1H - Political authority, opposition and government: the Bolshevik takeover and the establishment of Bolshevik government by December 1917
Learn how the Bolsheviks seized power, what their new government had established by December 1917, and why winning the capital did not remove political opposition.
The decision to seize power
By autumn 1917 the Provisional Government had failed to provide peace, a final land settlement or economic stability. Bolshevik support had increased in the Petrograd and Moscow soviets after the Kornilov Affair. These circumstances created an opportunity; they did not predetermine how or when the party would use it.
Lenin argued that delaying would allow opponents to recover or transfer the initiative to other political bodies. On 10 October OS (23 October NS), the Bolshevik Central Committee voted for an armed uprising. Zinoviev and Kamenev opposed it, fearing isolation and defeat. Their disagreement matters: Bolshevik victory resulted partly from a contested decision, not from a party that always acted with one mind.
Russia used the Julian calendar in 1917. This lesson gives Old Style (OS) dates first and New Style (NS) dates where a precise event requires them. October remains the conventional name of the revolution even though the seizure occurred in November on the Gregorian calendar.
Trotsky was central to practical preparation. As chairman of the Petrograd Soviet, he helped use its Military Revolutionary Committee (MRC) to claim the defence of the revolution and coordinate loyal soldiers, sailors and Red Guards. The MRC's Soviet association made its activity appear broader than a private party conspiracy. Yet Bolshevik leaders drove the decisive action.
In a causal explanation, Lenin's determination helps explain the timing and choice of insurrection; Trotsky and the MRC help explain its organisation; government weakness and armed support help explain why it could succeed. None of these alone supplies a complete explanation.
Taking Petrograd and claiming legitimacy
On 24–25 October OS (6–7 November NS), MRC forces occupied bridges, communication centres and other strategic points in Petrograd. Government attempts to restrict Bolshevik activity helped the MRC present action as defence against counter-revolution. The weakness and isolation of the Provisional Government meant that it could not summon enough dependable force to recover control. Its remaining ministers were arrested in the Winter Palace during the night of 25–26 October OS (7–8 November NS).
The capture of the palace became an enormous symbol in later Soviet culture. Operationally, occupying transport and communications and winning the obedience of armed units mattered at least as much. The event was not a vast popular assault involving the whole Russian population. Nor does its relatively limited fighting in Petrograd mean it had little support: soldiers' and workers' backing, and the government's inability to mobilise resistance, were essential enabling conditions.
The Second All-Russia Congress of Soviets met while the seizure was taking place. Menshevik and Right SR delegates condemned the action and many walked out. This protest reduced the range of socialist voices remaining in the Congress and assisted Bolshevik dominance. The Congress endorsed the transfer of power and established the Council of People's Commissars, or Sovnarkom, headed by Lenin. Trotsky took responsibility for foreign affairs.
Two claims to legitimacy therefore competed. The Bolsheviks argued that Soviet power represented workers and peasants and met their urgent demands. Opponents argued that the party had used force to pre-empt a representative settlement and should form a wider socialist coalition or await the Constituent Assembly. An assessment should test both against the evidence, distinguishing the seizure of effective power from universal acceptance of a right to govern.
Decrees and the new government's appeal
The new government moved rapidly because its survival depended partly on convincing ordinary people that it would act where the Provisional Government had delayed. The decrees on peace and land, adopted on 26 October OS (8 November NS), addressed the two most urgent demands of soldiers and peasants.
The Decree on Peace called for negotiations for peace without annexations or indemnities and challenged secret diplomacy. It was a declaration and an offer to negotiate, not an immediate peace treaty. An armistice with the Central Powers followed in December; the final Treaty of Brest-Litovsk belonged to March 1918. Confusing promise, negotiation and settlement makes the new government's achievements appear more immediate than they were.
The Decree on Land abolished landed proprietorship without compensation and placed estates at the disposal of local land committees and peasant soviets. It drew on peasant mandates and demands associated with the SRs. This shows pragmatism: the Bolsheviks adopted a measure peasants wanted even though it was not the same as creating large collective farms. It recognised and encouraged the redistribution already taking place, weakening landowners and helping the new regime win rural acceptance.
Further measures included the eight-hour working day and workers' control of production. Workers' committees gained a formal role in supervision, but this did not mean that each factory became permanently independent of government. A Supreme Council of the National Economy, established in December, and bank nationalisation indicated a movement towards central economic direction. The Declaration of the Rights of the Peoples of Russia in November promised national equality and self-determination, including the right to separation.
The distinction between appeal and implementation is crucial. Announcing these measures associated Bolshevik power with peace, land and workers' interests. Implementing them across a huge, disrupted country required cooperation, resources and institutions the government had not yet fully secured.
Opposition outside and inside the regime
Opposition began immediately and came from different directions. Kerensky sought military support to reverse the takeover. Forces associated with General Krasnov advanced towards Petrograd but were defeated. Fighting in Moscow was more prolonged than in the capital. These events demonstrate that gaining the Winter Palace did not instantly establish peaceful authority throughout Russia.
Some civil servants and specialists refused to cooperate, making administration and banking difficult. The railway workers' union, Vikzhel, used its control of an essential service to press for a broad socialist coalition. Its challenge was serious because political power still depended on keeping transport and supply functioning. Negotiations exposed disagreement within the Bolshevik leadership: Kamenev and others were more willing than Lenin to accept a wide coalition.
The Left SRs, who supported Soviet power but retained their own party and peasant emphasis, eventually joined the government in December. This was a limited socialist coalition, not cooperation with the whole SR party. Right SRs and Mensheviks remained important opponents. Conservatives, former officers, landowners and national movements also had distinct reasons to reject Bolshevik rule. They did not form one coherent political bloc.
The new rulers responded with persuasion and force. The decree on the press allowed the closure of hostile newspapers. In December they established the Cheka, a political police organisation headed by Felix Dzerzhinsky, to combat counter-revolution and sabotage. The Cheka was created on 7 December OS (20 December NS). Its creation marked the institutionalisation of coercion, although the formal Red Terror and the major civil-war expansion of repression came later.
An unsettled state by December 1917
By December the Bolsheviks had a government, an initial set of decrees, armed supporters and a political police institution. They had defeated immediate attempts to recover Petrograd and acquired a Left SR coalition partner. These were substantial steps towards consolidation, but they did not amount to secure control of every region or a universally accepted constitutional settlement.
The Constituent Assembly elections provided a different measure of support. Voting began on 12 November OS (25 November NS) and took place over time. The Bolsheviks received roughly a quarter of the national vote, with particular strength in major cities and among parts of the armed forces. SR lists won the largest share. The ballots did not fully reflect the recent split between Left and Right SRs, which complicated interpretation, but the result still prevents a claim that the Bolsheviks won a clear national electoral majority.
Lenin argued in December that the soviets represented a superior form of democracy and that the Assembly could not supersede the revolution. The conflict between these rival sources of authority was therefore already apparent by the end of the year. The Assembly's actual meeting and dissolution in January 1918 lie beyond this lesson's December endpoint; they must not be described as completed achievements of 1917.
Calling October a revolution emphasises its wider social backing, the collapse of the old order and the radical changes it initiated. Calling it a coup emphasises the organised action of a party and the displacement of the Provisional Government by force. These terms identify different features, but either becomes misleading if used to avoid the evidence. The takeover combined strategic organisation with real support in crucial locations; its nationwide legitimacy and future survival remained disputed.
By December 1917 the Bolsheviks had established the centre of a new regime. They had begun to secure authority through popular measures, institutional change and coercion, while major opposition and the conflict over national representation remained unresolved.