The Bolsheviks did not incite revolution, the brutal Tsars did, along with World War I. The Bolsheviks were a revolutionary party and were organizing the working class into worker councils called Soviets, and had created a second government alongside the liberal government.
During the events leading up to the October revolution, the liberal government had been essentially abandoned by the workers, and the Tsar was already were more of a figure head. The Bolsheviks won the Soviet elections, and lost the liberal elections, though the workers largely didn’t care about that government, and the party that won happened to have had a major realignment shortly before the election yet the workers did not all know about that (pre-internet).
After the elections, Lenin and the Bolsheviks, along with the Soviets, stormed the Tsar and ousted him and the Liberal government that was more vestigial than anything else. Then came the Russian Civil War, the invasion from a dozen Capitalist countries to try to reinstate the Tsar, then the NEP (a market-focused economy temporarily for uplifting the productive forces), then Lenin’s unfortunate death.
All in all, you’re generally wrong with what you wrote, not only the order but also the character of events, and I don’t think Wikipedia is going to be enough to know what actually happened. Again, I suggest reading Blackshirts and Reds.
I began by reading Britannica. I am aware of my black and white thinking and this manifests in me frequently being against everyone and everything.
Although Lenin and Trotsky had carried out the October coup in the name of soviets, they intended from the beginning to concentrate all power in the hands of the ruling organs of the Bolshevik Party. The resulting novel arrangement—the prototype of all totalitarian regimes—vested actual sovereignty in the hands of a private organization, called “the Party,” which, however, exercised it indirectly, through state institutions. Bolsheviks held leading posts in the state: no decisions could be taken and no laws passed without their consent. The legislative organs, centred in the soviets, merely rubber-stamped Bolshevik orders. The state apparatus was headed by a cabinet called the Council of Peoples’ Commissars (Sovnarkom), chaired by Lenin, all of whose members were drawn from the elite of the Party.
The Bolsheviks were solemnly committed to convening and respecting the will of the Constituent Assembly, which was to be elected in November 1917 on a universal franchise. Realizing that they had no chance of winning a majority, they procrastinated under various pretexts but eventually allowed the elections to proceed. The results gave a majority (40.4 percent) of the 41.7 million votes cast to the Socialists Revolutionaries. The Bolsheviks received 24 percent of the ballots. They allowed the assembly to meet for one day (January 5 [January 18, New Style], 1918) and then shut it down. The dispersal of the first democratically elected national legislature in Russian history marked the onset of the Bolshevik dictatorship.
Naturally this is unfair. I will proceed reading Britannica now.
Yes, that is certainly an anticommunist take on the Revolution, and it leaves out key details like the Socialist Revolutionaries having a major party split right before the election, as well as that the working class had largely abandoned the constituent assembly, as well as the nature of Soviet Democracy, which is what allowed the workers to elect the bolsheviks in the first place. You also see nonsense words like “totalitarianism” as well.
You would do better to read the book October by China Mieville than you would reading a UK-based encyclopedia with a vested interest in anticommunism. Rather, what you originally complained about, ie not believing there to be anticommunist institutions impacting education and popular media, is fully on display.
Finally, it also fails to mention that the Workers did not want to continue Capitalism, the Provisional Government had to be overthrown in the first place anyways. The Socialist Revolutionaries were also wanting to do that until the major party split, where the right-wing faction retained the name.
I am quite rigid in regards to dis/trusting Britannica and other free and accessible online sources ( e.g. Wikipedia).
In my opinion, if your data, theory, or story cannot survive public scrutiny on the open internet, then the quality of your material probably doesn’t meet my standards.
Only trusting western, mainstream sources that are generally friendly to the Capitalist order is pretty low in terms of standards. Purely trusting biased sources isn’t a good thing.
Moreover, the basic facts weren’t wrong, I pointed out how Britannica intentionally leaves out key details, and emotionally charges the facts it does represent. You’re only getting a small portion of the overall history and are deliberately refusing to look into actual sources, just summaries from biased individuals.
Why don’t you want to read October, by China Mieville? As far as I know it’s seen as very in-depth and well-sourced, the worst you would be doing is getting a better understanding of events.
All of that still doesn’t address that Socialism was by far better for Russia than Tsarism or Capitalism, life expectancies doubled, democratic control was dramatically expanded, literacy rates went from low 30s to 99.9%, famine was ended, and disparity was lowered while GDP raised dramatically and consistently. Even if we ignored the events of the Revolution, the working class won out dramatically.
There’s a lot wrong, and a lot out of order.
The Bolsheviks did not incite revolution, the brutal Tsars did, along with World War I. The Bolsheviks were a revolutionary party and were organizing the working class into worker councils called Soviets, and had created a second government alongside the liberal government.
During the events leading up to the October revolution, the liberal government had been essentially abandoned by the workers, and the Tsar was already were more of a figure head. The Bolsheviks won the Soviet elections, and lost the liberal elections, though the workers largely didn’t care about that government, and the party that won happened to have had a major realignment shortly before the election yet the workers did not all know about that (pre-internet).
After the elections, Lenin and the Bolsheviks, along with the Soviets, stormed the Tsar and ousted him and the Liberal government that was more vestigial than anything else. Then came the Russian Civil War, the invasion from a dozen Capitalist countries to try to reinstate the Tsar, then the NEP (a market-focused economy temporarily for uplifting the productive forces), then Lenin’s unfortunate death.
All in all, you’re generally wrong with what you wrote, not only the order but also the character of events, and I don’t think Wikipedia is going to be enough to know what actually happened. Again, I suggest reading Blackshirts and Reds.
I began by reading Britannica. I am aware of my black and white thinking and this manifests in me frequently being against everyone and everything.
Naturally this is unfair. I will proceed reading Britannica now.
Yes, that is certainly an anticommunist take on the Revolution, and it leaves out key details like the Socialist Revolutionaries having a major party split right before the election, as well as that the working class had largely abandoned the constituent assembly, as well as the nature of Soviet Democracy, which is what allowed the workers to elect the bolsheviks in the first place. You also see nonsense words like “totalitarianism” as well.
You would do better to read the book October by China Mieville than you would reading a UK-based encyclopedia with a vested interest in anticommunism. Rather, what you originally complained about, ie not believing there to be anticommunist institutions impacting education and popular media, is fully on display.
Finally, it also fails to mention that the Workers did not want to continue Capitalism, the Provisional Government had to be overthrown in the first place anyways. The Socialist Revolutionaries were also wanting to do that until the major party split, where the right-wing faction retained the name.
I am quite rigid in regards to dis/trusting Britannica and other free and accessible online sources ( e.g. Wikipedia).
In my opinion, if your data, theory, or story cannot survive public scrutiny on the open internet, then the quality of your material probably doesn’t meet my standards.
Only trusting western, mainstream sources that are generally friendly to the Capitalist order is pretty low in terms of standards. Purely trusting biased sources isn’t a good thing.
Moreover, the basic facts weren’t wrong, I pointed out how Britannica intentionally leaves out key details, and emotionally charges the facts it does represent. You’re only getting a small portion of the overall history and are deliberately refusing to look into actual sources, just summaries from biased individuals.
Why don’t you want to read October, by China Mieville? As far as I know it’s seen as very in-depth and well-sourced, the worst you would be doing is getting a better understanding of events.
All of that still doesn’t address that Socialism was by far better for Russia than Tsarism or Capitalism, life expectancies doubled, democratic control was dramatically expanded, literacy rates went from low 30s to 99.9%, famine was ended, and disparity was lowered while GDP raised dramatically and consistently. Even if we ignored the events of the Revolution, the working class won out dramatically.