Episode 8: Red October: How the Bolsheviks Seized Power
The Rise of Communism from Marx to Lenin
Dr Vejas Gabriel Liulevius (2019)
Film Review
Lenin, who believed Russia incapable of producing a proletarian revolution, saw the main purpose of the October 1917 Bolshevik coup as triggering world revolution. He first had to convince Bolsheviks themselves to overthrow the provisional government (established after the February revolution). His most powerful argument was their failure to withdraw Russia from the disastrous and immensely unpopular war against Germany (World War I).
The Bolshevik’s first attempt (to overthrow the provisional government) in July 2017 failed.
In August, General Lavr Kornilov attempted to seize power and establish a personal dictatorship. The Bolshevik Red Guards, organized by Petrograd’s central soviet (worker’s council), ended the coup by infiltrating Kornilov’s troops and convincing them to mutiny.
By October 1917, the Bolsheviks had achieved majorities in both the Moscow and the Petrograd soviets and used an annual meeting of the national congress of soviets to officially “vote” the Bolsheviks into power.
The coup in Petrograd was virtually bloodless, with most residents totally unaware it was happening. Over October 24-25, the Red Guard (organized by Trotsky*) took over all the railway stations, the main bank and the telephone exchange with virtually no resistance. In essence, accord to Liulevius, the Bolsheviks were filling a power vacuum.
The takeover of Winter Palace, defended by the Women’s Death battalion and the Young Cadets, was virtually bloodless (only six people died). Its military defenders either dispersed or surrendered. Alexander Kerensky, the leader of the provisional government, fled into exile.
Fighting in Moscow was more protracted and the Bolsheviks assumed power there on October 31.
Lenin’s Dictatorship
The Bolsheviks claimed to rule in the name of the soviets, but in reality Russia’s true post-revolutionary leadership was the Council of the Peoples Commissars, with Lenin as president, Trotsky as commissar for foreign affairs and Stalin as commissar for nationalities.
As he described in his writing, Lenin sought a dictatorship, authority “untrammeled” by any laws and based directly on force. According to Liulevius, Lenin based this view on the belief (first expressed by Marx and Engels) that Russia was incapable of true revolution because it was pre-industrial and lacked a proletari. In Lenin’s mind he was just establishing the pre-conditions to trigger revolution in Germany and elsewhere.
The Bolsheviks seized numerous private factories and farmers, initially turning the farms over to the peasants who worked them. In Duma elections, the Bolsheviks received only 20% of the vote so they disbanded it. In December they established a new secret police force, the Cheka, headed by Polish nobleman Felix Dzershinsky, and a central prison (the Lubyanka) for political rivals and enemies of the state.
To end the war with Germany, the Bolsheviks were forced to sign the Treaty of Brest- Litovsk (in March 1918), in which the surrendered one-third of Russia (including considerable agricultural land and a number of key industries).
The same month, the Bolsheviks moved the capitol from Petrograd to Moscow, fearing an impending German offensive.
In August 2018, the Socialist Revolutionary Fanny Kaplan shot Lenin to avenge the death of her fellow Socialist Revolutionaries at the hand of the Bolsheviks. In response the Bolsheviks shot 500 SR hostages being held in Petrograd, and the Bolshevik newspaper Pravda called on all Bolsheviks to arrest Socialist Revolutionaries on sight as “representatives of the upper middle class.”
When it became dangerous to have soft hands, former lawyers, bankers, priests, government officials soaked their hands in alcohol to make them crack and then rubbed dirt in them.
Lenin’s Failed Dream of World Revolution
When the November 11th armistice ended World War I, the Bolsheviks expected worker revolts to break out in Berlin, Poland, Vienna, Paris, London, New York, Buffalo, Atlanta and Chicago. Instead Russian was invaded by US, British, French, and Japanese armies in support of a White Russian revolt against the Bolsheviks, which had started in June 1918.** The foreigners and White Russians were joined by a number of surly peasants who rebelled against the Red Army’s brutal efforts to requisition their crops.
In response, the Bolsheviks rounded them up and sent them to concentration camps on the outskirts of neighboring cities.
Nine to fourteen million Russians were killed or died of disease in this “civil war,” and 2-3 million fled Russia.
*Trotsky, a former Menshevik, returned to Russia from New York in 1917 and became a Bolshevik.
