How did the bolsheviks rise to power?

Question

I am writing a research paper and I just need general ideas.
Thanks Gdot

Answer 1

Basically, they exploited peoples hostility to the war. Had the Kerensky govt not insisted on keeping Russia in WWI, the Bolsheviks would have remained a radical fringe group, but because they had the strongest anti-war message (their slogan at the time was "Peace, Land, Bread!) they exploited this discontent with the provisional govt and were able to take over.

Answer 2

Okay, so let's put the whole thing into perspective:

Russia - in 1905 there was a revolution which resulted in the Czar, Nick II, adopting a constitution. During World War I the people of Russia took heavy losses and Czarist leadership was held widely responsible by the court of public opinion. In March 1917, right when the war was coming to its climax, another revolution occured in Russia, called the February Revolution (the Russian calendar was not the same as ours until after the October Revolution, in November by our calendar). The Czarist regime was thrown out and a new government was set up under a guy named Kerensky. The stage was now set for the Bolsheviks.

The Bolsheviks were one half of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party. The other half were called Mensheviks. Bolshevik meant "majority", while Menshevik meant "minority" - owing to the respective number of people in each group. Both the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks, despite believing roughly the same thing, had some serious ideological differences. One day, at a RSDLP meeting, while the vast majority of Mensheviks were out getting drinks, the Bolsheviks sneakily voted themselves as the sole power of the party.

The October Revolution - In November of 1917 (remember the calendar difference), there was another revolution in Russia. This time it was the Bolsheviks, with a few other supporters, who made the move to power. The revolution was relatively bloodless, and the government structures in the major cities (Petrograd, St. Petersburg) were taken with ease. Many forget that this revolution was followed by four years of bloody civil war, which was fought between the whites (czarists, kerensky supporters, various international forces, some even from the US - which Stalin wouldn't forget later) and the reds (the Bolsheviks). When the war was over the USSR was established, and things never would be the same for a small group of Marxist revolutionaries called the Bolsheviks.

Answer 3

Through their iron will during a time of chaos in Russia. They believed in struggle and were comfortable with the human toll their ideas took. This gave them crystal clear drive with no inhibitions. Other parties entertained debate and saw nuances where the Bolsheviks saw only a single option. They were willing to fight a brutal and life-consuming civil war for 3 years. They hated their own people, seeing the peasants who were most of Russian society, as backwards and millstones who needed to be simply swept away. And, they acted on those beliefs. Iron repression brought them to power but was ultimately the root of their downfall.

Answer 4

They had the best political strategists like Vladimir Lenin (born Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov ) and Leon Trotsky (born Lev Davidovich Bronstein).