How did Trotsky contribute to Bolshevik success?

Question by amiehr23: How did Trotsky contribute to Bolshevik success by 1922?

Answers and Views:

Answer by Emma H
Trotsky’s contribution to the success of the Bolsheviks up to
1922 was mainly through the military; Trotsky was a close friend of
Lenin which helped Trotsky get the place at the head of the Military
Revolution committee of the Petrograd soviet. Under Trotsky’s
leadership, the military revolutionary committee was actually planning
to seize power of the government in 1917.

Trotsky was placed in a very powerful position in the Military and he
desperately wanted to take power of the government. Trotsky then
helped the Bolsheviks take power, and then an anti-communist group
known as the whites had formed an army to fight against Trotsky.
Trotsky had another opportunity to help the Bolsheviks take power. By
1920 Trotsky had organised the November Revolution, he built up an
army (known as the red army) of 5 million men to fight the whites.
Trotsky wanted the old officers of the Tsar to join to make his army
much stronger.

In 1903 the Social Democrats split. While Lenin assumed leadership of the Bolshevik faction, Trotsky became a Menshevik and developed his theory of ‘permanent revolution’. After the outbreak of revolution in Petrograd in February 1917, he made his way back to Russia. Despite previous disagreements with Lenin, Trotsky joined the Bolsheviks and played a decisive role in the communist take-over of power the same year. His first post in the new government was as foreign commissar, where he found himself negotiating peace terms with Germany. He was then made war commissar and in this capacity, built up the Red Army which prevailed against the White forces in the Civil War. Thus Trotsky played a crucial role in keeping the Bolshevik regime alive. He saw himself as Lenin’s heir apparent but his intellectual arrogance made him few friends, and his Jewish background may also have worked against him. When Lenin fell ill and died, Trotsky was easily outmanoeuvred by Stalin.

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