The provisional government becomes deeply unpopular, for massacring protestors and supporting continuing World War I.
The SRs have popularity, especially among the peasantry, and win the Provisional government elections despite a split weeks before. The Left SRs support overthrowing the provisional government and replacing it with the Soviet government.
The Bolsheviks, this time, already have better support among the urban workers, and the Petrograd Soviet votes to overthrow the provisional government, and actually has the power to do so.
The SRs continue to fracture, and while they were popular among the peasantry for a time, the Bolsheviks swap tactics and advocate for land reform among the peasantry. This is the “land” part of “Peace, Land, and Bread.” The Bolsheviks support ending the war, which is popular, they support land reform, which is popular, and they support the needs of the urban workers, which is also popular.
As the SRs fall apart from their split, a bunch join the Bolsheviks, same as the Mensheviks, in solidifying Soviet Power. The Bolsheviks have been consistently correct the entire time, and do not have the same fracturing due to practicing Democratic Centralism. They succeed in gaining influence and broadening it, resulting in the Soviet Union.
The idea that the Bolsheviks ever needed a mandate from the provisional government elections is wrong. Even if we assume the Left SRs had a mandate from those elections, the SRs supported overthrowing the provisional government anyways, and then the SRs fell apart while the Bolsheviks strengthened. At no point did Lenin alienate himself from the desires of the people, and in time the people became coalesced around the Bolsheviks.
Say you’re Lenin. What part would you do differently? Should they have stood by and not overthrown the provisional government, even though it was clear that that was what the workers wanted? Should they have not adopted land reform and won over the peasants, making them the most broadly supported platform? Should they have prevented the SRs from collapsing, or turned away their members requesting to join?
The chain of events is pretty clear:
The provisional government becomes deeply unpopular, for massacring protestors and supporting continuing World War I.
The SRs have popularity, especially among the peasantry, and win the Provisional government elections despite a split weeks before. The Left SRs support overthrowing the provisional government and replacing it with the Soviet government.
The Bolsheviks, this time, already have better support among the urban workers, and the Petrograd Soviet votes to overthrow the provisional government, and actually has the power to do so.
The SRs continue to fracture, and while they were popular among the peasantry for a time, the Bolsheviks swap tactics and advocate for land reform among the peasantry. This is the “land” part of “Peace, Land, and Bread.” The Bolsheviks support ending the war, which is popular, they support land reform, which is popular, and they support the needs of the urban workers, which is also popular.
As the SRs fall apart from their split, a bunch join the Bolsheviks, same as the Mensheviks, in solidifying Soviet Power. The Bolsheviks have been consistently correct the entire time, and do not have the same fracturing due to practicing Democratic Centralism. They succeed in gaining influence and broadening it, resulting in the Soviet Union.
The idea that the Bolsheviks ever needed a mandate from the provisional government elections is wrong. Even if we assume the Left SRs had a mandate from those elections, the SRs supported overthrowing the provisional government anyways, and then the SRs fell apart while the Bolsheviks strengthened. At no point did Lenin alienate himself from the desires of the people, and in time the people became coalesced around the Bolsheviks.
Say you’re Lenin. What part would you do differently? Should they have stood by and not overthrown the provisional government, even though it was clear that that was what the workers wanted? Should they have not adopted land reform and won over the peasants, making them the most broadly supported platform? Should they have prevented the SRs from collapsing, or turned away their members requesting to join?