Question by : Who was more important Lenin or Trotsky in the bolsheviks coming to power in 1917?
Lenin or Trotsky and WHY?
Answers and Views:
Answer by geejay
in my opinion, trotsky. lenin was the figurehead, yes but it took people like trotsky and his local organisers to spread the word and get people on side. lenin could have made his ‘peace,land and bread’ speech to a non existent audience, but it was the footsoldiers who rallied the people and got them interested in the social revolutionary zeal. when i studied modern political history, i came away with the impression that trotsky, kamenev and zinoviev were the real power in bolshevik/menshevik ideology, and their loyalty to lenin was vital. this loyalty became their undoing particularly after lenin’s stroke in 1928, when lenin warned them of ‘the grey man’. that is probably why stalin had them all executed.
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Spellbound says
Trotsky was important, his organisational skills ensured the success of the October Revolution, and Bolshevik victory in the Civil war. But, without Lenin, there would have been no October Revolution. Lenin was the motor that drove the Bolsheviks onwards: he provided the ideological justification for the seizure of power, and the organisational skill to ensure that the Bolsheviks were in a position to capitalise on the storming of the Winter Palace.
Kamenev and Zinoviev were in NO way Mensheviks and were not the chief ideologues of Bolshevism – School history books are very poor at Russian / Soviet history.
For an in depth, yet highly readable, analysis of the October Revolution, and just who the important players were, see:
The October Revolution – Roi Medvedev