for his ability to strike fear into people.

He ended up resorting to “war communism” during the Russian Civil War, and the Bolsheviks needed to quickly produce goods. When the war was over, Lenin became sick and Trotsky began ruling after him. Trotsky took the role of controlling the corrective measures

The Great Purge of Russia was when 10 millions of people were put into labour camps or executed, but not only were the public affected but the political parties too. In 1934, Kirov, the leader of Leningrad communist party, was murdered. Stalin used this as an opportunity to order massive purges on anybody suspected of disloyalty. 93 of the 139 central committee members were put to death, as well as 81 of the 103 generals

A Bolshevik was a member of the majority faction of the Russian Social Democratic Party. He was then replaced by Vladimir Lenin who then took power and ruled the country. So, What

Post WWl, Russia was still not industrialized, suffering economically and politically and in no doubt in need of a leader after Lenin’s death. “His successor, Joseph Stalin, a ruthless dictator, seized power and turned Russia into a totalitarian state where the government controls all aspects of private and public life.” Stalin showed these traits by using methods of enforcement, state control of individuals and state control of society. The journey of Stalin begins now.

Stalin desired to be the leader of the Communist party, and was willing to manipulate his opponents and play them off against each other, which he did successfully. He first joined forces with Grigory Zinovyev and Leon Kamenev (other replacement candidates) to lead the country. He used them to get rid of the most likely replacement for Lenin’s position, Leon Trotsky. Lenin had always wanted Trotsky to replace him if anything had happened; however Stalin’s heart was hardened and he ended up kicking him out of the political loop. Even in Lenin’s political testament, he worried about Stalin’s mental stability and stated that he should not be chosen to rule (Service 124).

The Russians Fight Back Three outcome and causes of the Russian revolution were the large amount of peasant population, Russia joined the war when they knew that they couldn’t even pull their own weight, and communism took over Russia. The tsar joined the war thinking that he would gain nationalism and patriotism from the peasants.(doc.1).He thought that all the people would rush to sign up to fight for their country and support the tsar. The first months after joining the war were disastrous. The tsar had to steal from his people to give to the troops who had very little supplies.

However, the question of whether he was a hero who toppled an oppressive tyranny, or a villain who replaced it with another remains a controversial one today. In 1917, Lenin helped overthrow the Russian tsar Nicholas II, and founded the Soviet Union. On October 1917, after the victory of the Russian Revolution, Lenin did not have a clear image on socialism, or how it meant to be built. He was, however, able to state the three principal characteristics of socialism, which were the public ownership of the means of production, an end to exploitation, and the dictatorship of the proletariat. He did not take action on these points, and did not devote much attention to socialism as he felt it was not yet an immediate issue.

He begins with the statement on how many people are happy with the achievements of socialism has achieved, but one class was not happy (Fordham University). This class was known as the gentry, Stalin described them as follows, "These gentry were guided in their evaluation of the achievements of the workers and collective farmers not by the interests of the people, who applauded every such achievement, but by the interests of their own wretched and putrid faction, which had lost all contact with the realities of life” (Fordham University). Next speeches by the gentry were analyzed, Fordham University States, “At the Seventeenth Party Congress, Bukharin, Rykov and Tomsky made repentant speeches, praising the Party and extolling its achievements to the skies. But the congress detected a ring of insincerity and duplicity in their speeches” “Speeches were also made at the Seventeenth Congress by the Trotskyites, Zinoviev and Kamenev, who lashed themselves extravagantly for their mistakes, and eulogized the Party no less extravagantly for its achievements.” By the writing of Stalin, it seemed that this group of individuals were plain

Not many months later after this, new government was soon overthrown and gone by the Bolsheviks. We soon later found out that they were led by a man named Vladimir Lenin. The man, Vladimir Lenin was the exact founder of the Russian Communist party. A bit of background knowledge on him is that he was born on April 22, 1870 in Russia.

Furthermore, they wanted to start revolution against decisions made by their tragic excuse of a czar, Nicholas II. These transactions proposed as the idea of a revolution gained followers and grew greatly in hopes to create change. These transactions were right because they opposed what the people needed, which was equal treatment and protection for not only people of higher authority, but yet for everyone. Once Lenin gained control of Russia as new czar, great changes were created. As proposed, Lenin followed through with his wanted changes and made them present in Russian society.

March 1902: Publication of Lenin's “What Is To Be Done? “ July-August 1903: Second Congress of Social Democrats in Brussels and London; Bolshevik-Menshevik split emerges for the first time. February 1904:

Trotsky realized that there was no point in campaigning for all power to go the “soviets”, if the Bolsheviks had minimal influence in them. As a result, he erected the ‘October plan,’ which saw the party legitimately taking control of the soviet, while establishing the Milrevcom, a loyal militia established under the false pretence of preventing revolutionary activity. The mere fact that the PG did not attempt to prevent Trotsky’s creation of what was essentially a private army accentuates the notion, the red party had already garnered the popular support of Petrograd. October 25th saw the Milrevcom and Red Army seize the winter palace and other important infrastructure, compelling an assortment of government members to step down without spilling blood. By timing the attack with the second Congress of Soviets, the Bolsheviks were able to legitimise their actions through the permission of all of Russia, and establish a communist government.

On April 7, the Bolshevik newspaper Pravda published the ideas contained in Lenin’s speeches, which collectively came to be known as the April Theses. From the moment of his return through late October 1917, Lenin worked for a single goal: to place Russia under Bolshevik control as quickly as possible. The immediate effect of Lenin’s attitude, however, was to alienate most other prominent Socialists in the city. Members of the Petrograd Soviet, and even many members of Lenin’s own party, wrote Lenin off as an anarchist quack who was too radical to be taken seriously. “All Power to the Soviets”

The Bolsheviks were a great and important group in this time period. Everyone knew about them, and then they changed their party the Communist party. Around the late 1800’s Revolutionary movements started to grow. People were becoming unhappier by the day due to reasons such as… lowering the standard of living, low wages, cruel working conditions, child labor, etc.