Bolshevik Rule 1917-1920

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The Bolsheviks in Power:

At the start of their tenure, the Bolsheviks faced many problems. There was low industrial output, they were only prominent in Moscow and Leningrad, the war and food shortage. In response, the government announced decree's on worker control, peace and land, created Vesenkha and also created the Cheka to quell rebellion

Dissolution of the Constituent Assembly: 

At the Duma elections in 1918, the Bolsheviks anticipated a heavy victory that would legitimise them due to their percieved belief from successfully conducting the revolution and removing the provisional government. However, the Bolsheviks slumped in the count to 24% of the vote, whilst the Socialist Revolutionaries won the election with 41%. In response, Lenin ordered the red guards to forcibly end the session of the Duma at gunpoint, thus marking the last Duma ever, as the leader had to grant permission for it to re-convene. Lenin argued that he expressed the will of the people, but really he wanted to prevent other ideas from getting into public. This increased criticism against him and started to create revolutionary tensions

The Treat of Brest-Litovsk:

In 1918, Russia went into negotiations with the Germans in order to leave the war. Lenin took a realistic approach to the discussions, believing that the war would be lost if the Bolsheviks remained in, so it was better to surrender, fight another day, and hope the allies would win so they could reclaim any territory lost. Trotsky took a compromise approach, wanting "neither peace, nor war". The idea of this was that Trotsky aggreed that the war was lost, but didn't believe that it made sense to give up territory. He called for the Bolshevik negotiation team to intentionally waste time, and either delay the concluding of the negotiations until the allies beat the germans, or a revolution took place in germany. At the negotiations, the Russian's were unruly, talking over the other…

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