The Bolshevik Revolution

Paper Summary:

The paper evaluates the arguments of three different authors on the question of how the Bolsheviks gained and sustained power. The paper maintains that the argument by Diane Koenker appears to have overextended herself in her belief of the role of the people, claiming them to be the source of the revolution.. The paper supports Richard Pipes' theory of the revolution from above, combined with Jeffrey Brooks' examination of the influence of the media on the revolution. The paper concludes that it was the actions of Lenin and the other leaders from above, not the masses, that chartered the revolution's course and successfully explains how the Bolsheviks gained power in Russia. The paper includes MLA style footnotes but does not append a bibliography.

From the Paper:

"The pivotal question in the discussion of how the Bolsheviks were successful in gaining power is whether the revolution came from above (the Party leaders) or below (the people). Diane Koenker, in her book From Moscow Workers and the 1917 Revolution, suggests that the revolution indeed came from the people. After the fall of the Tsar, the dominant form of revolutionary activity for the workers was the rally. Koenker claims that the thousands of resolutions that came out of these workers' meetings faithfully reflect the active and articulate participation or ordinary workers in the revolution, and in essence, shaped the direction and actions of the Bolshevik Party and the Revolution. However, this view poses a couple of problems."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Brooks, Jeffrey "The Monopoly of the Printer Word: From Persuasion to Compulsion," in Interpretations of the Western World. ed. Mark Kishlansky (Boston: Pearson Custom Publishing, 2004), 35.
• Koenker, Diane "From Moscow Workers and the 1917 Revolution," in Interpretations of the Western World. ed. Mark Kishlansky (Boston: Pearson Custom Publishing, 2004), 16-17.
• Pipes, Richard "The Red Terror," in Interpretations of the Western World. ed. Mark Kishlansky (Boston: Pearson Custom Publishing, 2004), 2.

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