**The Bolsheviks executed the czar and his family a month later to make it clear there was no way to return to czarism.
Film can be viewed free with a library card on Kanopy.
The Most Revolutionary Act 
Let us not forget that the Bolshevik revolution was financed by the City of london Bank which was the World’s economic hub, then, and Wall Street. The gold reserves of the Russian Empire were immediately sent to London and New York after the success of the revolution as payment. And, the masters of Usury didn’t stop there. Billions worth of natural resources and especially grain was sold for bank payment right into the thirties. Germany also made a considerably smaller donation to Lenin before his return to Russia.
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I agree with Canadian historian Matt Ehret, papasha408, that the City of London still runs the show. Good point about Armand Hammer’s pre-Stalin capitalist intervention. They definitely don’t teach you about that in school. I only learned about it six month ago.
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Dr B,
I’m glad you are addressing this piece of Russian history. Westerners like me have little opportunity to get a handle on Eastern Hemisphere cultures. The language barriers present a huge challenge. The layers of history in the world are eternally pertinent.
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I’m just trying to get some of the facts straight myself, Katherine, because most of what they teach in US schools and universities is pure propaganda.
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The US gov sent money to the Bolsheviks thru a secret slush fund
The US gov sent weapons for the Bolsheviks
The Bolsheviks were allowed into the US to recruit jews for their cause
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
I’ll never understand why Hitler didn’t bomb the City of London built by
the Rothschild Khazaria Mafia.
Old movie about the Bolshevik Cheka:
https://archive.org/details/chekist_202202
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I was aware that several Wall Street bankers sent money to the Bolsheviks but am not surprised the US government did as well. I also know that Trotsky was wined and dined by Wall Street before he was sent back to Russia in 1917 with bag loads of money. I don’t think he was limited to recruiting Jews, though. I think he was pretty ecumenical in who he accepted money from. Are you saying none of the City of London banks were bombed by the Nazis? That’s really interesting. Have you got a source for that?
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I know the banks were involved, but, I can’t find anything about a secret American government slush fund. Again, Bolshevik agents bought American weapons from the money supplied by the banks, but, I have no idea if the government was involved. And, since the Central Banks are a lot more powerful than governments, I think it is a moot point. The three best books I have read about England’s stand during the war are the first 2 volumes of ‘Churchill’s War,’ by David Irving and, ‘The Forced War, when peaceful revision failed,’ by David Hoggan.
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Canadian history Matthew Ehret writes at length about Churchill, Lloyd George, Neville Chamberlain and King Edward VIII working closely with the open British Nazi Oswald Moseley to be Hitler’s fascist government in waiting in Britain – and forcing Czechoslovakia (who was militarily superior) to capitulate to Hitler: https://matthewehret.substack.com/p/the-anglo-american-hand-behind-the
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I like a lot of what Matthew Ehret writes, but, much of what he writes about the National Socialist Era seems a bit contrived at best. For example, Churchill was hardly a devout British Imperialist who would fight tooth and nail for the prestige of the British Empire. All of Churchill’s moves were for Churchill’s self aggrandizement. Ehret writes that Britain was threatened. It wasn’t. The Bletchely intercepts during the war prove this. If anything, Hitler wished for an alliance with Britain and failing that at least an understanding of the two countries positions in the world.Hitler admired the British Empire and wished to see it thrive and remain as a great beacon of civilization. He just wanted Britain to recognize Germany’s position on the continent. It was Hitler’s hatred of what he called Jewish-Bolshevism and the Soviet Union that frightened the Central Bankers. Their natural resource profits from their new invention were gigantic. Also, it wasn’t treason to do business with Germany during the thirties and early 40s in America. Hundreds of American industrialists were doing it. The stories of Prescott Bush are often over embellished with all sorts of conspiracy theories. An interesting book you may be interested in is ‘German Big Business & The Rise Of Hitler,; by Henry Ashby Turner, Jr. Churchill bankrupted the British Empire and caused it’s demise by fighting this unnecessary war and there is no evidence that Joseph Mengele was anything but a good doctor at the Auschwitz work camp complex who actually contracted Typhus when working to eradicate it. I also think Oswald Mosley was never that important!
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Maybe we could turn this conversation into a new reality TV show called Keeping Up With The Khazarians? ha ha ha!!
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