Compare and contrast the contribution of Lenin and Trotsky to the establishment and consolidation of a communist state in Russia between 1917-1924
Lenin died on the 21st of January 1924, as the leader of the communist state that was Russia at the time. Despite his high position, he was not responsible for all the successes that the Bolsheviks had seen in the past seven years. The three key successes during this time, which secured the establishment and consolidation of this communist state in Russia between 1919 and 1924, were: the October Revolution, the Civil War, and the New Economic Policy. Thus, in order to understand the extent and nature of these two mens’ contributions to the establishment and consolidation of the regime, it is vital to analyse their roles in these three main events.
The October Revolution itself occurred rather rapidly on the 25th-26th of October 1917; therefore it is valuable to look back over the years leading up to this revolution to identify how much Lenin and Trotsky had done to prepare and consequently carry out the October Revolution. According to Isaac Deutscher, a writer well known for his biographies of Trotsky and Stalin, Trotsky did not contribute to the revolution as much as did Lenin. He states “the years between 1907 and 1914 form in [Trotsky’s] life a chapter singularly devoid of political achievement… In this time, however, Lenin assisted by his followers, was forging his party,”. This theory does hold significant ground; after all, Lenin spent the years 1901 and 1902 writing and publishing his book “What is to be Done?” which established the need for a “vanguard” that he would create in the following years and would significantly assist him in achieving the October Revolution. Lenin also published his April Thesis on the 4th of April 1917 containing the slogan “Peace, Bread, Land” (in lay-man terms). This accumulated a large amount of support for the Bolsheviks amongst the peasants, especially in the regions of...