This document is an essay on Lenin's political power, evaluating was the ban on factions the most important factor or whether it was factors such as the soviet state he established as well as the civil war that were equally, if not more important for securing his political power. This essay earned ...
“Was the ban on factions the most important factor for securing Lenin’s political power”
Lenin seized power and established himself as head of the Bolshevik party in 1917, replacing the
unstable provisional government. Although the ban on factions helped to consolidate full power
over the party, it can be argued that the soviet state as well as the civil war laid the foundations for
Lenin to consolidate his power by eliminating all political opposition and maintaining his power by
creating fear. The soviet state created by Lenin was more significant in securing Lenin’s power by
1922 as it cemented his control over the party and head of state.
Once Lenin had eliminated his political opposition that wanted to deposed Lenin as head of state
and defeated opposition from the people during the Tambov rising as well as the Kronsdat mutiny,
the only opposition that remained was opposition within the party. The party incorporated two
factions: the workers who wanted power to the people and the democratic centralists that wanted
the party to be more democratic. In order to remove internal opposition, Lenin enforced the
resolution on party unity which ultimately banned factions from the party therefore, opposition was
removed from the party and strengths Lenin’s control over the party as there would be no one to
critique his ideas. The party would now be made up of people who shared the same views as Lenin
and people who were loyal to him. Although the ban on factions cemented Lenin’s political power
and eliminated the last opposition left to his rule, this was limited as the structure of the soviet state
in which Lenin established when seizing power enabled him to enforce his policies by using means of
fear through the Cheka, the Cheka was used to create terror, arrest and execute potential threats to
the Bolshevik party, during Lenin’s rule the Cheka executed around 200,000 people. Without the
establishment of the Cheka during the creation of the soviet state, there would be no force to
implement Lenin’s policies.
During the Civil war, Lenin had to face a collection of political opposition consisting of socialist
revolutionaries, Tzarists, the white army and foreign interference. By the end of the civil war, the red
army emerged victorious in 1920 therefore Lenin was safe from anymore political opposition in
which helped to further cement his power as he was unopposed by anyone else seeking to
overthrow the government. After the war, Lenin made changes to the government, making it
centrally controlled by the politburo, a smaller group of loyal soviets that made all policies of
government, which ended up superseding Sovnarkom. Additionally, Lenin established control by
terror by implementing the Cheka to police and create fear to deter people from rebelling against
government to create more loyalty in which the Nomenklatura helped loyalty people to access
better positions in society. Overall, restructuring the government after the civil war tightened Lenin’s
political power because he created more loyal people and people who were fearful of opposing him
however, if Lenin had lost the civil war, then we would have been overthrown and lost his power.
Furthermore, the civil caused a lot of backlashes for Lenin amongst the people, especially peasants
whose food had been requisitioned from them in order to feed to red army therefore resulting in a
rebellion, the Tambov rising. The sailors were also repellent by the terror that Lenin used to
maintain his power, this was known as the Kronsdat mutiny. To conclude, Lenin’s soviet state
managed to consolidate his power as he was able to adapt to the rebellions by not only crushing
them with the red army and Cheka, but he was able to implement the new economic policy which
introduced profit making within the economic system to keep people content. Although this kept
people content, the NEP caused problems later, making the NEPmen rich as well as the scissors
crisis.
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