Allen- Take-Over By Terror

Though the people supported Lenin and the Bolsheviks in the beginning, they did not realize what they were being sucked into. Lenin and the Bolsheviks knew what the Russian people wanted, and they made promises to win over the people. In doing this, Lenin created a single-party state in Russia. Eventually, the people had no choice but to agree with the Bolshevik ideals and abide by their decrees. The Bolshevik’s “strong-armed tactics” were more of ruling with an iron fist after winning over the Russian hearts with a softer, milder way of supposedly promising to get the people what they wanted. Once Lenin got the power he wanted, however, he dismissed the wants of the Russian people and became a terror to the people in his ruling.
The Provisional government was not getting the Russians out of the war like they wanted (2). The Russians were tired of fighting a losing battle and having their husbands, fathers, and sons killed. They turned to Lenin to get them out of the war with Germany because the Bolsheviks, especially Lenin, also wanted out of the war. In doing so, Lenin used Germany to help get Russia out of the war while he was in Switzerland (2). Lenin and his supporters knew that without international peace for Russia, they would not gain nor remain in power (3). This won Lenin major support in the eyes of the Russian citizens and troops (3). Lenin was giving the citizens what they had wanted for years; they were tired of being patient to get what they wanted. Lenin was proving to provide for their needs and wants by ending the war for them. Lenin believed the provisional government should have no power because they were making empty promises to the people of Russia (4); however, he made his promises and soon went back on them to terrorize his country.
Lenin’s ideas that the Bolsheviks should first concern themselves with six main things: “imperialism and the imperialist war; a demand for a ‘commune state’; paying attention to the state; amending their antiquated minimum programme; creating a revolutionary International; and rebuilding the International” (4). In stating this, Lenin was already showing signs of looking out for the good of himself and the Bolshevik party, not for the good of the Russian people. Both the people of Russia and Lenin believed that Russia should become a communist dictatorship (2); this made it easy for Lenin and the Bolsheviks to take power of Russia and win over the support of the people. Also as he had promised, Lenin won over the rural people by giving them land “without any payment” (3). He took land from the bourgeoisie and it became land for the common people of Russia (3). This made it so the bourgeoisie could not control the lands of Russia and had to give some power to the common and lower-class farmers and citizens. However, the people did not realize how this dictatorship would soon backfire on them.
The Bolsheviks soon became known as the Bolshevik “political terrorism” (3). Lenin believed that the soviets were the “only possible form of revolutionary government” (4). Because of this, he terrorized every other counterrevolutionary person and ever counterrevolutionary movement (3). Lenin began a change in Russia so radical from anything any European country had ever seen before that richer countries, such as the ones in Western Europe, would “feel threatened by such radical claims and thus came to fear the ‘Reds’” (3). In doing this, Lenin and the Bolsheviks not only terrorized Russia, but also tried to create terror and feelings of threat in other countries of Europe as well. Lenin began his reign of terrorism by shutting down the civil liberties of the people (3). He began by excising the freedom of expression; he shut down all newspapers with opposing views to the Bolshevik views (3). This created no opposition for the citizens to hear; they had no choice but to listen to and believe what the Bolsheviks were telling them. By limiting the civil liberties and voice of the people, Lenin had created a single-party state for Russia; there was no opposition to his party. The Bolsheviks dissolved the congress (3). In a two-week election, the Bolsheviks won twenty-four percent of the votes, while the Social Revolutionary Party won thirty-eight percent (3). Lenin declared these results were “unrepresentative of the ‘people’s will’” (3).
In order to keep uprisings down, Lenin instated many tactics. He created the Cheka, the secret police (3). Lenin multiple times over said that he was willing to use terror and do whatever necessary in “the interests of the workers, soldiers, and peasants” (3). All he really did for those groups of people was to lose their support and trust. He terrorized his whole country; the people had no say and no voice. They were not allowed to go against anything Lenin or the Bolsheviks said. Ironically, the Bolsheviks had been one of the groups who had suffered under the czarist rule, but they became a more horrific ruler than the czarist government had been for the people (3). As had occurred on Bloody Sunday in 1905, the Bolshevik armies opened fire on a crowd of demonstrators of workers and soldiers (3). The citizens had an even bigger problem with this because they saw a repeat of the czarist rule; only this one was much worse and more oppressive for them. Lenin eventually put in place concentration and forced-labor camps (3). Many people either died or were executed in these camps (3). This is an atrocity of almost genocide proportions run by the Russian government of the time. Lenin was willingly and forcibly killing his own people. The death penalty was reinstated (3), and prisoners were forced to work as a way to correct their wrongs (3). This practice is used today in the United States, but on a much easier scale. Lenin began to tell the Cheka to not hesitate to kill people; he told them to make examples of people and to even terrorize soldiers by using their children and wives in the concentration camps (3).
Lenin was supposed to save the Russian citizens. They trusted him and followed him to give them what they needed. He abused his power, however, and became a terror to the people. He led an extremist group in a successful attempt to seize power through the use of strong-armed tactics. He denied and ignored the wishes and needs of the Russian people for selfish reasons. His dictatorship rule became one of terror and oppression, more so than Russia and all of Europe had ever seen.