The Bolshevik Seizure of Power, October 1917 (AQA A Level History: Component 1: Breadth study): Revision Note

Summary

• The Bolsheviks seized power in Petrograd on 24-25 October 1917, overthrowing the Provisional Government in a planned operation

  • Trotsky directed the takeover through the Military Revolutionary Committee

  • Lenin pushed for action before the Congress of Soviets met

• The Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets approved a new Bolshevik government

  • It was called the Sovnarkom; Lenin chaired it, and it was made up entirely of Bolsheviks

• Lenin's first decrees helped win mass support

  • The Decree on Peace promised an end to the war

  • The Decree on Land promised land redistribution to the peasants

• By December 1917, Bolshevik control was real but incomplete

  • They held the major cities and railways

  • But they still faced strikes, rival parties and a hostile countryside

  • The Cheka was created to enforce control

• Historians debate how secure Lenin's power was by December 1917

  • A genuine takeover that held the new government and the major cities

  • Harding argues that a modest and far-from-complete grip on a vast and divided country

Key members of the Bolshevik Party: Lenin, Trotsky and others

• The October seizure of power was the work of a small, disciplined leadership, not a mass uprising

  • Lenin had built the Bolsheviks into a vanguard party of professional revolutionaries

  • Party membership grew from around 23,000 in February 1917 to around 200,000 by October

• Lenin pushed the party towards an armed seizure of power

  • He returned from exile in April 1917 and argued that the moment had come

  • He sent letters to the Central Committee demanding that they seize power before the Congress of Soviets met

• Trotsky was the chief organiser of the coup

  • He became chairman of the Petrograd Soviet in September 1917

  • He was also a powerful public speaker

• Zinoviev and Kamenev opposed the seizure of power

  • They wanted to wait for the Constituent Assembly elections and create a coalition government through legal means

• Stalin played only a minor role in the events of October 1917

Events of the Bolshevik seizure of power, October 1917

The Military Revolutionary Committee

• The Petrograd Soviet set up the Military Revolutionary Committee (MRC) in October 1917

  • It was led by Trotsky and gave the seizure the cover of authority

  • The Bolsheviks could claim they were defending the Soviet, not staging a coup

  • It also gave Trotsky command over the armed Red Guards

• The Kornilov Affair in August had strengthened the Bolsheviks

  • Workers and soldiers trusted them after they helped block Kornilov's advance on Petrograd

The seizure of power, 24-25 October

• On the night of 24-25 October, the Red Guards and pro-Bolshevik soldiers took the key areas of Petrograd

  • They seized bridges, railway stations, the telegraph and the State Bank

  • There was little resistance, as most units remained neutral or backed the soviet

• The Provisional Government was left isolated in the Winter Palace

  • Its guard was a mix of cadets, Cossacks and members of the Women's Battalion

  • The armed party that broke into the palace was led by Bolshevik Antonov-Ovseenko

  • The warship Aurora fired a single blank signal shot at the Winter Palace at 9:40 pm on 25 October

  • The palace was taken in the early hours of 26 October, and the ministers were arrested

Myth vs reality

• The "storming" of the Winter Palace was far smaller than later propaganda suggested

  • Trotsky himself estimated that at most 25,000 to 30,000 people were actively involved

    • Around 5% of the city's workers and soldiers

  • Only 6 people were reported to have been killed in the attack

    • Leading to the nickname, the 'Bloodless Revolution'

• Every day life in Petrograd carried on through the seizure

  • Trams and taxis ran as normal

  • Restaurants, theatres and cinemas stayed open

  • Eisenstein's 1927 film October later invented the dramatic mass assault that people associate with the revolution

    • This mattered, as the Bolsheviks needed the takeover to look like a popular rising, not a coup

The Sovnarkom, the Congress of Soviets and Lenin’s first decrees

The Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets

• The Congress met at the Smolny Institute as the seizure was being completed

  • Around 670 delegates attended its opening sessions

  • The Bolsheviks and left Socialist Revolutionaries together held the majority

  • Lenin claimed that the Bolsheviks had seized power on behalf of the soviets

    • This gave the revolution a democratic appearance

• The Mensheviks and right-wing Socialist Revolutionaries walked out in protest

  • Their exit left the Bolsheviks and left-wing Socialist Revolutionaries in control of Congress

• Around 500 delegates voted to approve a new socialist government

  • The Menshevik leader Tsereteli predicted that Bolshevik rule would last no more than three weeks

The Sovnarkom

• The Congress established the Sovnarkom, the Council of People's Commissars, as the new government

