Vladimir Lenin

Vladimir Lenin, Leon Trotsky, and Stalin among many others, for the Bolsheviks which was the October revolution, or November depending on which Russian calendar is used.

Alexander Kerensky, among others, for the Provisional Government. Tsar Nicholas II was not part of this revolution at all since he had been put out of power eight months earlier in the first part of the Russian Revolution, the February Revolution.

Tsar Nicholas 11, Michael 11, Vladimir Lenin

Lenin claimed to follow Marx’s ideas, but in fact he distorted these. Lenin did not believe that workers could liberate themselves, so he though they needed to be led by a vanguard (himself and others). What he set up in Russia was state capitalism, not Communism.

During the Industrial Revolution, Karl Marx, a German philosopher, created Marxism. He believed that everyone was essentially good and believed in an egalitarian society in which everyone would be equal. The only way this would happen, though, is if the proletariat class revolted.

Sadly, when Marxism is put into practice, it creates communism. This was nothing near to what Marx intended, though. Russia tried to enforce Marxism (with the slight problem that they had no proletariat class) and ended up with communism.

When it was first built it was called St. Petersburg. In 914 its name was changed to Petrograd, because St. Petersburg was thought to sound too Germanic and they were at war with Germany. A few days after Vladimir Lenin died in 1924 it was renamed Leningrad. Now that the Soviet Union has broken up, the name has been returned to St. Petersburg.

Lack of food and Bad leadership.

The Russian Revolution was caused by several major factors:

1. The partial industrialization of Russia in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, which created an urban working class in places like St. Petersburg and Moscow that could organize against its exploitation through unions and workers councils(known as 'the soviets'). This enabled the workers to work together much more effectively against their bosses then the scattered, isolated, and thus largely de-politicized peasantry. The cities were also connected via trade and communication to the outside world, where intellectuals and workers alike had access to revolutionary ideas from western Europe such as Marxism.

2. The desperate poverty and gross inequality that marked Russian society created a deep well of discontent. The czar and the aristocracy, as well as Russia's capitalist class, lived in opulent luxury in palaces such as the Hermitage while most Russians lived in medieval conditions. In the countryside, most farmers still used wooden plow. Hundreds of thousands died from epidemics on a regular basis. 1/3 of all Russian babies died before their first birthday.

3. The entry of Russia into World War I brought all the class tensions of Russian society to a boiling point, especially when Russia's badly equipped and led army suffered a series of disastrous defeats. Food riots broke out in Russia's major cities and the countryside. The army and navy began to mutiny against a government they had no desire to fight and die for.

4. The czar of Russia, Nicholas II, was a weak and indecisive leader. He went back and forth between making concessions to his people and then opting for repressive measures. Therefore, he both allowed breathing space for a revolutionary movement to develop while creating fresh grievances that strengthened the political forces against him. Most importantly though, he was attempting to reform a corrupt, repressive, outdated system that could not be reformed at all.

5. Although many different groups were opposed to the czar, the Russian revolution was successful because the group that ended up leading it, the Bolsheviks, were dedicated, well-organized, and well-led.

It gave Germany the chance to bring troops fighting in Russia to fight in Western Europe. This was a major factor how the rest of the war would fought. Surprisingly the increase of troops in France did not seem to make significant gains for Germany.

the Russian revolution was both good and bad, as is the case with most communist uprisings...although the old autocracy that the czars had was toppled and the people enjoyed a few years of prosperity under the communist regime, unfortunately it didnt work for long. due to the clunky nature of the governments system many people starved, in some cases stooping to cannibalism to survive. add to this the fact that anyone who spoke out against the regime were shipped off to siberia to cut trees down, and the cold war and its easy to see why it all turned to custard.

The February Russian Revolution was started In Petrograd by a number of housewives who had been waiting on line for bread and were fed up with waiting on lines all the time and sometimes getting nothing anyway. More and more people began to join them in the streets protesting shortages of food and other goods. Factory workers and soldiers began joining and it soon got out so of control the entire city was rioting. It also spread to other cities and the revolution was on.

