Threatened strikes by railwaymen's union (predominantly Menshevik) and post and telegraph union if Bolsheviks didn't hold talks with other parties
Lenin opposed power sharing, threatened moderates with Red sailors from Kronstadt for forceful Bolshevik control -moderates, including Kamanev, Zinoviev, Rykov, and Milyutin resigned from the Central Executive Committee when the Committee voted for Lenin's proposal to suppress all bourgeois newspapers (smacked of the beginnings of dictatorship).
Party split
1. Left SRs supported Lenin on 25 Oct
2. Left SRs more radical, aligned with Bolsheviks in late 1917
Lenin's Land Decree
Banned private ownership, redistributed land amongst peasantry
Lenin's Land Decree 26 oct
Led Left SRs to support Bolsheviks (rights tended to be land owners so more to lose)
Peasants were killing landowners anyway after February
Main body of SRs
Lost radicalism by aligning with Provisional Government
Kerensky's actions undermined SR Party's credibility
Lenin exploited split
Withholding food rations from Right SR assembly
Left SRs
Allowed to join government
Left SRs included in Central Executive Committee
3 became commissars
108 peasant delegates
100 army/navy delegates
50 trade union delegates
Left SRs prevented railwaymen's strike, satisfied peasants, appeased moderate Bolsheviks
Zinoviev reinstated in Central Committee, followed by others
Lenin's tactical cunning
Evident
Land Decree showed pragmatism
Lenin didn't want to share power but saw benefits of Left SR inclusion due to peasant support
The soviets
Bolsheviks controlled local soviets, providing state legitimacy
Soviets acted as local governments
Other parties existed, allowing Lenin to claim it was a soviet state
Control over provincial Soviets established through rigged elections for second-tier Soviets
Chairman and executive committee always Bolsheviks
Local Bolshevik Party boss had greater authority than local soviet, often became Chairman
Right SRs + Mensheviks resented central control, so inc withdrew from soviets in protest, leaving Bols total control
