The Russian revolution was a major event in world history

Jonathan Then

History 1000C

Essay 2

1.The Russian Revolution was a major event in world history

a.Discuss one political occurrence and one social cause of the Revolution.

b.Discuss Lenin's role in the Russian Revolution

c.Discuss how Stalin influenced the Russian revolution

The differences between Lenin and the Mensheviks became sharper in the Revolution of 1905 and its aftermath, when Lenin moved to a distinctly original view on two issues: class alignments in the revolution and the character of the post-revolutionary regime.

The outbreak of the revolution, in January 1905, found Lenin abroad in Switzerland, and he did not return to Russia until November. Immediately Lenin set down a novel strategy. Both wings of the RSDWP, Bolshevik and Menshevik, adhered to Plekhanov's view of the revolution in two stages: first, a bourgeois revolution; second, a proletarian revolution (see above). But the Mensheviks argued that the bourgeois revolution must be led by the bourgeoisie, with whom the proletariat must ally itself in order to make the democratic revolution.

Bolshevik by Boris Kustodiev, a visual representat...

English: V. I. Lenin Français : V. I. Lénine - r...

Zürich, Spiegelgasse 14 : Memorial plate at the f...

This would bring the liberal bourgeoisie to full power, whereupon the RSDWP would act as the party of opposition. Lenin defiantly rejected this kind of alliance and post-revolutionary regime. Hitherto he had spoken of the need for the proletariat to win "hegemony" in the democratic revolution. Now he flatly declared that the proletariat was the driving force of the revolution and that its only reliable ally was the peasantry. The bourgeoisie he branded as hopelessly counterrevolutionary and too cowardly to make their own revolution. Thus, unlike the Mensheviks, Lenin henceforth banked on an alliance that would establish a "revolutionary democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry." Nor would the revolution necessarily stop at the first stage, the bourgeois revolution. If the Russian revolution should inspire the western...