The Russian Revolution: To what extent was powerful revolutionary leadership and clear revolutionary ideas the reason for the successful Bolshevik revolution in October 1917?

The powerful leadership and ideas of the Bolshevik party were the foundation that helped them to successfully achieve the 1917 Russian Revolution. The Revolution remained in Russia because the ideology was aimed at the demands of the Russian workers and peasants. There was also a void in the government that needed to be filled and this made Russian vulnerable to Revolution. "The Tsar was replaced by an autocratic, oppressive bureaucratic and militaristic police state under the Bolsheviks." The Bolsheviks were a well organised and highly disciplined party, whose main aim was to achieve a revolution. The revolution was easily achievable for the Bolsheviks due to the weaknesses of the Tsar and his autocratic state, influential leadership from both Lenin and Trotsky and powerful ideology in the form of Marxism, and Bolshevism. The leadership and ideas of the party formed a strong basis for their revolution and led to their successful seizure of power on the 7th November 1917.

Bolshevik by Boris Kustodiev, a visual representat...

English: Lenin giving a speech to the troops at th...

English: The presidium of the 9th Congress of the ...

The weaknesses of the Tsar and his autocratic state made the revolution easily achievable for the Bolshevik party. Tsar Nicholas II came to the throne in 1894; he was an autocrat who had complete and absolute power over Russia. Nicholas was not ready to become Tsar and as a result he significantly contributed the collapse of his government. His downfall as a leader was due to his love for his family, he cared so much for them that he let his leadership falter; he spent a lot of time with his haemophiliac son and heir to the Russian throne Alexis. He was also disinterested in political matters of the Monarch finding them to be extremely tedious. Nicholas himself believed he was unfit to rule Russia, his own sister the Grand Duchess Olga wrote in her diaries of how "He kept saying...