lenin

• What criticism did party members have of Lenin ?

  Some party members felt that Lenin’s NEP compromised their believed as it was ‘too capitalist’ and wanted more central control of the economy.
• 1. Lenin created a one party state by:

  -Banning opposition (Spring 1918 arrested/ exiling opposition leaders e.g. Kerensky, shutting down opposition newspapers)

  -Used cheka to eradicate any opposition during the civil war

  -Ruled through ‘democratic centralism’ where leading members of the bolsheviks would led the country
• 1. How did the party membership change?

  Party had more members that were not ‘workers’ had 1 million by 1928 as people could benefit from being part of the party:

  30% of party were employed as ‘administrators’ (middle class)
• 1. How did Lenin try to keep the Proletariat part of the Bolshevik Party?

  Lenin tried to fix the membership issue  (because officials were now detached from grass roots affairs) by introducing recruitment campaigns such as the ‘Lenin enrolment’ but it did not have much effect
• 1. What were the set of ideas that Lenin outlined following his return to Russia?

  april theses
• 1. What slogan did Lenin use during the revolution?

  ‘Peace, land and bread’
• 1. Which ‘body’ did Lenin support during dual authority?

  petrograd soviet
• Strengths of lenin - lenin was a conviction politician throughout his career he stuck to his belief that the imposition of marxist ideas was only for a more fair and equal society to come about in Russia
• strength of lenin - Lenin also had flexible thoughts and actions/pragmatic
• strength - Opportunist: saw set-backs as an opportunity 
• 1. Single-mindedness / conviction politician: adherence to marxism was doing more harm than good

  Economic, social and political reforms set russia backward

  E.g. War communism (Famine 5mill dead)
• success- civil war - Success of leadership

  Bolsheviks won - strong organisation & leadership. 

  Opportunist / luck in winning
• civil war failure - Showed the huge opposition Lenin faced.

  Won partly due to luck / weakness of opposition (geography, disunity & disorganisation of whites)
• Red army success - Success during Civil War - strong leadership under direction
• red army failure - Kronstadt uprising - showed they did not always remain loyal to Lenin
• april theses success for lenin -effective use of Propaganda - condemned the Provisional Government, ‘All power to the Soviets’.

  Clearly laid out his ideas, persuaded Bolsheviks/workers to support him
• • Decree on Land (1917): Land was taken from the nobility and the Church and redistributed to peasants, promoting land equality.
• Decree on Peace (1917): Lenin called for an immediate end to Russia's involvement in World War I and peace negotiations with Germany and Austria-Hungary.
• Decree on Workers' Control (1917): Workers were given control over factories and industry, allowing them to oversee production and management.
• Lenin returned to petrograd secretly on the 10th of October 1917