Vladimir Ulyanov, alias Lenin born in 1870 in Simbirsk on the Volga was the most radical opponent of the Russian monarchy. His father was the director of primary schools of the entire province and his mother was from a doctor’s family. Vladimir’s political carrier was influenced by the execution of his older brother Alexander who participated in a plot against the tsar. During his studies Lenin became an adept of Marxism and after receiving a university degree in law he devoted his life to revolutionary struggle. He founded the Bolshevik fraction of Russian Social Democrats which took an active part in the Revolution of 1905. In 1900 after the end of his Siberian exile Lenin settled in Geneva, Switzerland carefully analysing the situation in Russia and providing political directives to his supporters inside the country. He believed that the First World War could weaken the tsarist regime and create appropriate conditions not only for the bourgeois revolution but for the socialist revolution as well. Indeed, the Russian Empire proved unready for protracted war which was far from being victorious for it (it is sufficient to mention the defeat of Tannenberg in 1914 and the German occupation of large territories in Poland and Baltic provinces). National economy was overstrained by mobilization of 15 million of able men to the army and could not satisfy the ever growing needs for rifles, guns, shells and ammunition. Military efforts were undermined by severe food shortages in Petrograd and Moscow caused by disorganization of railway transport. By the beginning of 1917 the majority of Russian population was dissatisfied with tsarist government and in the Duma (representatives’ assembly) different fractions severely criticized Nicholas II and his ministers. The tsar entirely concentrated on his role of the Commander-in-Chief of his fighting army lived on board of his private train transformed into the affiliate of Headquarters and did not pay enough attention to the growing unrest in his capital.
On February 25, 1917 all factories of Petrograd were paralyzed by general strike organized by revolutionary parties. The tsar ordered the city garrison to disperse demonstrators requiring “peace and bread” but the soldiers refused to fire on the insurgents and passed on their side. Nicholas II lost control of his capital and under the pressure of his disappointed generals and liberal politicians abdicated on March 2, leaving the throne to his brother prince Michael who also refused to rule. After the fall of Romanovs’ monarchy the power in Petrograd passed to the provisional government formed by a group of the Duma deputies and to the Petrograd Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies elected under heavy influence of revolutionary parties. The moderate provisional government and the radical Soviet competed for political influence in the capital.
On March 8, the provisional government proclaimed civil liberties, political amnesty and announced the elections into the constituent assembly responsible for adoption of a new constitution. The US and the Entente states officially recognized the provisional government. Meanwhile local soviets led by revolutionary parties were created all over the country and their representatives met in Petrograd at the All-Russian Congress of Soviets at the end of March 1917. In April Lenin arrived from Geneva to Petrograd after 17 years of exile and called his Bolshevik followers to transform the bourgeois February revolution into the proletarian revolution. In his opinion to gain overwhelming political support it was sufficient to promise the immediate withdrawal of Russia from the war and to allow the poorest peasants to seize the lands belonging to the nobility and bourgeoisie. The provisional government unable to provide “peace and land” should inevitably fall and all power would pass to the Soviets controlled by the Bolsheviks as the most popular political party. And this plan perfectly worked: Factory workers, sailors of Kronstadt and soldiers of Petrograd garrison became the main support of the Bolsheviks. Impatient to take the power the Bolsheviks staged a premature insurrection in the capital in July 1917. The uprising failed and Kerensky, the new prime minister of the provisional government, ordered the arrest of the Bolshevik leaders. Lenin immediately fled to Finland, the majority of his disciples also avoided prison. Military failures, continuous economic hardships and growing political chaos in combination with persistent Bolshevik propaganda quickly undermined the popularity of Kerensky’s government.
By October Lenin found the situation ripe – he returned in disguise to Petrograd and called his followers to seize the power. The uprising coordinated by Leon Trotsky (Lev Bronstein) took place on October 25. Without much resistance the ministers of the provisional government were arrested and put into custody, all vital points of the city (power plants, bridges, railway stations, telephone and telegraph stations) were taken under control by revolutionary soldiers, sailors and the Red Guards led by the Bolsheviks. Kerensky escaped by chance in a car of the US Embassy. Taking advantage of their majority at the All-Russian Congress of Soviets (representatives of other revolutionary parties left it in protest against Bolsheviks’ uprising) the Bolsheviks launched the slogan “All power to the soviets” and quickly gained dominant positions in local soviets all over the country. The revolutionary government headed by Lenin seized the banks, expropriated the property of ruling classes, closed oppositional newspapers and banned bourgeois parties. The extraordinary commission (Cheka) became the punitive organ of the Bolsheviks systematically persecuting all their opponents. By the decision of the third All-Russian Congress of Soviets was proclaimed the Russian Socialist Soviet Republic.