  • 13 People's Commissars made up the first Sovnarkom

    • Lenin was Chairman

    • Trotsky was Commissar for Foreign Affairs

    • Stalin was Commissar for Nationalities

  • Every member was a Bolshevik

    • Alexandra Kollontai was the only woman

  • The title 'commissar' was chosen to mark a break from the old bourgeois ministers

• The Sovnarkom gave the Bolsheviks direct control of policy and law-making

  • The Sovnarkom was supposed to answer to the Congress of Soviets

  • In reality, Lenin bypassed the Congress and ruled through Sovnarkom decrees

Lenin's first decrees

• Lenin issued several decrees in his first few months in power

  • The Congress of Soviets approved the decrees

• The Decree on Peace (26 October) called for an immediate end to the war

  • It suggested peace with no annexations or indemnities

  • It led to an armistice on the Eastern Front before the end of 1917

• The Decree on Land (26 October) abolished private ownership of land

  • It legalised the peasants' seizure of estates without compensation to landlords

    • This was originally an SR idea; therefore, Lenin undercut his rivals, buying time to consolidate

• Further decrees through November and December extended Bolshevik control

  • November:

    • Workers' control of factories

    • Self-determination for national minorities

    • Elected people's courts

    • End of legal discrimination against women

  • December:

    • The army lost its ranks and saluting

    • The Church lost control of land and marriage

    • Banks were nationalised

Positive impacts of the decrees

• The decrees were popular with workers, peasants, and soldiers

  • They seemed to deliver the Bolsheviks’ promises quickly

• Ending Russia's involvement in the First World War allowed Lenin to:

  • Rebuild the economy

  • Establish a new government

Negative impacts of the decrees

• The Bolsheviks only held power in Petrograd

  • The majority of Russia's territory had not heard about the revolution or was not under Lenin's control

  • The Bolsheviks had little ability to enforce them across Russia in late 1917

Opposition to the Bolshevik seizure of power

The new regime was not secure

• Taking power proved easier than keeping it, and Bolshevik control was thin at first

  • Civil servants refused to work for the new government

  • Bankers refused finance; it took ten days and the threat of armed force to make the State Bank release its reserves

• Armed opposition threatened Petrograd within days

  • Kerensky gathered loyal troops and advanced on the capital with forces that outnumbered the Bolsheviks

  • There was fierce fighting in Moscow between government supporters and Bolshevik forces

• Workers' organisations challenged one-party rule

  • The railway union, Vikzhel, threatened to strike unless the Bolsheviks formed a broad socialist coalition

    • The threat forced brief talks, but Lenin refused to share real power

How the Bolsheviks fought back

• Lenin combined concession with force to break the opposition

  • Concessions kept the workers and peasants onside

    • The decrees on peace and land delivered what most ordinary people wanted

  • Force silenced political rivals

    • The Cheka, a new secret police, was created in December 1917 to crush counter-revolution

    • The Red Guard patrolled the streets

    • The Bolsheviks closed hostile newspapers, purged the civil service and arrested leading Kadets and other opponents

How complete was Lenin’s power by December 1917?

• By December 1917, the Bolsheviks ran a government and held cities

  • But how far this amounted to real control over Russia is a matter of debate

Lenin's power was real and rapidly consolidated

• The Bolsheviks built a working government within weeks

  • The Sovnarkom was issuing decrees and exercising authority from late October

  • The party held Petrograd, Moscow and the railway network by the end of the year

• They defeated the first attempts to remove them

  • Kerensky's advance on Petrograd collapsed and his troops drifted away

  • The Cheka gave the regime a tool to suppress opposition quickly

• Popular decrees gave the regime a base of support

  • Peace and land answered the immediate demands of the people

Lenin's power was limited and far from complete

• The Bolsheviks controlled only a fraction of the country

  • Their authority was real in the cities but weak across the countryside

  • Large rural areas stayed outside Bolshevik control altogether

• The seizure itself had rested on a small, active minority

  • Trotsky's own figures suggest only around 5% of the city took part

• The people had not voted for Bolshevik rule

  • In the November elections to the Constituent Assembly, the Bolsheviks won just under a quarter of the vote

  • Other socialist parties, not the Bolsheviks, held the majority of seats

• Open conflict was already building

  • Strikes, rival parties and armed resistance pointed towards civil war

Key historian

• Harding argues that Lenin’s aims in 1917 were deliberately limited

  • This supports the view that the Bolsheviks had a modest, practical foothold rather than total control by December.