A Brief Description of the Rusian Revolution - 1563 Words

One of the first problems faced by the Bolshevik party was the upcoming election to the All Russian Constituent Assembly in November. Lenin was highly opposed to this as he thought any democratic elections were tricks played by the bourgeoisie to keep itself in power and unlike other political parties Lenin’s ideas for the Bolsheviks were different, he did not want to win mass support but to create a party capable of seizing power , the Bolsheviks ruled by de facto not de jure. This led to the dissolution of the Constituent Assembly, January 1918. This aided the Bolshevik consolidation of power as this action is considered to be the onset of the Bolshevik dictatorship as all political opposition had been removed, from this moment onwards any legal opposition was essentially impossible. Furthermore this revealed the lack of support for the Bolsheviks in Russia as they had lost the election by only won 24% of the vote, (175 of 707 seats) in the Constituent Assembly. Whereas their opposition the social revolutionaries (SRs) won a majority, with 370 of 707 seats. The SRs had a clear majority with the peasant vote. The Bolsheviks considered the winning of the urban votes was more significant than winning the rural vote . Lenin saw how vulnerable the Bolsheviks would be if the Constituent Assembly were to remain open. The Bolsheviks, a minority party, could not lead Russia surrounded by opposition or alternative socialist parties such as the SRs who also disagreed with how the