Good intentions gone bad

According to much of the information I have collected, I would conclude that the October Revolution and its aftermath were largely a successful attempt of the Bolsheviks to seize power. However, I also honestly believe that Lenin’s intentions, at least in the beginning, were sincere. According to my outside source 5, Lenin was an expert in Marxism. He truly believed its ideals and its ability to raise the position of the workers. The discouraged soldiers of Russia wanted to end the war. The impoverished peasants and workers wanted land of their own to work. The common people were hungry because of food shortages. For these reasons, Lenin coined the slogan, “Peace, Land, and Bread.” (3) He believed that communism could improve the state of the Russian people. This is why, in his April Thesis, he declared that he would expose the capitalist/imperialist intentions of the war and end it; he would place power in the hands of the proletariat; confiscate private lands and nationalize them; and nationalize financial institutions (4). He felt that these were sufficient means to institute communism, which would, in turn, elevate the Russian people.
As we know, however, this is not quite how it worked out. Though the people of Russia did in fact want peace, land, and bread, they soon realized what they wanted more: civil liberties and democracy. The peasants supported the Bolshevik movement at first because communism offered them these necessities (3). But here’s the thing: the people did not want communism. They wanted peace, land, and bread. They wanted democratic elections. They wanted a government strong enough to support them and ensure order. And more than anything, I’m sure, they wanted not to be shot. The Bolsheviks offered only the first incentives, and completely opposed the rest. But that was enough to get them in the door, and once they were in, nobody could push them back out.
Once the Bolsheviks, led by Lenin, had a taste of dominance, their mission changed from one of bringing about freedom to one of maintaining power. This is where brutality and terror come in. The Bolsheviks continued the guise of working towards “Real Freedom,” but began employing methods, such firing on innocent civilians, that in no way could benefit the people (3). Lenin states that violence and “a state of simmering war” would be necessary to successfully establish communism (3). So the Bolsheviks implemented violence against their own people, calling it necessity (3). That doesn’t sound much like peace to me. And what was it the people wanted again?
Further, much of the anger against the tsarist regime rose from Nicholas’s disregard of the people’s rights and grievances (2). So, naturally, the people would want the new government to do the opposite and acknowledge their needs and liberties. And yet, the Bolsheviks planned to establish a dictatorship, and in the process, stripped away the people’s civil rights and freedom of expression (3). The workers, many of which had once been the ones in support of Bolshevism, began campaigning for democracy instead of communism, for which they were punished. (5) Ah, it was too late. Even when elections proved that a mere 24% of the people supported the Bolsheviks, they remained in power (3). Then the Cheka, or secret police, were organized to quell, apprehend, and punish counter-revolutionaries. Later, a new constitution was drafted that even further concentrated power in a central authority, and stripped voting rights from many civilians. Which didn’t really matter, as the vote would have little impact anyway in the future (3). Little by little, the Bolsheviks stripped the people of that which they most desired, their freedom, and consolidated the power within their own hands.
Even if the revolution was begun with honest intentions, the Bolsheviks ultimately acted as greedy, power-crazed and power-hungry radicals, taking any lengths, including violence and terror, to establish their ideals. In the process, they lost sight of the original purpose of establishing a new government: addressing the needs of a mistreated people. They only served to increase their country’s suffering. The Bolsheviks successfully pulled Russia out of World War I, just as the people desired. But they soon transformed the country into a more miserable state than ever before.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/lifework/worklife/1893.htm