The October Russian Revolution was started by Vladimir Lenin and his Bolshevik followers, but it wasn't really a revolution. It was more like a military coup where a relatively small political faction seized key communications, transportation and military installations and deposed the existing government.

Stalin's body was laid in state in the House of Trade Unions in Moscow.

Click on the related links section indicated below and you will see a picture of him in state. You have to scroll down almost to the end.

You have to be more precise about the time period. Karl Marx was the original leader of the Communist party. That is why it is sometimes called Marxism. Lenin led the Communist Party at the time of the Russian Revolution, Russian Civil War, and into the 1920s. Stalin, Kruschev, and Breshnev all led the Communist Party at various times.

"If it was necessary to give the briefest possible definition of imperialism, we should have to say that imperialism is the monopoly stage of capitalism," Lenin wrote. So as competition on the national level was reduced through mergers, bankruptcies and the tendency toward monopoly, it became increasingly ferocious internationally. Business required the organized power and resources of the state to secure their interests.

Lenin believed that total repression of dissenting opinion as well as saturation with socialist propaganda were necessary for a socialist revolution in Russia to be successful. He realized that the Russian Revolutions of 1917, especially the Bolshevik Revolution of October, were not true Marxian revolutions and that therefor the time was not ripe for Marxian socialism and eventually communism to take root. Marx believed that a society had to go through a period of industrialized capitalism to create the conflicting social classes of the bourgeoisie and proletariat. Once that occurred, the proletariat would overthrow the bourgeoisie. It would be a revolution by a class of people who were ready to embrace the socialist lifestyle.

This did not happen with Lenin's revolution. His was a political revolution in which his Bolshevik party, a minority political party, used military force to take over a weak government and seize power. It was not a revolution by an entire class of people. Most Russians, even socialists, were opposed to Lenin. Lenin put highly repressive measures in place to stifle all political dissent so that the people would not be convinced to overthrow the Bolshevik regime. The Russian peasants had no idea of being part of a social class who were now ready for a socialist lifestyle. To convince them otherwise, the peasants needed to be indoctrinated into that lifestyle by constant socialist propaganda that would create the necessary class consciousness for even the peasants to acquiesce to a new socialist order.

Stalin had little to do with the actual take over of the government by Lenin, Trotsky and the Bolsheviks. At the time he was editor of the Bolshevik newspaper, Robachi put. On the night before the revolution he was finishing the last edition when Provisional Government police broke in and smashed the printing equipment.

He was then given the task of meeting with and speaking to the Bolshevik delegates of the Second Congress of Soviets to explain the need for the insurrection at that time. He did this, went home and the Revolution took place the next day.

Lenin's plan was called the New Economic Policy. It reintroduced some aspects of capitalism into the socialist system Lenin had imposed on the country.

In the 1920's, Leon Trotsky opposed the bureaucracy and policies of Josef Stalin. As a result, he was removed from power in 192,7 and deported from the Soviet Union in 1929. He found asylum in Mexico and continued his opposition to the Stalinist government. He and most of his family were killed on Stalin's orders.

Lenin established the Soviet Union. After taking over Russia he entered into a treaty with Ukraine, Belorussia and the Transcaucasus Federation (Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan) to join together as one nation, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

Lenin did away with "war communism" in favor of his "New Economic Policy", which permitted some aspects of capitalism in small businesses and agriculture while retaining the rest of the economy under government control.

That was Ho Chi Minh. He wrote a proclamation of independence from France, for the nation of Vietnam, in 1945.

Most Soviet leaders had beliefs about human dignity, the only true Soviet dictator in every sense of the word was Joseph Stalin, who became the Soviet leader in 1924 and remained in power until his death in 1953. His purges killed tens of thousands of communists and resulted in the deaths of millions of Kulaks.

Lenin had a reputation for revolutionary activities especially after his older brother was executed for attempting to assassinate Tsar Alexander III. As time went on he got more and more active as a revolutionary so it expelled him.

communism

Bolshevism and/or Leninism combines the ideas of Marx and Lenin although Lenin has changed some of Marx's ideas around. Thus there is a distinction between Bolshevism/Leninism and Marxism.