Lenin addressed the people's needs but used strong arm tactics to keep them in line

Lenin manipulated the Russian people’s wants to get into power and then ignored those wants in order to maintain power.
There is much evidence to support the idea that Lenin was taking care of the basic needs of the people but not actually giving them what they had wanted and used force to keep the people down. One example of how Lenin tried to buy the people's support was by signing a treaty with Germany to end the war.(4) He new this would show the Russian people that he supported their wants but this is really the only want that he dealt with. He ignored the idea of there being a democracy and tried to placate the people with saying it would only put power back into the hands of the bourgeoisie(4). Later this would result to problems with the workers. The only things that the people wanted were a democracy, an end to the war, and equality, as well as their basic needs provided for(3). Lenin did provide for their basic needs and he did redistribute land but the people lost more than they gained.

Now that Lenin had gained power he had to maintain it. He did so by taking away civil liberties like the freedom of expression(3). This was most important because it meant that the majority of the population(proletariat) could not hear about any opposition to the government and was a key part in keeping control. If he could keep the majority of the population ignorant of his true ambitions there would be no problems. It seems that Lenin's largest mistake was in not giving the people the democracy they wanted and early on there were signs of discontent. Workers were striking because they realized there would be no democracy and these strikes went all the way up to official government buildings(4). "During the week following the coup, when newly minted commissars showed up at government offices, white collar employees refused to let them in."(4) After all the strikes crowds were trying to hold elections that Lenin and his supporters had been continually delaying, this simply showed the people that there never would be a democracy. Almost as to make an example, Lenin, turned his focus to the Liberal party which he made illegal, had the leaders arrested(4). This made clear to the people that there would only be one party and one leader and that Lenin was going to smash all opposition.
He kept opposition down in 3 key means; a Red Army, the Cheka, and concentration camps.(4) The secret police had to take care of opposition with arrests and helping to close newspapers that were attempting to speak against the government. The Red Army however was ensuring a civil war; the Russian people would be stuck in another war when they were just getting out of WWI.(4) The concentration camps were scare Czarist military leaders into helping form the Red Army, "he proposed that holding their wives and children in camps as hostages".(4) The camps were also where opposition leaders and individuals were sent. Out of these 3 new organizations the Red Army was most vital, it would fight against the Whites and would be where Russia suffers more war casualties.(4) "The communist party itself 'volunteered' forty thousand of its own members, many of whom were lost in the war almost immediately." There were also innocent people killed, like children of shop owners and such.(4) This shows how Lenin was not focused on the Russian people's needs but on maintaining control which would ultimately leave Russia scarred.